Year: 2007

How Safe Is My School?

Eduflack DCPS, Students

For decades now, we’ve talked about school security.  Metal detectors have become the norm in many urban schools, and we talk about arming teachers in rural and suburban schools to confront some of the school violence we’ve seen over the last decade.  All the talk sends a core message — can our children learn if they aren’t safe?

Two decades ago, the movie Lean on Me told the real-life story of Joe Clark and his crusade to save a New Jersey high school about to implode.  For those who don’t remember the Morgan Freeman movie, Clark almost lost his job after chaining the school doors to keep the drug dealers out, and was only saved when his test scores showed he had improved student performance where all hope was lost.

That was the 1980s.  Clearly, we’ve learned a thing or two since then.  Right?

Imagine Eduflack’s surprise, then, when it was reported in most Washington, DC media outlets this morning that DCPS was finally eliminating the chains on some of its high school doors, replacing them with honest-to-goodness state-of-the-art security doors?

Did we learn nothing from Lean on Me?  Are we honestly saying that for all of the talk the past decade about improving DC’s schools and the increased concern for student safety, that no one thought that padlocks and rusted chains weren’t a priority issue that demanded attention?

Sure, there is scant evidence that a safe school directly results in increased student achievement.  But it is common sense that an unsafe school doesn’t provide the learning environment kids need to succeed.

I Know, I Know

Eduflack Uncategorized

For a blog about effective communication, Eduflack has really dropped the ball.  The call of the professional life — you know, the one that delivers the paycheck — has had me on the road and up to my reddish goatee in high school reform and STEM initiatives these past two weeks.  And the result can be found on the empty pages of this blog over that time.

Rest assured, Eduflack is back online.  Despite the travel and the work demands, I’m making the early New Years resolution to ensure that I’m getting at least three posts a week up, starting this week.  So if you see me slacking, please rap my knuckles with the electronic ruler to get me back on track.

Multiple Pathways for Students … and Teachers

Eduflack AYP, HQT, NCLB, NEA, PR, Teacher Education

We all like to believe that we’re all entitled to one week in the sun.  No one can dispute that last week was just such a week for Teach For America.  Bookended by articles in The New York Times magazine and the Economist, TFA has been the “it” program of the week.  No small feat, what with continued discussions of NCLB, merit pay, and a host of national policy shifts.

Without doubt, TFA has a growing cadre of supporters throughout the nation.  As it has expanded the cities and communities in which it serves, the organization has had a demonstrable impact on the school culture, on student and teacher motivation, and, yes, on student performance.  Don’t believe Eduflack?  Check out the comprehensive research study Mathematica has done on the effectiveness of TFA.

Unfortunately, such attention and growth also gives birth to a healthy opposition.  I’ve long told reform clients that if you don’t have such critics, you aren’t doing your job.  Changing the status quo, calling on stakeholders to work harder or think smarter or do better invariably always brings forward that opposition.  And TFA is no exception.

For years, those critics have been led by Stanford University professor Linda Darling-Hammond, perhaps the greatest defender of the status quo pedagogy of teacher education.  Yes, she is a name to be reckoned with.  Yes, she brings a distinguished history of good work and a commitment to public education.  But sometimes, even the best take a wrong turn.

The status quoers have tried to protect teacher education for decades.  The result?  Our students’ test scores have been relatively flat for most of Eduflack’s lifetime.  We may claim that our schools of education are churning out the best educators ever to face a classroom, but the results don’t reflect that.  For too long, we’ve allowed pedagogy to substitute for results.  Sure, the inputs may be great, but what out the final outcomes?  To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, are our students better of now than they were two decades ago?

The simple answer is, of course not.  Today, we are asking far more of our students than ever before.  Success in 2007 requires a high school diploma and a postsecondary degree or certificate.  The time when only a third of high school students went to college is over.  Instead, we are demanding multiple educational pathways for our students, pathways that provide every student with a way to postsecondary education and a guide to life success. 

Which takes us back to Teach For America.  If we are expected to build multiple instructional pathways for our students, it only goes to reason that we are to build multiple instructional pathways for our teachers as well.  There is no one way to train a teacher.  If there was, we’d build that factory and have a non-stop supply of highly qualified, effective teachers for every classroom, including those in low-performing areas.

