accountability

Some Chamber Education

Eduflack accountability, early childhood education, ESEA, NCLB, Spellings

For the past two years, the education community has been all abuzz about the role of reform organizations in the process.  What are TFA and NLNS saying?  What are Gates and Broad trying to do?  What about that DFER and 50CAN expansion?  We hang on every word, analyze every check, and scrutinize every action.  Good or bad (depending on your perspective), these reform groups have become our own education reality TV programming.

It gets so intense that we almost forget about those groups that were pushing “reform” before reform was cool.  But many of those organizations have not yet ridden off into the sunset.  Today’s exhibit A — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
For years, the Chamber has been promoting college and career readiness through its Institute for a Competitive Workforce (which, interestingly, is now championing early childhood education).  Its Leaders and Laggards analysis, particularly 2007’s on school effectiveness, has a been a useful tool.  The Chamber even has former EdSec Margaret Spellings as a senior advisor and president of its U.S. Forum for Policy Innovation. 
But this little history lesson isn’t the focus of Eduflack’s attention.  Instead, I was drawn in by the Chamber’s advertising in this week’s Roll Call newspaper, the back page of the newspaper, no less.
The full-page ad offers the header, “Congress, Don’t Fail on Education Reform.”  Building off of the photo of a confused kindergartner, the Chamber offers some chronological stats.  For 2021, “By the time he reaches the ninth grade, he could be part of the 70% of middle school students who score below grade level in reading and math.”  For 2025, “If he makes it to high school, he may be one of the 1.3 million American students who drop out of high school.  And for 2027, “If he gets to college, he may be among the 40% of students who will be required to enroll in remedial courses.”
The call to action has three components to it.  “Congress, act now to: Hold our nation’s schools accountable; Promote effective teachers; and Provide choices to parents.”
Yes, we’ve heard these statistics before (and often from Spellings and company when they ran Maryland Avenue).  The call to action could be from either the NCLB era or from EdSec Duncan’s own ESEA blueprint.  So let’s go a little deeper into the rhetoric.
The ad closes with two additional sentences of text.  “Now is not the time to retreat from our national commitment to the success of every child.  If we don’t address our broken education system today, then our kids and our nation will pay the price.”
A little old school, a little new school (or a little Texas, a little Chicago, if you prefer).  The first sentence, a clear defense of NCLB and its role in putting us on the path to success.  The latter, borrowed from President Obama and his call for change.  Which leads to the confusion.  So now is not the time to retreat from our broken education system?  If not now, when?  And if not now, why not?
In many ways, the Chamber’s latest advertising campaign is but a microcosm of our current struggles in school improvement.  We need to build on the successes of the past, while casting aside the reforms that didn’t work.  We need to display a sense of urgency for change, but need to do so in a way tips a hat to those doing well.  And we need to do it all in an environment where the average person, even the average congressman, believes the average school district and average school building is doing just fine.
As always, the devil is in the details.  Whose version of accountability should Congress follow?  Which definition of effective teachers?  And what “choices” do we want to provide to parents?  Where Congress (and governors and state legislators) turn for answers is the next great education policy battleground.  Will anyone besides the “reformy” groups step forward and offer some substantive, even if unpopular, policy reccs to address such issues?  Only time will tell …
 

Chiefs, Change, Cheers?

Eduflack accountability, CCSSO, ESEA, Michelle Rhee

Nearly a decade ago, a new organization of chief state school officers was charting new ground.  The Education Leaders Council (ELC) was THE hip group to belong to.  NCLB was the freshly minted law of the land.  Chiefs, influencers, and vendors wanted to be part of the ELC posse, seeing the group as the drivers of NCLB in key states.  And many were believing ELC would overtake the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) as the state supe organization of choice, becoming the state ed policy voice in the country.  Five short years later, ELC was no longer.

