Month: September 2008

To Be An Urban Superintendent

Eduflack AYP, Chancellor Klein, Gates Foundation

Over the past few weeks, the national education media has reported on the perils of being (or more importantly hiring and retaining) the urban superintendent.  By now, we’ve all read of the soap opera down in Miami-Dade, first with Rudy Crew’s departure and then with the delay on the official appointment of Alberto Carvalho as Crew’s permanent replacement (it is always the fault of those reporters, after all, isn’t it).

Most recently, the spotlight has been focused on the revolving door of the St. Louis superintendency, where it seems no one really wanted the top job, or at least no one wants to hold the job.  The Associated Press has Oklahoma City Schools on its 25th supe in 39 years, with the average tenure for a school chief now less than three years.  (See the full story here at <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26932546/)
There”>www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26932546/)
There is no question it is hard, hard work to lead an urban school district these days.  Reduced financial resources.  Greater academic expectations.  AYP demands.  Struggling schools.  Collective bargaining with teachers unions.  Increased energy costs.  School violence.  Drugs.  Drop outs.  And we haven’t even gotten into the issues of effectively educating today’s young people.  Being a superintendent may be one of the most difficult jobs out there, particularly when you factor in the searing spotlight, the high stakes, and the even higher expectations.
Two years ago, Prince George’s County, MD, handed over the keys to their educational kingdom to John Deasy, a promising educational leader from a small beach community in California.  His old Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District was one-tenth the size of PG’s 130,000 student system.  He was a white man coming into a predominantly minority school district.  And he brought real stability — and real improvement — to a district in need of some positive development.
We all know that it takes a good five years to see the true impact of educational reforms, particularly those classroom-based changes.  We need many years of data to view the long-term result.  But after a year or two, we can see some promising practices.  And in PG, Deasy has posted some real promise.  Test scores seem to be rising, and rising faster than the state average.  The number of schools on the state watch list has dramatically declined since Deasy’s arrival.  The district is now a beacon of possibility, and not the punchline for school failure it once was.   
Why is all this so important?  This morning’s Washington Post reports that Deasy will depart from PG in February, to take a senior position with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  No doubt, it is a great opportunity for Deasy and it will be a strong asset for the Gates Foundation.  Deasy’s experience in PG will be of real value to Gates, as he has solved problems in just the sort of school district that Gates is trying to reach with its education reform efforts. 
But it is a sad development for Prince George’s Public Schools, and a sadder day for urban education in general.  As the lifespan of an urban superintendent continues to shrink, we need to do everything we can to keep the good ones in place.  We need continuity in our district leadership, ensuring that good supes are sufficiently recognized, rewarded, and supported.  We need a system for mentoring the next generation of superstar superintendents, where the Deasys and Joel Kleins and Tom Payzants of the world can mentor and teach.  And just as we focus on teacher recruitment, we need a national investment in high-quality, effective school and district leadership.
Superintendent Deasy should be congratulated on his new appointment.  Through Gates, he has the opportunity to impact millions of students and dozens of school districts like PG.  He has the chance to take his PG experiences to scale, demonstrating to a larger audience that school improvement is possible, student test scores can rise, and schools can take the necessary steps to make AYP.  
Eduflack only hopes that PG will seek out a replacement from the reformer/improver model, someone who can continue the work Deasy has moved forward since his arrival in 2006.  Now is not the time for caretakers or those who won’t cause ripples.  Deasy shook up PG.  Gates saw that, and wanted to see more of that.  Hopefully, PG will stay the course.   

Will Real Formative Assessment Please Stand Up?

Eduflack AYP, high-stakes testing, NAEP, NCLB

As Eduflack has previously noted, the issues of accountability and assessment have risen to the top of the education reform heap.  Thanks to the Aspen Institute and others, we seem to have consensus — at least with education and business leaders — that accountability should lead the day.  And to get there, we need strong, reliable, replicable assessments that effectively measure the effectiveness of our programs, our schools, and out students.