No, the challenges of our schools requires multiple ways of thinking.  From looking at those schools where programs like Teach For America or Troops to Teachers reside, we know that pedagogy is the least of these classrooms’ problems.  Here, many students have all but given up hope.  They’ve lost faith in the school, or in the teacher, or in learning itself.  For them, it isn’t about instructional approaches.  It is about repairing the school culture.  Returning hope.  Connecting the student with the teacher and the school.

And that’s where programs like TFA excel.  Success is not measured by an individual teacher or a specific cadre of corps members.  Success, in the long run, comes from knowing there will always been a TFA teacher in front of that classroom, a teacher who connects with the student, inspires the student, and reconnects the student’s passion for learning.

Accomplish that, and the student achievement will come.  And scientific research can prove it.  If anything, Darling-Hammond and her defenders of the status quo should be seeking out more opportunities and efforts like TFA.  More programs that bring hope to inner-city schools.  More programs that instill a culture of learning.  More programs that provide our schools with enthusiastic, driven instructors eager to lead a classroom that has long been neglected.  More programs that build a future generation of leadership on the notion that no issue is more important to the success of our nation and our community than a high-quality, effective education for ALL students.

Some critics, including those at dear ole Stanford, would point to the lifespan of a TFA teacher, questioning whether two years in the classroom really makes a difference.  But how different is the two-year commitment of a TFA teacher from the short lifespan of today’s traditional new teacher?  TFA’s mission was never to focus on teacher retention issues — it was to provide an ongoing stream of qualified, enthusiastic, committed educators in the communities that need them the most.  TFA plays that specific role extremely well, so much so that it is continually embraced by superintendents, principals, and teachers across the nation.  And in reality, the studies of TFA alumni show many of them stay in the classroom, go into school administration, or assume other roles that support education and growth in the community.  And isn’t that a measure of an effective educator?

In a nation looking for K-12 solutions, we need multiple answers.  One just won’t do.  And Teach For America is definitely one of the answers.  Ask a “traditional” teacher who works with a TFAer, and they’ll tell you the same thing.  Ask a family whose child is in a TFA classroom, and they’ll concur.  Ask Mathematica and other researchers, and they’ll give you the proof points.

Teacher For America and its leaders should enjoy their week in the sun.  The hard work begins today.  Across the nation, districts and schools know TFA and programs like it work.  So as the critics circle, TFA, its leadership, and its corps members need to ensure the highest quality implementation, instruction, and effect.  Success is the best defense of the critics and the status quoers.  And TFA is on its way.
 

Putting Our Money on a Winning Proposition

Eduflack AYP, DCPS, higher ed, Math

In education, the focus is often on people first, results second, and the money third.  We think of the teachers and the students, then on achievement, and only then do we really start talking about dollars.  We talk of per student costs, and compare our per-pupil spending with similar districts or with those who are outperforming us.  The punchline, inevitably, is that we need more dollars for our classrooms.

Eduflack was taken by the discussion of two pricetags this Sunday morning, one depicting the worst of times, the other the possible best of the future.  The first was a preview of Ted Koppel’s program this evening on California’s prison system.  By his numbers, it is now $43,200 per year to send a student to Harvard University.  It costs the State of California $43,000 per year to incarcerate an individual (and that person gets $200 upon leaving prison to get their lives started).  

We can leave it to the economists and statisticians to tell us the long-term community effect of moving a quarter of those individuals from prison into a two- or four-year postsecondary institution.  The effect of seeing there are opportunities that come from schoolhouse doors, rather than leading to prison doors.  It’s an age-old fight, but it is one that still remains important, particularly as we now see that postsecondary education is a necessary piece to a successful life.

As disheartening as the Koppel numbers are, education reformers around the nation should take note of the second pricetag, featured in a column written in today’s Washington Post by Marc Fisher.  (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/06/AR2007100601111.html?hpid=topnews)  We’ve all talked the talk on student preparedness for postsecondary education.  We’ve recited the numbers on remediation and how the majority of today’s high school grads simply lack the skills to succeed in college.  Now we have a response.  