Late last year, five up-and-coming, reform-minded chief state school officers announced the launch of “Chiefs for Change,” a group designed to push state-level policy issues from the state supe level.  The founding members were Florida’s Eric Smith, Indiana’s Tony Bennett, Louisiana’s Paul Pastorek, Rhode Island’s Deborah Gist, and Virginia’s Gerard Robinson.  Since establishing the group, Smith has announced he is stepping down from his post as Florida’s top education voice.
Last week, five new members were named to the state ed policy reform cabal.  The new five are Maine’s Stephen Bowen, New Jersey’s Chris Cerf, New Mexico’s Hanna Skandera, Oklahoma’s Janet Barresi, and Tennessee’s Kevin Huffman.
Chiefs for Change is promising to be very much a policy-driving organization, far more so than CCSSO.  Its nine and a half members (including Smith) are committed to finding a common voice on issues like teacher evaluation and testing.  They clearly will offer some rhetorical hand grenades when it comes to ESEA reauthorization.  So where will they come down on the issues?
While many are quick to say the group is non-partisan (or at least bi-partisan), take a look at the roster.  Of the 10 members, nine represent states helmed by Republican governors, and one (RI) now represents an independent governor.  One can also find deep roots to both the Jeb Bush family tree of ed reformers, as well as to the formal “Education Reform” community.  And there are a number of states represented who now have ties to Michelle Rhee and her relatively new “StudentsFirst” organization.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?  It is still too early to tell.  Twenty percent of the nation’s chief state school officers have decided to join together to offer a louder, more coordinated voice on education policy.  Those chiefs sing from the same hymnal on many of the key policy issues of the day.  Some states (Tennessee, Florida, Louisiana, Indiana) are now seen as major ed reform states.  Others (Virginia, New Jersey, Maine) can best be called defenders of the status quo, at least historically.  All (except for Indiana and Louisiana) are working with governors in the first halves of their terms, meaning they may have real time to bring real change. 
What’s left to be seen is HOW Chiefs for Change plans to operate.  In deconstructing ELC, one of its challenges is it tried to out-CCSSO CCSSO, building a similar model, similar management structure, and similar expectations.  Instead of being a nimble rump group focused on change, it almost tried to build CCSSO 2.0.  And we clearly didn’t need a newer version of the established organization.
So the question before Chiefs is how it functions.  If it throws aside process in favor of results, it has potential.  If it is designed to serve as an advocacy soapbox for reform-minded supes, it brings promise.  And if it is willing to take provocative stances on complex and controversial policy issues, it could signal progress.
At this point, Chiefs for Change doesn’t need to look to recruit new members or scope out locations for its 2012 annual conference.  It has critical mass, and it has some forward-looking chiefs who know how to use 21st century communications tools to replace those by-gone days of three-day conferences.  Instead, Chiefs for Change needs its nail its version of 95 Theses to the schoolhouse door.  And it needs to do so now, before ESEA is rewritten.  
We all recognize that the states are where ed policy action is happening.  The feds have played their hand, and are now looking for some additional dollars to buy back into the game.  Statehouses now have the power, and state chiefs are holding all the cards.  If we are going to see real movement in the area of school improvement, we need a real call to action at the state level.  Chiefs for Change could be that vehicle, if it learns from the past and engages for the future.

Finding Heart in School Budgets

Eduflack accountability, teachers

OK, I’ll admit it.  Eduflack has always been a data guy.  I like to see the proof.  I want to measure effectiveness based on outcomes.  I make jokes about those who emphasize (or solely focus on) the inputs that go into our educational systems.

As many readers know, one of the hats I wear away from this blog is that of local school board member.  Like most communities, this year we are grappling with larger student populations, higher costs, and shrinking municipal budgets.  For some, it is easy to make this a green eyeshade exercise, basing budgetary decisions solely on the dollars and cents.  But for a school system, doing so jeopardizes the very operation.  That “numbers only” approach forgets that schools are only as good as the educators who staff them.
What do I mean?  Check out a recent commentary I penned for one of my local media outlets.  Somewhere in the budget process — particularly for schools — we need to identify, and support, the heart and soul of our schools and our community.  Yes, we need to develop and pass responsible budgets.  But we can’t lose sight of the mission as we are looking at those columns of dollar figures.  

