accountability

Vitriol on Both Sides

Eduflack accountability, Media, PR

Last week, the good folks over at Politico Education Pro wrote an interesting piece on the discourse in the current public education debates.  Written under the header, Name-calling turns nasty in education world, the article by Stephanie Simon rehashed some of the name calling we’ve seen in the name of education and education reform recently.

There is no question that the rhetoric has gotten extremely ugly.  Simon highlights just a few examples, and even those examples don’t truly illustrate the level of vitriol out there, particularly when there are specific legislative fights or policy changes in process.
The issue, though, is not whether there is harsh rhetoric flying around the education corral these days.  We all know there is.  The issue is whether we accept the reality and acknowledge when things get out of hand.
As the former CEO of an education reform group, I’ll be the first to say there were things I said in the heat of the moment that I now wish I hadn’t.  The passion of the fight does that to one.  And while I am enormously proud of what we accomplished, and knew that the rhetoric I used was necessary in the moment, in reflection I wish I had chosen different words or framed things a little differently.  Doing so would have made the implementation of those reforms easier, pitching a larger tent, and would have reduced some of the extreme tension at the time.
But not everyone seems to see the issue through the same lens.  In response to the article, I engaged in a Twitter debate with one who has dogged me for years now.  His take of the article was completely different than mine.  He read the piece as an indictment of reformers and the reform movement for saying things that were completely inappropriate and offensive to educators.
When I pointed out that both sides were to blame, and both were guilty of the practice, his response was almost laughable.  Again, it was the reformers fault.  Those doing the work of angels were just speaking facts and truths. 
So I asked if he even read the article.  The parts about Diane Ravitch and her hateful words toward Parent Revolution (just one example the author could have used about Ravitch).  Or the truly hateful speech that came out of the mouth of Florida teacher Ceresta Smith that was directed specifically at Michelle Rhee.
His response?  They had to say those things.  It was the only way to respond to the reformers because they wouldn’t accept the facts and the realities.
And this is the great disconnect in the current education communications landscape.  There is no dialogue.  There is no discussion.  Instead, we are engaged in mutually assured destruction.  In an effort to control the headlines, get the blog posts, and gain the Klout scores, we say outrageous things in an effort to gain attention.  We try to position ourselves as the “smartest person in the room,” the only person with the facts and figures and data to win the argument.  We refuse to listen, and just think at the next retort or the next attack.
At the end of the day, those engaged on both sides of the education reform struggle, the “corporate reformers” and the “defenders of the status quo” agree on far more than they disagree.  So instead of the name calling and the mutually assured destruction, is there any hope for collaboration and some real, meaningful progress?  
Anyone?  Anyone?

The New NAEP Scores Are Here! The New NAEP Scores Are Here!

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, assessment, NAEP

Yes, it is that time of year again.  This morning, EdSec Arne Duncan officially released the reading and math scores for “The Nation’s Report Card.”  The results?  Recent trends continue.  Overall scores continue to tick up.  Reading scores for fourth graders continue to frustrate.

The good folks over at Education Writers Association are aggregating coverage on NAEP over at Ed Media Commons.  Check out EWA’s initial analysis, along with its roundup of coverage here. 
What does it all mean?  The highlights and analysis and opining will continue to pour in during the coming days.  But a few immediate points come to mind:
* The overall rise in student performance over the past 20 years signals that efforts to focus on accountability, student achievement, and teacher quality are having real, positive impact.  Sure, we aren’t seeing huge jumps in scores, but the trends are clear.  We are improving.
* We are largely seeing improvement across the board.  Unfortunately, that means we aren’t getting closer to closing the achievement gaps.  While African-American and Hispanic/Latino scores are getting better, so are the scores of white students.  On the whole, it is terrific to see all students learn and improve.  But we still have to figure out how we address the shortcomings historically disadvantaged students have faced in the classroom.
* Fourth grade reading scores continue to trouble.  These scores were flat.  We are now six or so years from when we pulled the plug on Reading First.  Like it or not, our investment in scientifically based reading instruction had impact.  We saw it in previous fourth grade scores, and we are seeing it in older kids who benefitted from the emphasis on SBRR.  Now we are fourth graders who aren’t benefitting from what is proven effective, and it can be seen.
* We need to spend more time and effort focusing on proficiency, and not just the gains themselves (yes, ironic based on the first three bullets here).  True, it is great seeing the steady rise in overall scores.  But we spent far too little time focusing on the reality that only 42 percent of our fourth graders are proficient in math, and an even lower 35 percent are proficient in reading.  And despite what some want to believe, we don’t make it up in the later grades.  Only 36 percent of eighth graders are proficient in both core subjects.
In a nation that has set a collective goal to have every child college and career ready by 2020, nearly two thirds of our eighth graders aren’t yet doing eighth-grade level reading and math.  That is a reality that affects everyone, regardless of race, family income, or zip code.  And it is a reality that demands far more attention than it receives.