In his piece, Fisher throws a spotlight on an important initiative happening on the campus of the University of the District of Columbia.  At UDC, professors saw a 50-percent dropout rate in organic chemistry courses.  And for those who stuck in the class, nearly a third received Fs.  All of this in a course required of those students seeking a career in medicine.

On top of that, 80 percent of UDC students were taking remedial math classes.  Makes it so one is ready to just give up on trying to encourage UDC’s students — many low-income or minority or first-generation college-goers — to prepare for college, attend college, stay in college, and graduate with the ability to earn jobs in demanding fields like medicine, engineering, math, and such.

UDC’s solution?  A summer program designed to provide college readiness to UDC’s incoming freshmen and fill the instructional gaps left by DCPS (since that’s where many of UDC’s students come from).  By UDC’s count, the program is reaping major rewards.  And the cost?  About $2,000 per student.

Currently, the UDC program is only serving a small number of students, working from grant money from The Washington Post Co. and the federal government.  But the early indications are positive, with unexpected consequences.  The math intervention effort is not only boosting math ability, but it has raised reading scores for those students 10 percent.

Sure, it’s a pilot.  But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea.  As we look at the best ways to spend our education dollars, as we look at ways to increase college readiness and college going in underserved communities, maybe, just maybe, UDC is on to something.  At the very least, they’ve demonstrated it doesn’t take the largest check to generate measurable results.  Our K-12 schools and the defenders of the status quo could learn a lot from that.

The Next Great “Ed” Reform Idea

Eduflack AYP, LAUSD, NAEP, national standards, NCLB, Roy Romer

NCLB may be now, with reauthorization and merit pay being leading topics of education cocktail parties.  But as Eduflack friend and online marketing guru Geoff Livingston says, now is gone.  Now is what has happened.  We need to focus on what is to happen.  If the last few weeks has been any indication, the future of education reform could center around two key words — national standards.

For decades, almost no one wanted to touch the issue of national standards.  It was almost the third rail of public education.  It was an affront to local control.  It stood against hundreds of years of American educational tradition.  National standards was a dead-end issue before the words ever fully left the lips of the most eager reformer.

But not any more.  In recent days, we’ve heard from a varied chorus led by Diane Ravitch and DC area superintendents calling for some form of national standards.  And now, we get to enjoy a passionate solo from Roy Romer, chairman of Ed in 08.

At Jobs for the Future’s Double the Numbers 2007 Conference Thursday, Romer asked the question — Why are we, as a nation, not focused on what we can to improve public education?  If we truly want to improve our schools, Romer contends, we need to change the national discussion.  We need each and every citizen to declare, “I want my child to be ready for life.  I want them to have the opportunity for a good college and a good career.”

Amen.  For months now, we’ve been waiting on some bold statements to come from Strong American Schools and Ed in 08.  And bold may not even be strong enough for Romer’s call to action.  I might even call it visionary.

For those who missed it, Romer too has issued the call for national standards.  The former “education” governor of Colorado, the former superintendent of LAUSD, even took it a step further.  According to Romer, the time has come for a collection of leading states to come together and write common education standards.  He issued the call to “education” governors to be proactive, and create the measurements by which our nation’s schools should be evaluated.  Those founding states would all adhere to the common standard.  The remainder of states would soon follow.  And national standards are born.

 

That one standard, then, would benchmark with standards in countries across the world.  Finally, we would truly know how our students compare with learners across the world.  And the feds role in all of this — to pay for the test.  States set a national measurement and hold themselves to it, and the folks back in Washington write the check.  Sounds simple enough to actually work.   

The result — true consumer protection in American public education.  We have our standards.  We know what we’re doing.  And we know where we stand.  Doesn’t matter if a parent or student is in Seattle, Dubuque, Huntsville, or Boston.  Achievement is achievement, regardless of state border or school district boundary.

Some may be uncomfortable with this discussion, but it is just the sort of issue the education community should be talking about.  Worried about high stakes testing?  Make sure the national standard is one that measures true knowledge.  Concerned we need more stringent accountability measures?  Focus on a standard that truly means something, and doesn’t just speak to the common denominator.