$4B vs. $4B

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, AYP, RTT

It appears that not all pots of $4 billion are created equal, at least not according to EdSec Arne Duncan.  Out at the Education Writers Association conference last week, Duncan was scratching his head regarding an interesting paradox.  We talk, ad nauseam, about the $4 billion the federal government has committed to the 12 states that won Race to the Top (RttT).  But why do we say virtually nothing about the $4 billion available through the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program that is serving the lowest 5 percent of all schools in the county?

Between the lines of his question, Duncan seemed to be saying that SIG, at its heart, could ultimately have more of an impact on student achievement across the nation than our deal ol’ RttT.  After all, every state can get a piece of SIG.  SIG is targeted specifically at boosting student achievement (as opposed to Race’s multiple goals and objectives).  And ED even has specific expectations and measures to determine SIG effectiveness out of the gate.
So why is SIG not getting the love from the media or from school improvement folks that RttT is?  First and foremost, Race is sexy.  Huge dollars for a small group of states to think big thoughts and do interesting things.  A competitive process that made all states equals, where a state like Delaware can best a state like California.  The political intrigue of what states won, what states lost, and why.  A public scoring process similar to the Miss America pageant.  And repeated mentions of the promise of RttT in presidential speeches, State of the Unions, and now multiple budgets.  Obama loves Race, but seems ambivalent about SIG.
Despite all of its upside and potential as a real change agent, SIG remains a bastard stepchild in the process.  We want to talk about those states that are “winning,” not those schools that are our lowest performing.  We want to focus on best of class.  And those individual SIG grants ultimately pale in comparison to the hundreds of millions of dollars one particular state won in RttT competition.
It really is a shame, though.  Duncan is right; $4 billion isn’t necessarily created equal.  While Race may be a nice showhorse in the great education reform parade, SIG has is the real workhorse.  When we look at the numbers and see the challenges before our schools — particularly those serving historically disadvantaged populations — it is SIG that is going to make the real difference. 
At a time when we are lamenting education programs that have had their $20 or $25 million appropriation eliminated by the President or Congress (depending on your perspective), don’t we need a little more attention on the $4 billion that is being committed to help our truly struggling schools?  Talking about the fun a dozen states may have spending their RttT largesse is fun, but the truly interesting stories are likely what those SIG schools are actually doing to change the fates and futures of the kids who walk through their doors.
  

Education and the FY2011 Budget

Eduflack accountability, ESEA, i3, Obama, RTT

Details are starting to trickle in on how the U.S. Department of Education will be affected by the budget deal cut late Friday by President Obama and congressional leaders.  And how does our little education space shake out?