Earlier this month, Scott Cech did a piece in Education Week reflecting on internal disagreements within the testing industry on the issue of “formative assessments.”  (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/09/17/04formative_ep.h28.html)   The piece is an interesting one, particularly in light of recent focus by major school districts on Response to Intervention, or RTI.  Like issues before it, education companies throughout the nation see RTI as a pending blank check, a major money-making program for those who can sell an answer to the problem.
While Cech’s piece raises some good questions on the issue of assessment and the role of both corporations and teachers in implementing meaningful assessment measures in the classroom, the piece — and the questions it raises — is being used by some to celebrate the end of accountability and is, unfortunately, being used to trumpet the demise of modern-day assessment models.
Because of issues like RTI, we have seen some very strong formative assessment models developed.  Just take a look at the investments made by organizations such as Wireless Generation, and you can see what high-quality, high-value assessment models can look like.  Focusing on pre- and post-assessment tools, educators gain the mechanisms they need to effectively evaluate student progress and determine the additional interventions needed to get every student succeeding.
Like most areas in education reform, there are good assessments and there are bad assessments.  There are research-based assessments, and there are squishy assessments.  There are assessments that work, and those that simply don’t.  The job of a good educator or a good policymaker is to learn the difference, and make sure we are using what works in our own schools and our own classrooms.
Those that celebrate articles like these as the “end of assessments” do so for one of two reasons.  Either they don’t truly understand what formative assessments are or they don’t have the research to prove that their models work.  
Cech is right.  This is an issue that many educators simply do not understand.  Nor is an issue that should be the exclusive playground of vendors or for-profit industry.  If we are going to hold our schools and our policymakers accountable for results in the classroom, we need to ensure that they have effective assessment tools AND understand how to use them appropriately.  We need to empower teachers to measure their students’ progress, and do so in a way that aligns with state and, hopefully, national learning standards.  And we need to simplify the assessment process so the average parent, the average teacher, and the average community member gets it.
Understanding meaningful assessment of student achievement should not require advanced degrees nor should it demand a multi-step, multi-part process that looks more like Swedish furniture assembly instructions than a benchmark of student progress.  There are simple, effective assessments out there.  We just need to redouble our efforts to get them out into the classroom.

RF: Political Punching Bag

Eduflack Obama, Presidential campaign, Reading First, SBRR

By now, we’ve all come to accept that education issues just are not going to be major players in the presidential election.  We didn’t see it in the political primaries.  For the most part, we didn’t see it during the two national conventions.  And it is incredibly unlikely we will see it over the next six weeks.  As the nation struggles with economic issues, ongoing mortgage issues, and trillion-dollar financial market bailouts, education reform is just not a top-of-mind issue, particularly for those undecided voters that will determine the next President of the United States.