If Romer and Ed in 08 want to really leave their mark on the upcoming presidential elections, this may very well be the way to do so.  We shouldn’t just talk about education, we should be talking about how to improve it.  True national school improvement requires more than asking a question on a YouTube debate or getting an oped printed.  It comes from changing the national discussion.  Only then can we really start identifying and adopting the sorts of solutions that can fix the problem … for good.

Unusual Allies

Eduflack AYP, NAEP, NCLB, PR

As one would suspect, there is a great deal of buzz in the ed reform community regarding this morning’s New York Times op-ed piece from Diane Ravitch.  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/opinion/03ravitch.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin  With a provocative title “Get Congress Out of the Classroom” and a strong academic reputation, Ravitch gets people to take notice … even if NCLB bashing is cliché at this point.

What’s far more interesting, though, is holding Ravitch’s recommendations up against those made by Fairfax County (VA) Superintendent Jack Dale and others earlier this week in The Washington Post.  At the time, Eduflack wrote, with great surprise, of Dale and company’s call for national testing and the realignment of responsibilities between the states and the feds.  http://blog.eduflack.com/2007/10/01/advocacy-from-the-urban-superintendent.aspx

Who would have thought that Ravitch, Dale, and Montgomery County (MD) Superintendent Jerry Weast would all be singing from the same hymnal?  If researchers like Ravitch and urban superintendents like Dale and Weast keep sharing each other’s talking points on public education reform, we may just have meaningful, long-term school improvement yet!
 
 

 

Looking for Ideas Behind the Endorsement

Eduflack AYP, early childhood education, HQT, PR, Presidential campaign

This afternoon, the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Hillary Clinton for President of the United States of America.  It should be no surprise.  The former Clinton administration had strong support in the teachers unions.  And Senator Clinton has long been a friend of UFT, NYSUT, and AFT.  In its endorsement, AFT cites Clinton’s “proven ability to advance our nation’s key priorities, and her bold plans for a stronger America.”

And good for the AFT.  Rather than wait for additional polling data from the key early states, or wanting to see another quarter of fundraising totals, or waiting to hear more detail on specific issues and policies, the AFT has put its money down on the horse they expect to see in the winner’s circle.  And they’ve done so believing that Clinton represents the best opportunity for AFT-friendly policies come January 2009.

Eduflack is going to assume that Clinton just wowed AFT during the interview process, discussing those bold plans and awing them with her discussion of how she would deal with those key priorities.  Now she’s won their endorsement, and the organizational prowess, resources, and support that come with it.

But it’s got me scratching my head.  For those of us watching from the cheap seats, what exactly is Hillary Clinton’s education platform?  Visit her website, and you don’t even see “education” in her issues menu.  Take some time to explore, and in the “Supporting Parents and Caring for Children” list, you’ll find a bullet to attract and retain good teachers and principals, one to improve NCLB and a bullet increasing access to high-quality early education (a plank she has been quite vocal on and should be credited for).  But those issues are part of a laundry list that includes care for elderly Americans, support for “kinship families,” and opposition to sex and violence in the media.

We all talk about the importance of education.  About the need to improve our schools.  About the need to give every child a chance.  And about how high-quality education affects everything from jobs to healthcare to justice to environment.  Many of us cite education as the top domestic issue this nation faces.  And national polls seem to regularly put it in the list of top fives issues, foreign or domestic.

So if it is so important, why are we still hearing so little of it from presidential candidates?  What platform did Clinton offer to win the support of AFT?  What changes would she make to improve NCLB?  What commitments will she make to attract and retain good teachers?  Does she support merit pay?  What about alternative certification programs?  How about multiple measures of progress?  What interventions does she support to increase the graduation rate?  What is the platform?

I don’t mean to pick on Clinton.  She should be credited for putting forward a meaningful, thought-providing plan for improving early education.  And at the end of the day, she may be the strongest education candidate, in terms of policy ideas, an understanding for the possible, and the capability to reach for the near-impossible.  But if she wins the endorsement of the AFT (and we assume and NEA endorsement may not be too far behind), don’t the voters have a right to hear the specific ways the candidate will improve educational quality and delivery in the United States?  And if we don’t, how do we hold the candidate, any candidate, accountable?