Urban Schools, Disengaged Parents

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, Parents

In recent years, parents have come front and center in the debate regarding what is right (or wrong, depending on your perspective) in our public schools.  As education reformers have focused on educator evaluations and teacher effectiveness, teachers in reform-targeted communities have often turned around to point the finger at parents, citing disengaged and uninvolved parents as a leading contributor to failing schools and achievement gaps.

So why do we have low parental engagement in many urban public schools?  And what can we do to improve parental involvement in schools and with kids who need it the most?
That is the question that the good folks over at BAM Radio have asked this week.  The segment, available here, is hosted by Rae Pica and features Patricia Ackerman, Peter McDermott, Marilyn Rhames, and yours truly.  An interesting topic definitely worth the listen.
(Eduflack is a proud commentator to BAM Radio and its programs.  It is always interesting to do a deep dive into an important issue, particularly when it includes both classroom educators and researchers.)

I Want That School!

Eduflack accountability, Media, Parents

There are a couple of companies on TV that run commercials touting how they are different from their many competitors.  You may have seen them for both buying a car and choosing a frozen pizza.  The consumer is standing before a plethora of options, and starts identifying personal preferences.  When all is said and done, there is only one choice left.

What if we have that option with our public schools?  What is we were able to go and identify what we want from a school in a range of categories?  What if we were able to prioritize what issues are most important for us in choosing a public school for our child?
It may not be such a crazy question.  For residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (yeah, go Sox, Beard nation, yada yada) the Boston Globe has launched an online Massachusetts school calculator tool, called DreamSchool Finder.  (I know, not loving the name, but the intent is well meaning.)
At DreamSchool Finder, parents can choose the region of the state, the grade level of the child, and then get to look at five characteristics, giving them each percentages until the 100% mark is hit.  The choices include: Mathematics Growth, English Language Arts Growth, School Climate, College Readiness, School Resources, and Diversity.
So for those parents who care only about the test scores, they can be all about math and ELA growth and college readiness.  Those more concerned with the school culture can emphasize climate and resources.  
It is an interesting concept, and it is one that can significantly empower a parent or caregiver when used appropriately.  For families looking to relocate, it provides a tool for helping better understand which town may be best to lay down roots.  For others, it lets you see what schools might be doing it better, based on your percentages, and help you identify why so you can bring solutions to your own neighborhood school.
And if you had such a tool in a community that believed in complete school choice, it could be the holy grail.
Kudos to boston.com for offering up the resource.  Clearly, there is the need.  We should be working to develop more tools and providing more information so that parents are better informed on what is happening in their schools and better understand how other schools may be better suited to meet their own needs or preferences.

Is Anyone Pro-Privatization? Anyone?

Eduflack accountability, charter schools, Marketing, Media

Earlier this week, MSNBC posted a new video on its website.  It is from the Melissa Harris-Perry Show, with special guest Diane Ravitch touting her latest book (which in fairness, Eduflack hasn’t read).