But sometimes — heck, most times — it is just too hard to not to hook a good red herring or not to throw a strong left hook at a political punching bag.  That is even true in education.  Don’t believe Eduflack?  Then you clearly missed Meet the Press this morning.
This AM, Tom Brokaw hosted a presidential debate autopsy with the senior strategists for Senators Obama and McCain. The discussion, as expected, was focused on economic policy, what the candidates thought of the expected financial bailout bill that will be unveiled by Congress tonight, and who is better suited to help the nation move forward from our current financial problems.  On Friday night, little time was spent discussing what programs would have to be cut if we were to pay for $700 billion in buyout and the added costs of new financial oversights, agencies, etc.  The issue came back around this morning on Meet the Press.
David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist and the primary architect of his incredible campaign, zeroed in on one program and one program in particular — Reading First.  While not citing it by name (and why not?, it would score him points in some sectors), Axelrod attacked the “boondoggle” of a reading program the Bush Administration has been funding, a program, he went on to say, “hasn’t helped a single kid.”
I understand the need for hyperbole and vitriol in a political campaign (in fact, I was once accused by a weekly rag of a newspaper for injecting the latter into a 1996 congressional campaign).  And in full disclosure, I have financially supported the Obama campaign, and have done so since before the first primary/caucus vote was cast in Iowa more than nine months ago.  But I must say, if that is the belief of the campaign, and if it reflects the plans for federal education moving forward, I am severely disappointed and quite a bit surprised.
Let’s set aside, for a moment, the fact that the $300 million or so currently being spent on Reading First will do little to fund the bailout or the billions of dollars in new programs and new initiatives being put forward.  The simple lack of understanding for Reading First and the impact it has had on our schools, as demonstrated by the talking point, shows that politics, and not results, can rule the day.
Eduflack would urge Axelrod — along with Obama education advisors Jon Schnur and Mike Johnston — to take a real look at RF and its impact on real schools and real kids.  Heck, let’s just take a look at the swing states that will determine the results on November 4.  Let’s look at RF’s impact in Pennsylvania.  In Ohio.  In West Virginia.  In Colorado.  In Florida.  Let’s even take a look at its impact in cities like Chicago and New York City, major hubs of Obama support.  Let’s place a careful eye on those schools, districts, and states where we’ve done what’s works and we’ve implemented scientifically based reading with fidelity, and we can see that Reading First has helped millions of kids.  And it could help millions more with better management, better oversight, better fidelity, and better support.
When presidential administrations change, we should look to build on the successes of the previous administration, fixing those programs and efforts that didn’t work, and ensuring our taxpayer dollars are wisely spent.  Spending federal education funding on programs that work is good public stewardship.  And scientifically based reading is such a program.  if we set aside the political packaging of RF, the core goals, the core intent, and the core outcomes of the program remain solid and should remain a national priority.
If Obama is serious about making sure every child has the math and science education needed to compete, he must first start by making sure every student is literate and can read at an appropriate grade level.  Scientifically based reading is the strongest, fastest, and only path to get us there.  It may not be a good campaign issue, but it is a damned good policy issue.

Read Early, Read Often

Eduflack early childhood education, NCLB, Reading First, SBRR

As we have reported many times before, far too many people have written Reading First off for dead.  Eduflack doesn’t want to go through the litany of reasons why.  It is simply too depressing.  But I will say for the record, just one more time, that Reading First works.  The science behind the program, making sure we are implementing what works in the classrooms that need it.  Collecting data and putting it to use effectively.  Implementing research-based reading programs with fidelity.  All are no-brainer steps in boosting student reading ability and reading achievement in schools and classrooms across the country.

Yes, I am pleased by the notion that RF seems to be getting a one year reprieve before it heads out to the ed reform gallows.  Thankfully, Congress’ inability to move on most FY2009 federal spending bills means that the federal reading program will be continued for yet another year.  One more year of funding for SBRR.  One more year for reading data collection.  One more year for research-focused reading professional development.  One more year of doing what works and doing what is right (before we figure out what comes next).
Often forgotten in this whole debate of RF is the fate of its baby sister — Early Reading First.  To a casual observer, the two programs appear joined together, bearing a similar fate.  It only makes sense to some that Early RF should be punished for RF’s sins, even though the program is different, the funding is different, and the intended audience and impact are different.
So imagine my surprise when I saw a major uptick on Early RF news over the past week.  Last week, the U.S. Department of Education announced that 19 states would share more than $100 million in new Early Reading First grant moneys.  EdSec Margaret Spellings began talking about Early RF last week (likely because of the release of new funding).  And just yesterday, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE) released a new report — “The Impact of Two Professional Development Interventions on Early Reading Instruction and Achievement.”  (Thanks, Kimberly, for the tip.)  Add to that the What Works Clearinghouse’s re-examination of early reading programs, and it seems beginning reading is the HOT topic in literacy once again.
This is a refreshing and positive development for those who have been fighting in the scientifically based reading trenches all these many years.  Yes, there have been some real problems with the implementation of Reading First.  But whether we are Republicans or Democrats, liberal or conservative, reformers or status quoers, we all have to agree that solid reading skills are essential to student success.  Those kids who are unable to read at grade level by the end of third grade or the start of fourth grade are, unfortunately, in an academic hole they may never be able to dig themselves out of.  
Reading ability is indeed a civil right.  To participate in school, participate in the workplace, and participate in this democracy, we need to be literate.  The era of working hard and signing your name with an X is no over.  Reading ability is the great equalizer.  A kid who can read (and one who can comprehend what she has read) is able to accomplish anything.  And proficiency only becomes a reality when one begins learning the skill as early as possible.
That is why the focus on Early RF is so important.  Reading at grade level by third grade requires work at the earliest of ages.  We know what skills students need before they reach kindergarten.  We know what parents should be doing at home with their toddlers to develop skills they need to become readers.  We know literacy instruction does not begin at the age of five.  And we know it is much harder to make up the lessons that can be learned early on than it is to teach them right at the right time.
In the long term, Reading First works when Early Reading First has done its job.  If we’re going to agitate for increased attention and increased support for RF, we need to make sure that Early RF remains a part of our educational fabric.  And we need to make sure we are conducting the proper students to measure its effectiveness.  Those committed to Early RF interventions know they work, now let’s show the world the data to prove it.  