The Winners
* Additional $700 million for Race to the Top (though still likely for states, not districts)
* Additional $150 million for Investing in innovation
* Additional $20 million for Promise Neighborhoods (added to original $10 million)
The Losers
* Every ED program (a 0.2%, across-the-board cut for all programs)
* Striving Readers eliminated ($250 million)
* Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) grants eliminated ($100 million)
* $97 million cut to Safe and Drug-Free Schools
* Smaller Learning Communities eliminated ($88 million)
* $73 million cut for Teaching of Traditional History
* Even Start eliminated ($66.5 million)
* LEAP eliminated ($63.9 million)
* Robert C. Byrd Scholarships eliminated ($42 million)
* Arts in Education eliminated ($40 million)
* National Writing Project eliminated ($25.6 million)
* $25 million cut for TRIO
* Reading is Fundamental eliminated ($24.8 million)
* $20 million cut for state assessments
* $20 million cut for GEAR UP
* Literacy Through School Libraries eliminated ($19.1 million)
* Teach for America eliminated ($18 million)
* $15 million cut for English Language Acquisition State Grants
* $13 million cut for Regional Education Labs
* $13 million cut for Recordings for the Blind
* Grants to Gulf Coast States eliminated ($12 million)
* National Board for Professional Teaching Standards eliminated ($10.6 million)
* $10 million cut for School Improvement Grants (SIG)
* Special Olympics eliminated ($8.1 million)
* Javitz Gifted and Talented program eliminated ($7.5 million)
* $5 million cut for Comprehensive Centers
* $5 million cut for Teacher Quality State Grants
* Thurgood Marshall Legal Scholarships eliminated ($3 million)
* STEM foreign language teacher training eliminated ($2.2 million)
* Underground Railroad program eliminated ($1.9 million)
* Close Up Fellowships eliminated ($1.9 million)
* $1 million cut for ESEA evaluation
And, perhaps most devastating, the Historic Whaling and Trading Partners program was eliminated, at a tune of $8.8 million.
As a parting gift, it looks like Congress will set us a new 1 percent competitive grant program, about $29.4 million, in the Teacher Quality State Grants program.  This will allow some eliminated efforts — like TFA, NBPTS, and the Writing Project, to compete for some additional funding.
Of course, none of this should come as any surprise.  For the past two presidential budgets, the White House has offered up all of the above programs for either elimination or consolidation.  So when Congress is looking to make cuts, the logical place to go is after those programs that President Obama himself has signaled as non-essential (even if he intended to allow them to compete for consolidated money through a competitive grant program).

The Perfect and the Good

Eduflack accountability, Arne Duncan, ESEA, NCLB, RTT, SBRR, Spellings, teachers

For much of the last week, Eduflack has been down in New Orleans, living the edu-life.  First stop was the Education Writers Association (EWA), followed by a multi-day play at the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

(As an aside, EWA has to be my favorite conference of the year.  I have to attend A LOT of education events each year, and I thoroughly enjoy EWA.  It is a fantastic opportunity for me to get to know a lot of the reporters and bloggers I know virtually, and I always get a kick when some of the associates consider me a “journalist” because of this little blog.)
At any rate, there was clearly a catch phrase at EWA this year from the policymakers and talking heads trying to influence reporter-think.  “Let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”  While I would argue that none of us in attendance are exactly a 21st century Voltaire, it was an interesting observation heard over multiple days.
EdSec Arne Duncan used it in reference to ESEA reauthorization.  Again stating his belief that we will have reauth done before the start of the school year (and more importantly, noting that we NEED to have it done be by the end of the summer), Duncan made clear that ESEA won’t be perfect (he didn’t quite make Margaret Spellings’ 99.94% pure remarks).  But real improvements must be made to the current law.  We know what those improvements are.  We have some agreement on those improvements.  So let’s move forward now down the good path, knowing ESEA will never be perfect for all comers.
The battle between the perfect and the good was also made with regard to teachers and value-added evaluation.  In discussing the great siege on Los Angeles teachers in 2010 (the LA Times is releasing version two of its teacher database in the next week or two) and similar pending efforts in NYC, the general sense was that revealing such data is a “good thing,” albeit an imperfect thing. 
And similar remarks made testing and assessment blush, particularly on issues like common standards and adequately and fairly measuring student achievement across the nation and around the world.
It is all a subtle shift in rhetoric, but an important one for the school improvement debate.  For about a decade now, we were certain in what we needed to do.  NCLB was perfect (or 99.94% so).  RF was perfect.  SBR was perfect.  AYP was perfect.  And even now, CCSSI is perfect.  But with all of this perfection, we’ve seen little growth in student achievement and little agreement on the paths we should head, the speed we should take, and the ultimate destination we should seek.
So now we are focusing on common sense progress.  What incremental steps can we take?  What promising practices can we follow?  What gets us half of the way forward?  Instead of throwing that Hail Mary we’ve all sought in education for decades, we have made the decided shift to a “three yards and a cloud of dust” approach lately.  (Sorry, Mr. Duncan, they can’t all be basketball metaphors.)
Such a rhetorical adjustment has both its pluses and its negatives.  It is harder for the opposition to remain strong when they aren’t fighting an “all or nothing” approach.  It is more difficult to stand against forward progress, even if it is slow.  But it is also more difficult rally strong support.  For supporters, who wants to go slow or compromise or wait patiently?
Will the education community’s embrace of Voltaire win the day?  The challenge EdSec Duncan and his supporters in the ed space have is a matter of priority.  Championing the good is a fine strategy if we can identity primary and secondary needs at this point.  But with ESEA, a range of funding issues from RttT to SIG, common core standards, revisions to AYP, teacher performance and incentive issues, and a host of other topics, something has to give.  In the pursuit of the good, we have to recognize that even good can be subjective.  We’ll never be perfect, but we still need to determine those one or two issues on which we can be really good this year.
  