While I don’t usually stop for such video segments, I was taken by the headline that MSNBC (the Lean Forward network) was putting on the segment.  The piece led with the screamer, “The Case Against School Privatization.”
Those who know Eduflack know that I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the education reform movement.  During that time, I got pretty immune to what folks would say about me or about reformers in general.  And over time, the repeated accusations of “privatization and profiteering” started to sound like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon to me.
But I paused when I saw it on a supposed unbiased news network.  And it leads to a very important question.
Is anyone out there actually advocating for the privatization of our public schools?
I offer this as a serious question.  Who is pro-privatization?  At least more privatization than we already have.  We have already privatized transportation (bus service) and school lunches and textbooks and professional development.  And last I checked utilities and such are still provided by private companies (many of whom actually draw a profit from it as well).
But is there anyone out there looking to turn public schools into private ones?
And please, don’t give me the charter school argument.  Whether one wants to accept it or not, charter schools are public schools.  Yes, they are an alternative to our traditional public schools.  But they are still public schools.  
So where are they?  Who are these horrible beasts that are looking to take our well-meaning public schools and turn them into private schools?  Who is seeking to take a neighborhood school and turn it into a home for J. Crew and the country club set?  Who is actually out there converting all of these public schools?  Who are these privatizers we should be so fearful of and who we are creating all of these supposed white knights to slay the privatization beasts? 
Truth be told, the only thing we have seen in recent years is private schools going public.  Look to our nation’s capital.  After the U.S. Congress pulled the plug on voucher funding, many of the Catholic schools that were serving the vast majority of voucher kids decided to convert from parochial institutions into public charter schools.  These Center City schools saw the need to continue their service to the community and to the kids they were educating, and publicized (if that is the right word) themselves.
While there is plenty in public education that we can debate and argue about, do we really need to throw privatization in the mix?  It is a cheap rhetorical trick meant to win over an uneducated population.  No one is rushing to convert public schools private.  Practically no one (at least no well-meaning reformers) are even talking about it. So why frame what should be an intelligent, well-meaning debate that way?
We need to spend more time engaging in meaningful dialogues about our schools and what we can do together to improve them.  Ad hominem attacks, fake arguments, and phony straw men works against that goal.  it may sell some books, but it does very little to help ensure that all our students receive a high-quality, meaningful public education.
 

Are You There God, It’s Me Eduflack?

Eduflack accountability, arts, assessment, reading

The latest volley has been launched in the ongoing battle against the evils of testing.  Today, the folks over at No Test, sorry, meant Fair Test, released a letter they coordinated from more than 100 children’s book authors to EdSec Arne Duncan, attacking increased testing, computer adaptive testing, teacher evaluation measures, and “the narrowing of curriculum” for eliminating students’ love of reading and literature.

The full letter can be found here.   Hat tip to Stephanie Simon over at Politico PRO Education for spotlighting the letter this morning.
Lots of signatories on the list.  Some names folks know, many that they don’t.  Eduflack’s personal fave is Judy Blume.  I’ll admit, as a kid, she was one of my favorite authors.  I read everything she wrote.  I even triggered the town librarian call my mom one afternoon because she thought it was inappropriate for a young boy to be reading “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret?” My mother, the high school English teacher, ignored the advice of the librarian, and I read the book many times over.
Eduflack can appreciate the concerns these authors and illustrators have.  And I might even be willing to concede that a child’s love for reading and literature has declined in recent years.  But is it because of testing, or is it because of multimedia?  Do we blame the bubble sheet, or do we blame the multitude of options now competing for a young learner’s attention?
Honestly, I’m getting a little tired of testing being blamed for all that is perceived wrong in our country.  Too many people far too often are throwing everything and anything they can in their Quixotic approach to rid our world of testing.  We ignore that testing has been a part of our public schools for as long as we’ve had public schools.  We overlook that testing data can play a meaningful role in improving both teaching and learning.  We avoid the true debate, a discussion about ensuring the value of testing and the use and application of high-quality assessments.
Instead, we rail against the system, throwing the red meat on “high-stakes testing,” “testing and reading schemes,” and “testing overuse and abuse.”  We talk in media releases, instead of engaging in dialogues.  And we turn to scare tactics and the negative, instead of exploring common ground and the positive.
We need to stop our Blubber, clear our Tiger Eyes, and Forever commit to a better way to talk about schools, school improvement, and testing.  Otherwise, there will be no more Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing because more than a third of our fourth graders still won’t be reading at grade level.  If we really want Sally J. Freedman to star as herself, can’t we shift from this vitriol to a more meaningful community engagement?
Or perhaps I should just let a few Superfudges fly, and accept this is just as it is.  Then Again, Maybe I Won’t …
 

Blame Common Core!

Eduflack 21CS, accountability, CCSS, national standards, teachers

In the terrific movie South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, the Colorado town is faced with a scourge of extreme potty mouth.  The solution?  Blame Canada!  After all, Canada was responsible for serving as a home to a foul-mouthed TV show the community’s kids just loved. So of course we declare war on our neighbor to the north.  How else to deal with the cussin’?