Baby Eduflackette — The First Birthday

Eduflack Uncategorized
OK.  Time for Eduflack to get a little personal.  For those in the know, Eduflack and the missus have spent much of the past year working to bring baby Eduflackette home from Guatemala.  About a year ago, we made the decision to bring little Anna Patricia into our family.  Anna is our son Michael’s full birth sister.  This past Saturday — September 20 — was her first birthday.  As celebration, we have learned that we have passed through the latest legal/regulatory hurdle in Guatemala, and with a little luck and a lot of prayer, baby Anna will be nestled snuggling in her new home in Falls Church, Virginia before the Christmas stockings are emptied and the holiday gifts are unwrapped.
As for the tale of the tape, Anna had her last doctor’s visit about a month ago.  She’s weighing in at 19 pounds, 3 ounces.  She’s 67.4 centimeters long.  And now she’s got those big beautiful teeth setting off her fabulous smile.  She’s also incredibly gorgeous, as any can see, and I am sure she is going to cause me a great deal of trouble in about 15 or 16 years when the boys start calling.  
As I regularly say, Edu-son is one of the primary reasons why I am so zealous in regard to education reform and education agitation.  Little Eduflackette just redoubles that commitment.  With a strong education, she and her brother can rule the world.  I just have to do everything I can to get them the high-quality, results-oriented education they both need and deserve.
Happy birthday, baby girl.  Momma and dada will have you home in the Old Dominion soon enough!

The Measure of College Admissions

Eduflack ACT, College Board, High School, higher ed, national standards

Down here in Eduflack’s temporary offices in Central America (long story, but the good news is that it looks like baby Eduflackette, who turned one on Saturday, should be coming home to the DC area for good before the end of the year), my eye was caught by a newsbrief in the NYTimes Digest (even I’m not willing to pay $8 for the full NYT down here) about the latest commission report on college admissions.