 

In this rush to wrap up the presidential campaigns by this winter, we run the risk of placing assumptions and core rhetoric ahead of real ideas and policies.  In doing so, we continue to perpetuate the same old empty reform rhetoric, with no one being held accountable.  For those of us who vote on education issues, we want to hear those “bold ideas” Senator Clinton has.  That doesn’t come from one debate question or a well-placed oped.  It comes from an integrated, coherent strategic plan for improving K-12 education.  

Eduflack has bold ideas for a strong America too.  But no one is going to rush to endorse me for President.  Now that Clinton has the backing of AFT, I hope she will tell 1.4 million AFT members (and hundreds of millions of American voters) what specifically she is going to improve public education in the United States.  That would be something to truly endorse.  Now where’s Ed in 08 when we need them?

Advocacy from the Urban Superintendent

Eduflack AYP, Marketing, NCLB, PR

The common thinking is that the urban superintendent is the last line of defense for the status quo.  AASA has stood hard and long against the reforms in NCLB.  Urban superintendents, it seems, are leading the charge against classroom measurement and AYP and other such improvements to education delivery and measurement.

We forget, though, that the educational leaders in our urban centers are also the early adopters of reforms like Teach for America and KIPP and New Leaders for New Schools.  And we ignore that these superintendents are the ones with the highest stakes, and the ones most willing to try new reforms if they can deliver maximum impact.

And then we get slapped upside the head with a call for national standards.

For those who missed it, Eduflack is referring to an analysis in today’s Washington Post, written by Jay Matthews.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001503.html  Based on interviews and public statements of Washington, DC-areas superintendents, Matthews paints a clear picture of a cadre of superintendents focused on reforms, improvements, and the bottom line.

It’s no secret that these leaders have voiced a real frustration with NCLB and many of its requirements.  And these frustrations have been translated — by many, including Eduflack — as opposition to the law.  But a closer look of the rhetoric paints a very different picture.

Just look at Fairfax County (VA) Superintendent Jack Dale.  Past statements maligning NCLB testing requirements have been interpreted as opposition to testing itself.  Yes, Dale has real issues with a series of state tests that don’t relate or integrate with one another, yet are governed by a single federal enforcement filter.  His solution — let the feds develop the tests, and empower the states (and LEAs, I suppose) to enact the specific interventions necessary to turn our low-performing schools around and offer virtually every kid the keys to success.

And Dale isn’t alone.  He seems to be joined in the call for national standards by the supes from Montgomery County, MD; Arlington County, VA; and others.

There’s no question that the voice of the superintendent has been almost non-existent when it comes to NCLB 2.0.  Again, we assume a defense for the status quo and opposition to reforms or attempts to build a better mousetrap.  We may assume, but we also need to verify. 

Failed reforms are littered with the remains of assumptions and generalizations.  If we’re looking to improve our struggling schools, we need to include the very superintendents who manage those schools.  They know the problems.  They know the reforms that have been tried and failed (or succeeded).  And they know that, just sometimes, we need a little bold thinking that no one is expecting. 

Now if only Dale and company can rally their fellow superintendents (and the organization that is supposed to represent their interests) to stand behind national standards, we may just have a reform that could make a lasting difference in every LEA and SEA across the nation.


Not in “My” School

Eduflack AYP, NCLB, PR

Over the past few years, we’ve heard a great deal about the school choice provisions for families in failing schools.  When it was passed into law, the critics painted a picture of a nation of students, fleeing their neighborhood schools (and the poor academic conditions they might house) and running for the nearest suburban school with shiny new desks, just out-of-the-wrap textbooks, and higher per-pupil costs.  We stood by and waited for the great migration, as those schools that missed academic goals for two straight years would see all of their students flee.

According to The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/26/AR2007092602368.html), that scenario hasn’t exactly played out.    In fact, it doesn’t even seem to be a consideration.  Of the 5.4 million students eligible under federal law to switch from a failing school, only 1.2 percent have made the move.  That leaves 98.8 percent who have chosen to stay put.

