Achievement gap

Coming Together for School Improvement

Eduflack Achievement gap, Chancellor Klein, early childhood education, Students

Over the last month or so, a great deal has been written (and far more has been spoken and gossiped) about the wars between “education camps” and who is going to take the lead in the Obama Administration.  At Sunday’s National Urban Alliance gathering, the crowd heard from NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, AASA Chief Dan Domenech, and Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University professor and top Obama education advisor, on the need for coming together.  The message was a simple one, and it is one that all those seeking improvement in our public schools should take into account, particularly today when we swear in a new president.

What is that message?  Put simply:
* We are all committed to improving our public schools.
* In this process, nothing is more important than our children, ensuring all have access to high-quality education and high-quality teachers.
* Real improvement requires the participation of all parties.  Now is not the time to sit on the sidelines.
* Those committed to improving our public schools have far more in common than they realize.  Those commonalities are what will drive the agenda for the next four years.
Feeding from the energy, commitment, and passion demonstrated by the overpacked room at the NUA event, I would add a few additional messages for consideration in our quest toward school improvement:
* Lasting improvement begins with the teacher.  That means training qualified and effective teachers, supporting their ongoing development once they are in the classroom, and ensuring they have the materials and supports necessary to lead and inspire in their classroom.
* True success requires building on the promising practices of the past.  What can we do to improve and strengthen NCLB?  How do we preserve the good of the past eight years in moving us to the great of the next eight?
* We are learning, and teaching, across a continuum.  Our focus should not be limited to fourth through eighth grades, as NCLB’s accountability measures focus.  Learning begins in preK, and extends through secondary school and beyond.  We must invest and attend to the full continuum, particularly those who may have fallen through the cracks in recent years, entering the middle or secondary grades without the core skills or abilities they need to succeed.
* We must continue to challenge one another to get lasting improvement.  There is no magic bullet or quick path here.  It takes hard work.  That means challenging conventional wisdom and engaging with a wide range of perspectives to get to the best, most effective path possible.
* The achievement gap should be priority number one.  Education is a civil right, as so many have articulated, it also is a non-negotiable.  If we are to give every student access to the American dream — regardless of the state of the economy — we must first make sure that access to quality education (and the equitability of such programs, whether they be offered in urban, suburban, or rural communities) is universal and adequately funded.
* In 2009, improvement comes from a velvet glove approach, not from the carrot-stick version we’ve experiences for years now.
* There is a hunger to see real, tangible improvements soon.  Step number one will be ensuring that the economic stimulus money designated for public education is getting into our schools.  We must effectively capture those real-life stories of how such funding is making a difference and impacting the lives of real teachers and real students immediately.  We must show that economic stimulus in education is having an immediate impact in schools like ours, with kids like ours.
Yesterday, in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day,  Democrats for Education Reform held an education equality rally in Washington, DC.  DFER Chair Kevin Chavous’ remarks reflect much of what was said at NUA and much of what we should consider as we hopefully join together to close the achievement gap and improve public schools in every city and town across the United States:

At this historic time, in this city of our nation’s founders,  on the day designated to honor Dr. Martin Luther King and his legacy, it is fitting that we all stand before you to challenge America. Although this challenge is made out of love and respect, it is a challenge nonetheless. 

Quite simply, it is time for our country to stand up for our children.  As great as we are, we still are failing our kids.  Failing them miserably.  When half of the children of color drop out of high school, we are failing our kids; when we offer fewer and fewer AP courses, we are failing our kids; when our world education rankings continue to slide, we are failing our kids; and when we remain committed to a one size fits all model of education service delivery, we are failing our kids.  Yes, there are some very good schools in America that provide some children with an excellent education.  But that is not good enough and we are still failing our kids.

In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, Dr. King directly chastises white clergy for their unwillingness to confront the status quo on the issue of segregation and social justice.  Dr. King alludes to the interconnectedness of us all by saying that ‘we are caught on an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly’.  Indeed, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.  This is the inter-related structure of reality.

Like King, we need to be honest and forthright about what ails us in education.  If a child is failing in a school in southeast Washington, DC, it hurts the suburbanite living in Aurora, Colorado. And we all lose.  Until each and every American child receives equal access to a high quality education, our destiny will never be fulfilled, our promise never reached.  This is the last civil rights struggle in America and we need to employ the same sense of urgency and resolve that we did to end segregation during the time of King.

Indeed.
UPDATE — The MLK event where Kevin Chavous spoke was sponsored by Education Equality Project, not DFER.  But the power of the remarks remain the same.

Learnin’ the Language

Eduflack Achievement gap, early childhood education, ELL

Imagine entering your educational pipeline, not understanding a single word uttered by the teacher in front of the classroom.  Listening to classmates having conversations that you can’t participate in.  Attending a school district where dozens of languages can be heard in the hallways of a particular school.  In a growing number of school districts across the nation, these imaginary situations are all too real.