Headed By Harvard University Admissions Dean William Fitzsimmons, the latest report recommends that colleges and universities reduce their dependence on SAT and ACT scores when it comes to admitting new students.  Instead, the commission is recommending specific admission exams more closely tied to high school curriculum and student achievement.
For years now, we have seen leading national colleges and universities back off of SAT and ACT scores as requirements for admission.  Researchers have claimed that high school grades, and not standardized admission scores, are the true measure of student success in the postsecondary classroom.  And still more see the tests — particularly the SAT — as yet another example of the high stakes testing that has permeated P-16 education today.
At the very heart of Fitzsimmons’ report, though, I can’t help but think we are simply rearranging some of the deck chairs for postsecondary admittance.  After all, how different do we expect an “admissions exam” to be from the SAT or ACT.  All will serve as standardized tests.  All will measure students on a common level of English, math (and hopefully science and social studies, and maybe even foreign language) abilities.  All will be used to determine the cutoff line, knowing that a score of X gets you in, a score of Y puts you on the border line, and a score of Z puts you in the also rans.
The real issue is how one goes about constructing the admission exam.  By early reports, the Fitzsimmons commission is proposing an admissions exam based on high school curriculum.  A noble idea, yes.  But is it worth the paper it would be printed on (or the computer it would be coded on?)  Can national college admissions exams really be worth anything until we have national standards on which high school curriculum is based?
The answer, as we all know, is of course not.  College entry exams are intended to demonstrate that entering students have the skills and abilities to do basic postsecondary education work.  At a time when nearly half of all college-going students are forced to take remedial reading or math courses, such a determination has never been more important.  Are our high schools turning out students capable of college-level work?  Are our kids ready for postsecondary education?  And if not, what is it our secondary schools should be doing to ensure they are meeting their responsibilities in the P-16 education continuum?
It all brings us back to the simple concept of national education standards.  A rising senior B student in Alabama should have the same skills, abilities, and access to information as a B student in Connecticut, or one in Wisconsin, or one in Oregon or Nevada.  Algebra II should mean the same thing, no matter what state or what school district is taking it.  And a high school diploma should come with a guarantee of a basic knowledge and ability in English, math, and science.  As a nation, we should have common goals.  As a national education system, we should have common expectations from all of our students, regardless of location or socioeconomic status.
Yes, our goal should be getting a greater number of diverse students into postsecondary education.  We need to increase the number of first-generation students entering the halls of higher education.  We need to promote the notion that postsecondary education is a requirement for success in today’s ever-evolving economy.
A college admissions test simply doesn’t get us there, and in today’s environment, too many colleges may be required to develop dozens of such tests to reflect the vast differences in standards and performances across our 50 states.  If college admissions deans really want to make a difference, they should be out there advocating for national K-12 standards.  They should be demanding that every applicant be measured on the same scale.  They should require that a high school education — rural, suburban, or urban; northeast, south, midwest, or southwest — provides the same levels of skill, preparation, and knowledge.  They should require national standards.

Accountability!

Eduflack AYP, HQT, national standards, NCLB, Obama

This past week at the Aspen Institute’s National Education Summit, there was one clear super password for education improvement — accountability.  Superintendent after superintendent positioned accountability as the lasting mark of the NCLB era.  Business leaders spoke of how accountability was the true GPS to education reform.  Even EdSec Margaret Spellings has been using it to describe the education legacy of the Bush Administration.  Leaving the summit on Monday evening, one thing was clear, if we are to improve our schools and better educate our students, we must redouble our commitment to the notion of accountability.

Newly embracing the tag of educational agitator, Eduflack is ready and willing to trumpet the need for greater accountability in our schools.  As we discuss shared responsibility and shared gains in education, accountability is an action in which we can all take part, whether we be practitioners or policymakers, business or community leaders, parents or students, agitators or even status quoers.  When we hold our nation, our states, our districts, and our schools more accountable for both the instruction and the outcomes of that instruction, we have to believe that real, measurable student gains will only follow.
From the rhetoric in recent months, it seemed that both presidential candidates were equally supportive of the notion of increased accountability in our schools.  While neither has come out to wrap a bearhug around NCLB (and we shouldn’t wait for either to do so), both seemed to indicate that strengthening both standards and accountability are goals for the future.  Regardless of what wrapping we may place it in, the era of every educator for himself with little repercussion for success or failure is over.  It is time to put up and prove it.
So Eduflack was taken aback by Bruce Fuller’s September 18 blog piece on the New York Times online, which seems to indicate that an Obama administration would turn back the clock on accountability measures.  From his perch at the University of California Berkeley, Fuller states that Obama’s plan is one that simply sets learning standards, records student data, and recruits a stronger teacher base.
Don’t get me wrong, all three are important objectives.  But these are process-driven goals, not outcome-driven goals.  What good are learning standards (and please, oh please, can’t we come out for national standards instead), if we aren’t holding the students, their teachers, or their schools accountable for hitting levels of proficiency?  What good is recording student data if we aren’t using it improve instruction, identify what truly works in the classroom, and ensure that our teachers and our schools are hitting the benchmarks we have set for them?  And what good is teacher recruitment if we don’t have the systems in place to truly identify good teaching, reward it, and replicate it?  
The Aspen event has left the education policy community in an interesting position.  Not only did they bring together a who’s who of policy, business, and practice, but they moved nearly everyone to ask, what now?  This was more than just an informational session, it was a call to action.  It now falls to those leaders, both those at the rostrum and those in the audience, to drive us to real action, to real agitation, and to real improvement.
It is clear that accountability is neither a Democratic nor a Republican issue.  Educational accountability is an American issue, and it is the necessary path to true school reform and true educational improvement.  We’ve spent decades fretting about processes.  Now is the time for action — for clear standards and even clearer accountability measures, both of which are enforced, and not just talked about.  That’s the only way we truly move our rhetoric to action.