Standards or Curriculum, Curriculum or Standards?

Eduflack accountability, assessment, AYP, CCSSO, national standards, NGA

Over at ASCDedge (a professional networking community managed by, of course, ASCD), Steven Weber reflects on recent Education Week coverage on the topic of Common Core State Standards and how it relates to curriculum.  One of the key questions Weber asks those in “the community” is “Do you think that the Common Core State Standards are curriculum or do you believe there is a distinct difference between standards and curriculum?”

When I was out at ASCD last week, I heard some very similar concerns from educators across the country.  Lots of teachers freaked out by CCSSI because they believe it is the “new curriculum” to go with the new world order likely coming through the reauthorization of ESEA.
If one ventures over to the CCSSI website, it is nearly impossible to even find the word “curriculum.”  In describing what CCSSI is, the good folks at National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers are pretty darned clear about what common standards are, and curriculum ain’t it.  Just take a look at the description:

The standards are informed by the highest, most effective models from states across the country and countries around the world, and provide teachers and parents with a common understanding of what students are expected to learn. Consistent standards will provide appropriate benchmarks for all students, regardless of where they live.

These standards define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school able to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce training programs. The standards:

    • Are aligned with college and work expectations;
    • Are clear, understandable and consistent;
    • Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills;
    • Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards;
    • Are informed by other top performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society; and
    • Are evidence-based.

Lots on skill.  Lots on standards.  Nothing about curriculum.  The closest we have is they are built upon current state standards, which in theory tie to current state curriculum.  But is there anyone who believes that the hodgepodge of current state standards is very definition of a model curriculum?
So why the confusion and the concern?  First and foremost, it is driven by a lack of information.  CCSSI was released nearly a year ago, and virtually every state in the union has signed onto the movement.  But beyond those policymakers who put their states into the CCSSI camp and those consultants who wrote Race to the Top applications pledging to follow the Common Standards, few actually know what this means.  We’ve signed on to CCSSI, the thought process goes, so now what?
In the absence of information, we make it up.  We know CCSSI isn’t assessment and tests, because we have federally funded tests aligned with CCSSI currently under development.  But the feds don’t develop curriculum.   So we have a choice.  Vendors claiming their products are the CCSSI curriculum or the notion that CCSSI is the curriculum itself.  And while many vendors may be quick to claim CCSSI alignment, no one has yet been bold enough to claim they are the embodiment of the curriculum itself.  The only remaining choice, then, is that the standards must be the curriculum.  After all, what value is the alignment of product if it isn’t aligned to both the standard and the curriculum?
We all know that moving the concept of common core state standards into practice is going to take time.  We have standards.  We are developing tests.  It is now likely going to take us a few years to develop a curriculum (particularly with the 15% add ons most states will take advantage of) and then create the professional developments and supports to go with it.  Yet here we stand, expecting all of this to take hold in a matter of months, rather than the years it typically takes the education community to get up to speed.
Before we rush to accept national standards as a new curriculum, it seems we need to ask ourselves one important question.  Do national standards mean a national curriculum, or is curriculum best left to localities and teachers to determine?  Seems CCSSI is all about providing us one universal yardstick, but it should be left up to the user to determine how to hit a given mark.
    