Why?  Why, when given a chance, are parents not willing to give up on a failing school in their community?  Why, when given a chance, are kids not choosing to attend a school that is better, or at least better on paper?  Why aren’t poor-performing schools forced to close, as all of their students move to higher-performing ones?

Some will say that there aren’t enough slots in those higher-performing schools, and families don’t have the choices we seem to think they do.  While that may be true for a handful of students, is that really what is keeping more than nine of 10 students in their community school, regardless of its performance?

Of course not.  Students stay in their schools because we don’t want to believe our neighborhood school is failing.  Despite the AYP numbers, we trust our schools.  We have faith in our principal.  We like our teachers.  Our child is happy at the school.  The numbers must be wrong.  Other schools in the area may be failing, but not mine.  I just know it.

Back in 1990, the nation voiced loud displeasure for the job Congress was doing.  Some minor scandals, coupled with an ever-growing budget deficit and the sense of a “do nothing” Congress had voters calling for them all to be thrown out.  Much like today’s poll numbers, we were clamoring for the whole Congress to be voted out of office prior to the November election.  They were all corrupt bums.  We needed a new class.  So Election Day came and … virtually every incumbent was re-elected.  The pollsters went back to see if they had messed up their previous interviews.  What they found was startling.  Across the nation, we still wanted to throw those bums out.  Everyone, that was, but our congressman.  They’re all bad, except for my guy.

And that’s what we’re seeing with our schools.  We recognize our nation’s schools need help.  And we know it is hard to find a single school that couldn’t benefit from a more effective curriculum, better student measures, or more effective teachers.  But we’re not ready to give up on our own school.  Those other schools may need to be overhauled or closed altogether, but not mine.  Mine has hope.  Mine has potential.  It’s my school, after all, and I’m going to protect it.

That’s not a bad sentiment to have.  The next task becomes transferring that defense of school into a school-based effort to improve.  Take that school pride, and transform it into reforms that can make a difference.  Really give those parents a school (and school outcomes) to be proud of.

The ability to transfer from a low-performing school is a lovely rhetorical tool.  It puts all schools on notice, and provides parents and families the power to decide the academic futures of their children.  It provides some hope into what was once a hopeless situation.  But it is not a panacea for low-performing schools.

At the end of the day, the goal should be to fix struggling schools, not abandon them.  The objective should be to have students both happy and achieving in their neighborhood schools.  If the threat of transfer gets us closer to that goal, terrific. 

Numbers don’t lie.  We know which schools are performing, and which are struggling.  The challenge is taking the data and fixing the latter, intellectually rebuilding schools so all kids, parents, and neighborhoods really have something to be proud of.       

In the NAEP Scrum

Eduflack Math, NAEP, NCLB, SBRR

It’s been almost a week now, and the dust following the release of the latest NAEP scores is just finally starting to settle.  The story varies widely, depending on who you listen to and who you respect on such issues.  This year’s reading and math NAEP scores demonstrate we have greatly improved instruction over the past few years.  Or they show that we have actually taken a step backward.  Progress or regress, it seems.

What is clear is that both math and reading scores have ticked upward, with math performance rising more than reading.  What is even clearer, though, is that we still have much work to do.  The education community is quibbling over the “meaning” of the small rise in reading scores and its implications for the future.  It’s like listening to a faculty senate meeting, focusing on the personal periphery rather than the ultimate outcomes and impact.

But there is a lesson to be found in the stacks of disaggregated data and he said/she said debates.  Set aside all of the rhetoric.  Put away all of the interpretation.  Forget all of the hidden meanings.  What’s left?  A national commitment to boosting student achievement.

For some, the scores were badges of success.  For others, they were indicators of inadequacy.  But for all, the NAEP scores were the tool for determining whether we have demonstrably improved student achievement.  For once, the education industry was focused on outcomes, and not just on the inputs.  We were talking results (or lack there of) and how to further improve those results.

Without question, there is MUCH work that still needs to be done to improve student proficiency in reading and math.  The experts will spend the next few weeks determining the significance of these gains, comparing them to previous gains.  But these scores do send a message to all willing to listen.  Improvement is possible, but it requires significantly more work, attention, and resources.  And that’s a far harder lesson to learn.