Truly Gifted?

Eduflack AYP, NCLB
In recent months, we have heard the large urban districts trumpet their successes in hitting AYP and achieving the designation “proficient.”  Scores in NYC Public Schools have soared.  Year One of the Rhee Experiment in Washington, DC posted proficiency numbers few ever expected.  And similar data has been seen in similar districts throughout the nation.
Some critics questioned the standards used to measure proficiency in the first place.  Did we drop the bar to achieve AYP?  Are 2007 measures as strong as they were in, say, 2005?  In states like Maryland and cities like NYC, one could honestly raise the issue.  State and district standards have “evolved” in the NCLB era, and many of those evolutions have resulted in improved student achievement.  Students may not know more today, but they are more proficient, based on assessments.
So what’s the big deal?  Isn’t our goal to get all students proficient by any means necessary?  After all, we promised 100% proficiency in math, reading, and science by 2014.  We have to get there by any means necessary.
For years, the flip side of NCLB proficiency has been the issue of “gifted & talented.”  We have heard how G&T students have been punished by NCLB, as teacher attention and school resources are focused on those at risk and those hovering around the proficient mark.  At times, you’d even think NCLB was awarding new MacBooks to at-risk students, while leaving gifted kids to persevere with yellowed paper with chunks of wood still floating in it.
Perhaps that’s why Eduflack was taken aback yesterday by an article in the Washington Examiner, looking at the G&T issue in DC’s suburban schools.  Perhaps I am naive.  I’ve long thought that G&T was an elite designation.  Few students received the label, either due to limited resources to act with or the very real fact that few students are truly gifted.
The Examiner paints a very different picture, though.  At Bethesda, MD’s Westbrook Elementary School, for example, 87% of second graders have been designated G&T.  Across Montgomery County (home to Westbrook), 39% of second graders are G&T.  Fifty-two percent of them are white, 23% Asian, 13% Black, and 12% Hispanic.
In Fairfax County, VA, 34% of second graders earned the designation.  The breakdowns are similar — 53% white, 23% Asian, 7% Black, 10% Hispanic, and 7% multiracial.
I’m not saying there are not strong students in Montgomery or Fairfax Counties.  Students there and in other suburban districts (as well as in urban and rural districts) work hard and achieve.  But do we honestly believe that a third of ALL second graders are truly G&T?
Of course not.  The problem, though, is our national commitment to proficiency.  It seems that more and more districts are designating students as gifted if they perform above grade level on assessments.  Demonstrate your proficiency, and you must be gifted, right?
It is an odd line of thinking.  On a typical grading scale, we can assume “proficient” comes from earning a C.  So now, even those B-minus students are qualifying as gifted and talented.  And we all pat ourselves on the back for the achievement. 
Parents of truly gifted students would say such a policy is further harming their children and denying them the educational resources they need to reach their full potential.  Advocates for the new era of G&T designation would say we are challenging more students, instilling a new sense of hope and optimism in students who were previously just seen as average.  And those worrying about failing schools and drop-out factories would say we are just missing the point.  All may be right, but all are missing the larger point.
I’m all for acceleration in the classroom and more rigorous classes and programs for all students — not just the top tier.  Equipped with the right learning skills, all students should be pushed to study more advanced materials.  And I believe none of us should ever settle for mere “proficiency.”
But 34% G&T rates are the equivalent of every child winning a trophy, regardless of who actually won.  If a G&T designation isn’t limited to those who are truly outstanding among the top students, then the designation simply loses all meaning whatsoever.  We might as well just assign students colors, with every student performing grade level earning a purple.  It holds the same value. 