It’s Common Core-tastic!?

Eduflack accountability, assessment, ESEA, national standards, NCLB, Reading First, SBRR

As the great Yogi Berra is reported as saying, it’s like deja vu all over again!  

This past weekend, dear ol’ Eduflack was out in San Francisco for the ASCD Annual Conference.  On Saturday, I had the privilege of addressing more than 100 folks who came out on a monsoon-like Saturday morning to learn more about how to build, execute, and measure a successful public engagement campaign in the education space.  A good time, I hope, was had by all.
After the conclusion of that merriment, Eduflack wandered over to the exhibit hall to see what companies, non-profits, IHEs, and government agencies thought ASCD attendees would be most interested in.  It was a full hall, comprised of many of the same organizations that make the rounds during the spring education conferences.
But the one thing that caught my eye was how many booths and vendors bore the supposed blessing of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.  We had “Common Core approved” and “Common Core certified.”  For those not quite willing to go out on the limb, we had even had quite a few “Common Core aligned.”  The label could be found on curriculum and supplemental materials, professional development and assessment tools.  It seemed to be applicable for everything short of the tote bags and candy giveaways.
Yes, I realize that most states have signed onto Common Core and are currently in the process figuring out how to move that adoption to implementation.  Yes, I realize the embrace of Common Core was a requirement of Race to the Top and is likely to play a role in ESEA reauthorization.  And yes, I realize the importance of having a one national yardstick by which we measure all U.S. students.
But we also have to be clear here.  States are adopting relatively general standards in just two subject areas.  We have no curriculum to go with those standards yet.  We have no tests to go with the standards yet.  We have no textbooks or workbooks or cookbooks that go with those standards yet.  in fact, we don’t even have the full standards yet, as all states have the ability to add 15 percent of their own priority standards to the common ELA and math standards currently in play.
So it just seems far too premature for us to be peddling the “Common Core approved” when we still don’t know what Common Core looks like in the schools and THERE IS NO ONE TO APPROVE ANYTHING ON BEHALF OF COMMON CORE!  No one is certifying or approving on behalf of CCSSI.  At a time when states and districts are worried about Common Core (and many at ASCD were), we have vendors marketing their wares to those concerns, promising the magical elixirs that will fix everything.
And that’s where the deja vu comes into play.  It was only seven or eight years ago when we saw the exact same scene unfold around scientifically based research.  In 2002, 2003, 2004, just about anyone who was anyone at an education conference was selling an SBR-based product that was aligned with NCLB.  Didn’t matter if it was true or not, everyone was scientifically based.  Everyone had an evidence-based core.  You could talk to a dozen reading programs on conference row in 2003, and they were all SBR.  Ask them what their research was, and most handed the same document to you — the National Reading Panel report (or the NCLB legislation itself).
The problem here is that people understood the expectation (everything needed to be scientifically based) but they didn’t understand (or didn’t care) what that meant.  The type of research required under the law took four or five years to develop, and the sales cycle didn’t allow for that sort of time.  So take the NRP report, slap a focus group or two together, put together some bar graphs, and there was your research base.  Add a colorful “checklist” aligning your product with the NRP and you were really excelling.
(As an aside, perhaps my favorite vendor at ASCD this weekend was one peddling a product labeled as “scientifically researched based.”  I don’t know what scientifically research is, but I’m guessing that extra “ly” makes the research extra good.)
Here we go again.  We all saw how successful it was to sell vapor and snake oil as SBR in the last decade.  It cost us another generation of students.  It killed a potentially strong program in Reading First and wasted millions (if not billions) of dollars in the process, as we couldn’t distinguish between the real deal and the posers.  
Before we rush to reach for the Common Core label, can we just take a moment to actually digest CCSSI?  Can we let states ID their 15 percent add on?  Can we see how districts apply it to instructional expectations?  Can we see how the assessment consortia begin developing their products?  And can we see, please, if these standards actually move into the classroom or if they just hang out there as a good idea that we agree to, but don’t actually implement?
Of course, there is one difference between SBR and CCSSI.  WIth SBR, the federal government established a new pot of money, $1 billion a year under RF, to help fund the acquisition of those new SBR products and services.  With Common Core, there doesn’t appear to be any new money.  Perhaps, as districts and states are spending their own funds from existing obligations and aren’t playing with house money, that they will scrutinize their purchases a little more, ensuring they are buying the real deal.  
There are some great products and services out there that do match up well with Common Core and can help districts and schools meet their current and future obligations.  But anyone can slap a label on a product.  It is up to educators to discern the strong from the squishy.  
  