After attending parent-teacher conferences last evening for my kids’ school, I feel a bit of a South Park moment coming on.  Only instead of Canada, we are now blaming all of our educational ills on the dreaded Common Core State Standards.
I’ll try to forget the teacher who lapsed into edu-speak, using every abbreviation in the K-12 eyechart.  Sure, Eduflack knows all of the acronyms that were used in a relatively short conversation, but how many other parents in that class do?
I’ll try to forgive the one teacher who dropped guard to tell us that first graders used to have to answer 30 simply addition and subtraction problems in three minutes, but they’ve now extended it to 50 problems because too many kids were hitting the benchmark in previous years.
And I’ll even try to overlook the exchange over parent materials.  After commending a teacher for giving us two handouts from the Council of Great City Schools’ Parent Roadmap series (and remarking that it was interesting that our small, suburban school district was using materials from CGCS, but getting no acknowledgement that the teacher even knew what CGCS was), the eduwife and I simply got a tart response to the effect that the principal shared these materials, but they really aren’t relevant because “our school doesn’t do these sorts of things.”
But dear ol’ Eduflack can’t shake one of the discussions on what is happening in the classroom.
We started our discussion on the mathematics side of the ledger.  We actually spent most of our time talking coinage.  At issue was the ability to distinguish, on a work sheet mind you, the differences between the head of a quarter and the head of a nickel.  I was told that the Common Core requires knowledge of coins and recognition of their respective fronts and backs.  It took every fiber of my being not to point out that we are moving to a paperless world (has anyone heard of bitcoin, or even the new RFID bracelets that do away with currency in Disney World?), and the future of pennies and nickels are likely limited in our society.  And I resisted asking how recognizing FDR on the dime would make a second grader college and career ready.
Imagine my surprise to go back and look at the standards and indeed see that the second grade CCSS state that a student should “solve word problems involving dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, using $ and ¢ symbols appropriately.” So while this educator is indeed taking it a bit far, working with money is indeed a part of the CCSS.
We then moved on to the reading side of the coin, if you will.  And here my blood began to boil.  The discussion quickly shifted again to CCSS.  Here, we were informed that the standards require students to be able to “diagram words.”  No, not the sentence diagrams I remember fondly as a child.  Diagramming a specific word.  Recognizing that a word like “scream” has eight individual or blended sounds and being able to mark each of the individual components to a given word.
So it is asking students — second graders — to diagram the digraph, blend, digraph blend, closed syllables, glued sounds and the like.  Every mark counts.  Be sure to show your work.
The rub here it is all or nothing.  A student gets no credit for IDing seven of the eight pieces.  Miss one, and you get a zero.  Get a zero, and you are SOL when it comes to meeting “the standards.”
I went back to the second grade CCSS, and I can find nothing on these supposed word diagrams.  Is it an overreaching extension of the phonics components of the standards?  Is it an interpretation based on a veteran teacher’s past experience?  Or is it just more administrative gobbledygook that helps frustrate those parents just hoping to understand what is happening in their child’s classroom?
I’m tired of CCSS now serving as an excuse for just checking the boxes and drilling students.  I’m tired of the continued focus on inputs and not the actual outcomes or the students themselves.  I’m tired of the blame game.  
And I recognize a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.  It is one thing to discuss CCSS and related issues in our policy bubble.  It is something completely different to be doing it from those half-sized plastic chairs in an elementary school.  And while I know the acronyms and the dreaded standards that were thrown around, what about those parents who don’t?  Are they running home to teach the nickel?  Or to figure out for themselves home to diagram the glue sound?
For now, it seems we will all just continue to blame the Common Core.  Maybe it is time to follow Cartman’s advice and ask what Brian Boitano would do …

We Changed Our Minds, Don’t Move

Eduflack accountability, Students

The nanny state seems to be at it again.  The good folks over at the U.S. Post Office decided a while back to issue a series of postage stamps to raise awareness for First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Just Move” campaign.  For those living under a rock these past four years, “Just Move” is an advocacy effort to get young people active and leading a healthy lifestyle.