Moving an Urgent Call Forward

Eduflack national standards

As the Aspen Institute’s National Education Summit heads into the afternoon sessions, the focus has been on standards and making sure our schools and our students are succeeding and are preparing students for the opportunities of the future.  So far, this has been the strongest attempt to link K-12 education with the economy and economic opportunity. No wonder, it has been an issue that CCSSO’s Gene Wilhoit has been touting for the past year plus.  

Wilhoit (a fellow West Virginian) has long be an advocate for national standards.  A set of common academic standards, adhered to by all 50 states, is the only way American students can truly be competitive.  It is the only way to truly measure the effectiveness of our schools.  It is the only way we know if we truly measure up to our international peers.  And it is the only way to ensure all students are equipped today with the knowledge and the skills needed for tomorrow’ jobs.
To get there, we need schools that think differently, deliver better and more effective education, and that simply break the failed models of the past.  This isn’t about tinkering around the edges or trying make modest changes without rocking the boat too severely.  This is about audacious agitation.
Looking around the room, I am left with one key observation … and one key question.  Clearly, the intellectual leadership needed to bring about real change and real improvement is in the room.  Leading superintendents of our largest school districts.  Presidents and executive directors of our top education organizations.  CEOs from our Fortune 500 companies.  Government leaders at the top levels of federal and state leadership.  All are here.  All are participating.  All are learning from the program put forward by Aspen.  The intellectual and organizational power represented in this ballroom could launch a new nation, establish the next Fortune 50 company, or even fix K-12 education in the United States.
But when we take a step back, and look at the 15,000 or so school districts across the nation that all need some form or fit of reform and improvement, I’m left asking who will do the actual work?  Where are the footsoldiers?  Who will do the yeoman’s work of taking the goals and passions of the leader class, and bringing them into real practice?
That will be the great takeaway, or the great challenge, that Aspen and its participants will be left with once the glow of the conference settles.  We are all seeing where the problems and the soft spots are.  There seems to be growing agreement on both the problems and the causes of those problems.  And there is an ever-expanding portfolio of solutions for those problems, solutions that have been proven to work and may just need a chance to go to scale.  Once the call is issued, it is about doing what we know works and implementing it with fidelity.
All morning, summit participants heard that we needed a “Sputnik” moment in education reform.  The thought is we need someone to show us they are doing it better than the United States, and it will motivate us to ramp up our own work, blowing past that so-called competitor and getting our people in orbit, on the moon, and beyond.
My concern with that is we are talking about movements.  Movement is fine and good, but movement had a finite end.  When we look at the data, we look at the conditions, and we look at the goals for school reform, movement is the last thing we need.  We need wholesale revolution.  We need continuous and ongoing motion, continued and ongoing improvement, continued and ongoing results.  There should be no end to school improvement.  It should be continuous improvement.  Once we are better than all those other PISA nations, it is about self-improvement.  It is true educational revolution.
Which gets us back to the question, who leads that revolution?  Who is the Paul Revere that issues the call of urgency to our 15,000 school districts?  Who is our Thomas Jefferson, laying out our goals and our measures for all to be held accountable?  Who’s throwing the status quo and the broken systems off the boat in the Boston Harbor?  Who is doing the rowing for General Washington?  Who is doing the heavy lifting?
Until we identify the implementers, the heavy lifters, and the doers, the best ideas will fall flat.  Strategy and leadership is important.  Making the trains run on time and moving from a good idea to meaningful practice is how you change the world … or change the schools.

We Are Agitators, Not Advocates

Eduflack AFT, AYP, Chancellor Klein, national standards, NCLB, Roy Romer, Spellings

We’ve reached halftime at the Aspen Institute’s National Education Summit.  So far, the sessions have been interesting … and a little surprising.  What’s surprising?  No one is calling for the abolition of No Child Left Behind.  Even on a panel with two superintendents and the new president of the AFT, no one called for NCLB’s demise.  In fact, everyone seemed to believe the law has had a positive impact on education in the United States.  Why aren’t these folks talking to Congress?