Racin’ to the College Tops

Eduflack accountability, higher ed, Obama

When we talk about grad rates, the discussion immediately centers on high schools.  Drop-out factories and GEDs.  Dual enrollment and AP/IB.  ELLs and special needs.  For most, graduation rates are simply a K-12 game.

Two years ago, though, President Obama declared that the United States would produce the highest percentage of college graduates in the world by the year 2020.  In the course of this declaration, many uncovered U.S. education’s dirty little secret.  College grad rates are atrocious.  At many campuses, particularly our state colleges and universities, the norm is a six-year graduation rate (meaning giving students six years to graduate from a four-year program) south of 60 percent. 
Yesterday, the Obama Administration decided to take a step forward in its confrontation of postsecondary drop-outs.  Citing a need to graduate 8 million more college students by 2020, Vice President Joe Biden announced new funding to deal with college graduation issues.
The announcement included $20 million to colleges to “implement plans that can increase success and improve productivity in postsecondary schools.”  It also proposed $123 million competitive funds to “support programs that embrace innovative practices” in higher education.  A proposed College Completion Incentive Grant programs throws another $50 million in the kitty for IHEs “undertaking reforms that produce more college graduates.”  The full package is being referred, by some, as a Race to the Top for higher education.
Let there no mistake.  The mission and goals articulated by Vice President Biden are both noble and necessary.  Billions of dollars are underutilized each and every year by students who enroll for a first year of college, but never return for a second.  And that is just in grant money, not including loans or savings.  After decades of preaching the importance of a college education, it is high time we started putting our money behind a sermon on the importance of actually earning the sheepskin.
The problem with such an ambitious and well-meaning agenda, though, is data.  In that, we have very little data, and the data we have is pretty poor.  The U.S. Department of Education captures higher ed data through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System — or IPEDS — but such data is self-reported by the colleges and universities themselves (and many colleges actually disavow the very data they provide).  if a student drops out of our institution and re-enrolls in another, we have no idea.  We know college A has a dropout.  We know college B has an enrollee.  But our data systems don’t let us know that that dropout/enrollee is the same person.  Put simply, IPEDS is the best, worst, and only higher ed data system we have.
Last fall, I was fortunate to work on the development of College Measures, a website developed by American Institutes for Research and former NCES Commissioner (and thus IPEDS overseer) Mark Schneider.  Using IPEDS and other higher ed data sources, College Measures places a magnifying glass to key outcome measures for more than 1,500 four-year colleges and universities across the nation.  The results are startling.
The U.S. college graduation rate is just 57.6%, with public colleges posting a 55.1% grad rate and for-profits posting a 16.6% grad rate.  The first retention rate (meaning first-year students who return for a second year of college) is just 78.4% nationally.  That’s right.  More than four in 10 students enrolled in college won’t earn their diplomas.  And nearly a quarter of students who started college this past fall won’t return for year two this fall.  And don’t even get me started on what you see for particular IHEs.
Why are these numbers, as well as the wealth of information on state and individual institution performance found on College Measures, so important?  
Baseball philosopher Yogi Berra is famous for saying, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might just get there.”  While this may be true for baseball, it is the furthest thing from the truth in education, particularly higher education.  Noble goals, without the data to support them, are destined to fail.  If we are serious about improving college graduation rates, we need to be crystal clear on current numbers, current problems, and the general state of affairs.  if IHEs are going to innovate and reform, they need a clear understanding of the available data, need to determine the additional data necessary to declare mission accomplished, and then need to actually gather AND ANALYZE that subsequent data to truly determine the impact and return on investment.
Unfortunately, many of our colleges and universities just aren’t in a position to undertake such data efforts.  Initiatives like College Measures or Education Trust’s College Results Online are essential data pieces for connecting the rhetorical goals articulated by the President and Vice President with the realities happening on college campuses throughout the nation.  We know where we want to go when it comes to college grad rates.  But it’ll take us good data (and good people to analyze and interpret that data) to actually get us there.