This week, reports say that USPS has decided to destroy the entire run of “Just Move” stamps that were printed as part of the effort.  No, it wasn’t because they are looking to raise the cost of stamps again.  All of these lovely sheets of colorful stamps are being destroyed because they depict “unsafe” behaviors.  
The sheets in question depict a range of fun physical activities that kids can be to “Just Move” and be active.  And just what are these supposed “unsafe” acts found on the stamps?  The sheets include illustrations of a boy doing a cannonball dive, a skateboarder without knee or elbow pads, a baseball player without a helmet, and my personal favorite, a child doing a handstand without a helmet.
Seriously?  I’ll spare readers the “back in my day” stories about all of the dangerous activities we partook in just being children of the 1970s.  But we now can’t have illustrated stamps without the requisite helmets and pads?
Guess ol’ Eduflack will now be on the lookout for the stamps with the kids wrapped in bubble wrap.  

Common Sense Discussion on Common Core

Eduflack accountability, CCSS

While there is a great deal of discussion these days on the Common Core State Standards, much of it is being done at emotional levels that are just too high to be valuable.  Lots of red-meat rhetoric, plenty of vitriol, and a few scare tactics for good measure.  It makes for a wholly unproductive discussion.

But it seems that there are some level-headed, productive conversations going on out there on CCSS, its implementation, and how we can make it work.
Such a conversation can be heard out in South Dakota, where earlier this month SD Secretary of Education Melody Schopp and two local school superintendents were part of a thoughtful television program on CCSS and its impact on the Mount Rushmore State.
The full program can be found here.  Kudos to KELOLAND TV in Sioux Falls for taking the time and making the investment to have such an important discussion for the local community.
Thanks to my friend Fred Deutsch, a thoughtful school board member (and avid cyclist) in South Dakota.
It seems that common sense is finally starting to break through the posturing.  Discussions such as these are one sign of that.  Another is the Business Roundtable now calling for a panel to vet CCSS-aligned teaching materials.  It’s almost enough to make us think that some folks really want to get this right.
I know it is silly, but I do believe …  

Demonstrating True Educational Leadership

Eduflack accountability, Students, teachers

We have all heard the stories.  A school run by the popularity of its sports programs.  Athletes who ruled the school.  Student-athletes provided all sorts of special exceptions.  Thanks to both 1980s movies and very real activities, the entire tale has become almost cliche.

So much so that we have all just accepted it as the norm.  Student-athletes hold a special position in many public schools.  In many ways, they rule the school.
That is why it is so refreshing to see the actions recently taken by Matt Labrum, the head football coach of Union High School in Roosevelt, Utah.  Football can be big business in Utah (it is no Florida, Texas, or Ohio, but you can guess the Friday night lights are just as bright).  Labrum is an educator.  An as such, he was concerned when he heard that many on his team were skipping class.  And he was downright bothered when told that his players were engaged in cyberbullying of other classmates.
So the football coach drew his own red line.  Following a recent game, Coach Labrum suspended his entire high school football team.  All student-athletes were relieved of their position.  All were told to turn in their equipment and jerseys.  The football team was shut down, as a result of behaviors not befitting student leaders.
As Cameron Smith of Yahoo Sports reports, it is having quite an impact:

“We looked at it as a chance to say, ‘Hey, we need to focus on some other things that are more important than winning a football game,'” Labrum told the Deseret News. “We got an emotional response from the boys. I think it really meant something to them, which was nice to see that it does mean something. There was none of them that fought us on it.”

The early results, as documented in this terrific feature from the Deseret News, has been remarkable. Players showed up at school the following day — a Saturday — at 7 a.m. and were told how they could re-earn a spot on the team. Teenagers have been cleaning up area streets as part of new team-mandated community service work. They are attending character classes during hours when they previously would have been practicing.

Just as importantly, the team’s natural leaders are starting to realize that they need to be more vocal and step in to help those teammates who go astray. A key part of Labrum’s decision to suspend the entire team was borne of his frustration that the players who did live up to his expectations were not rising up taking control of the locker room. Now, that is changing. Only two of the team’s seven original captains were re-elected during the team meeting the day after the Judge Memorial loss.

Such actions are never easy.  It isn’t every coach that is willing to cancel his season or take such a step.  And it certainly isn’t every student-athlete who can respond to such an action in a meaningful, positive way.  But the action and reaction in Roosevelt is one that gives us hope.  We have leaders and learners who are able to do the right thing.  And we have students who are willing to admit their shortcomings, take responsibility without blaming others, and change their behaviors for the better.
In an era where we only seem to hear about bad behaviors, both in our public schools and in sports, Coach Labrum and Union High help us find some nugget of good.  Well done, Coach!