But this is clearly not a conference on NCLB.  If the morning sessions are any indication, the future of education is about one thing and one thing only — accountability.  Perhaps EdSec Margaret Spellings is correct that accountability is going to be the lasting legacy of the NCLB era.  Today, everyone is talking about accountability, and everyone is talking about it in positive and glowing terms.
Some of the highlights from this morning:
* Spellings is reporting that test scores are up, the achievement gap is closing, and we are making great progress, particularly when it comes to math instruction.  EdSec also used the forum to promote her notion of Key Educational Indicators, her banking-industry metaphor for improving education (though the timing of modeling yourself after banking today is a little iffy.  I’d even prefer Tommy Thompson’s comparison to evaluating nursing homes).  What are those Indicators you may ask?  Simple measures — effective educators, reliable data, proven strategies.
* Ed in O8’s Roy Romer used his time at the rostrum to focus on his group’s new study on remedial education in postsecondary education, reporting one in three college-going high school grads needs remedial ed.  An important statistic, yes, but Eduflack thinks we should first figure out how to eliminate the 35% or so high school drop out rate, before focusing on those who made it through the system (even if it was a mediocre system at best)
* NPR/Fox commentator Juan Williams surprised the room by stating one of the biggest issues facing public education is the need (or the requirement) that we must be willing to challenge the unions.
* NYCPS’ Joel Klein has apparently heard one too many times that you can’t fix education until you fix poverty.  He countered with the mirror.  You can fix poverty once you fix education.  He also served as the chief voice for national education standards.
Surprisingly, Roy Romer seems to now be backing off his support for national standards.  A year ago, the former Colorado governor laid out what Eduflack thought was a terrific plan for using the nation’s top education governors to develop national education standards that could be adopted by all states.  Today, Romer said national standards just weren’t doable.  Instead, he proposed states developing their own standards that aligned with international standards, with the feds rewarding them for basing benchmarks on things like PISA.  An interesting idea, yes, but isn’t it more important to have the United States develop a single standard that matches up with PISA or TIMSS, and not that Arizona and Virginia have figured out how to do it by themselves, leaving the other 48 behind?  If national standards are not doable, tell us why and let’s task some folks to solve the problem.  Surrender isn’t the option, particularly on national standards.
The morning closed with an interesting discussion that focused, in part, on staff development.  Prince George’s County (MD) superintendent John Deasy focused on the concept that “teaching matters.”  Atlanta supe Beverly Hall called for professional development to be job embedded, and not simply an add-on offered one morning a month (Are you listing National Staff Development Council?  Hall is singing your song.)  Even Ed Trust’s Kati Haycock got in the act, suggesting that our schools need more programs like Core Knowledge if we are to really close that achievement gap and boost student achievement.
The takeaways?  No fireworks.  The Mayflower Hotel is hosting a room full of power players with the ability to enact real change.  They spent the morning listening and gathering information.  This was not about posturing or getting your slogan mentioned (since there are no open mikes for statements or questions) or showing you are the smartest person in the room.  Instead, this was about hearing and really understanding.  It was about making sure your view (and your motivation) for education reform is motivated by the same issues as your colleague across the table.  It is about making sure we’re all working together to solve the same problem and seeing success in the same way.
The event is being billed as “An Urgent Call.”  What is clear, though, is that there is still an absence of a national sense of urgency for the issue, particularly with those who aren’t running school districts, organizations, or corporations.  We still believe our individual school is doing a great job, regardless of the available data.  We still believe our students can compete, despite our slippage in international competition.  And we still think our kids are ready for the future, despite the growing dropout rate and increased remediation rate.  Clearly, we need an urgent call to Main Street, USA … and we need it now.
For years, Eduflack has talked about the need for public engagement and advocacy, particularly when it comes to the issue of school improvement.  But EdSec Spellings had it right when she said we should not settle for being advocates.  Instead, we should be agitators.  We’ve advocated for reform for decades.  Maybe the only way to really make a difference — to close the achievement gap, to boost student achievement in national and international measures, to measurably improve and support teaching, to broaden school choice and school opportunities — we really need to agitate.  I’m ready.  I’m Eduflack, and I’m an agitator.