“Teacher-Proofing” Ed Reform?

Eduflack accountability, teachers

“There is no way you can say teachers are underpaid.  At first I believed it, then I looked at the numbers.  Teachers get paid for just 1,500 hours a year, not the 2,000 hours I have to work.  And they CHOOSE to defer a third of their compensation for when they retire, getting a pension I never get.  If anything, teachers are overpaid.”

No, this isn’t a spoof of a discussion coming out of Wisconsin this past week.  It is a real conversation Eduflack had with a real adult about the real issue of teacher compensation.  And it points to a real problem that has surfaced in our battle for education reform, school improvement, justice, and the American way.
Without question, teachers are central to most of the issues discussed in modern-day ed policy issues.  Performance pay.  Achievement gaps.  Last in, first out.  Qualified and effective teachers.  Turnaround models.  you name it, teachers are central to it.
In years past, teachers were considered central to the discussion.  The thinking was you couldn’t enact real, meaningful change in the classroom without winning over the hearts and minds of those classroom educators who had to put it into practice.  Then along came NCLB, and an Administration that focused on “teacher-proofing” the curriculum.  Today, we have movies, governors, and segments of the media that identify the teachers’ unions as public enemy number one when it comes to school improvement.
For the record, I believe in pay for performance.  Years ago, I worked with New Leaders for New Schools on their TIF-funded model, and have the privilege of working with and learning from the folks out in Denver who established the ProComp system.  ProComp is one of the only successful incentive pay programs in the United States, and for good reason.  There, the superintendent (now U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet) worked WITH the local teachers union to build an merit pay system that was beneficial to both the school system and the school teachers.  The union was at the table.  And with both sides collaborating, there was one clear winner — the students.
Yes, we have much work to do to provide a high-quality, effective education for all students.  We need better-trained, better-supported teachers in the classroom.  We need to shift from a culture of tenure to a culture of performance.  We need to focus on the outcomes (student learning and student performance) and not just on the inputs (teacher ed programs and praxis exams).  And we need a major shift toward a consumer-based system, where all those involved recognize that needs of the customer — the student and the family — are being met.
But we also need to realize that the strongest path to getting there is collaboration and partnership.  Teachers want to see their students succeed, so what is preventing it from happening at the expected levels?  The answer to that question doesn’t come from attacking the teachers unions, stripping teachers of collective bargaining rights, or ranting about teachers only working three-quarters of a year or getting their summers off.  The answer comes, as it did in Denver, by finding that common ground where the school system, the taxpayers, the teachers, and, yes, the students all win.
Otherwise, we are doomed to repeat what we have seen for decades in “education reform.”  New ideas and new programs coming down from on high, with teachers shutting their classroom doors, ignoring the reform, and just doing what they’ve always done.