English Language Learners (ELL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) programs have never been more important than they are today.  Our student populations is rapidly shifting, and those students entering the schools speaking only Spanish or Hmong or Chinese are increasing.  According to Education Week, our public schools are now looking at educating 5.1 million English-language learners.  How do we ensure that those 5.1 million individuals, along with every other student, are getting the high-quality education we expect?
EdWeek takes a look at that question in this year’s Quality Counts.  The 2009 focus — ELL.  In addition to its regular state-by-state look at education achievement, the staff at EdWeek takes a look at a range of issues facing the ELL community, including “current research, specialized teacher preparation, screening and assessment of English-learners, and ways in which state funding resources and priorities affect programs for English-learners.”
The full Quality Counts report can be found here — www.edweek.org/ew/toc/2009/01/08/index.html.  What are the highlights?
* There is a significant math achievement gap between ELLs and all public school students.  On NAEP, for instance, 34.8 percent of 4th and 8th graders scores proficient or higher, while only 9.6 percent of ELLs hit the magic number. 
* The achievement gap is just as significant in reading, where those scoring proficient or better on reading was 30.4 percent nationally, but just 5.6 percent among ELLs.
* There is no national standard for dealing with ELLs.  According to EdWeek, only 1.4 percent of ELLs in Connecticut failed to make progress toward English-language proficiency.  In Maine, that number was nearly 45 percent.
* Thirty-three states set standards for ELL teachers.  But only three of them — Arizona, Florida, and New York — require prospective teachers to demonstrate competency on those standards.
What does all of this mean?
* We have a long way to go, as a nation, on ELL.  In New York City alone, the number of ELL students is expected to increase by more than 20 percent this year.  We need strong policies tied to real outcomes to deal with the increases in the ELL population.
* We need better data and research on English-language learning.  The breadth and depth of research related to ELLs, including how they transition literacy skills in their primary language to English, is lacking.  if the population is increasing, and our spending on the population is increasing (presumably), we need a better sense for what we do, how we do it, and how we ensure return on investment.
* And while we’re on the subject of data, we need more bilingual researchers involved in the mix.  If we are going to study ELLs with Spanish as a first language, we should have researchers who are fluent in Spanish and English involved in the process.  And it doesn’t hurt to have researchers who understand the social and cultural parameters that are facing today’s ELL communities.
* Like everything else, effective ELL instruction begins with effective teachers.  We should be looking at those states that have standards for ELL teachers, particularly those where teachers must demonstrate competency in those standards, and use that to model effective ELL teaching. 
* Whether we want to believe it or not, virtually every teacher is now becoming an ELL teacher.  Regardless of the subject or grade taught, if you have ELL students in the class, you are an ELL teacher.  It doesn’t matter if you are a designated ELL or ELA teacher.  Every educator must learn how to bridge the learning gaps for ELLs and ensure that student proficiency in math, science, and even the arts continues to move forward and English-language skills are developed.
* The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition is in desperate need of the spotlight.  OELA has long been a red-headed stepchild over at ED, failing to get the full attention it deserves in the K-12 debate.  Now that early childhood education is likely to get greater focus at ED and K-12 will continue to be priority number one, we need to do a better job to integrate OELA into both and ensure that ELLs are a factor in policy and funding for both preK and K-12.
Nationally, we talk about closing the achievement gap, boosting high school graduation rates, and getting increasing the number of first-generation college goers.  ELLs are a common instructional link to all three.  We can’t deny the population is growing.  So we must look for real, practical solutions to improving ELL instruction.  It’s time to talk the talk, in multiple languages.
 

Giving Voice to Those Who Cannot Yet Read?

Eduflack Achievement gap, AFT, early childhood education, Reading First, SBRR

After more than six years of work, the National Early Literacy Panel has finally released its findings.  Commissioned by the National Institute for Literacy and the National Center for Family Literacy, NELP was originally charged “to conduct a synthesis of the scientific research on the development of early literacy skills in children ages zero to five.”

The thought here was that NELP would build on the work of the National Reading Panel, which focused on kids in elementary school (those in kindergarten through fourth grade).  At the time it was launched, NELP was a hot topic.  Everyone was eager to jump on the Early Reading First bandwagon.  NRP’s findings were the law of the land.  The world would build a continuum on literacy skills connecting the early years of NELP to the latter years of adolescent literacy (as put forward by the Alliance for Excellent Education a few years go) with the good work of the NRP.
Six and a half or seven years is a long time to wait for the findings, particularly for what is a meta-analysis of existing third-party research.  So what did NELP find?
* The best early predictors of literacy include alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, rapid naming skills, writing, and short-term memory for words said aloud
* Instruction on the best predictors may be especially helpful for children at risk for developing reading difficulties
* To a lesser degree, students also benefit from concepts about print, print knowledge, reading readiness, oral language, and visual processing
* More complex oral language skills “also appear to be important”
Nothing groundbreaking here, I’m afraid.
Like the NRP, NELP also highlighted the limitations the Panel faced and provided direction for future research efforts.  Unlike its big brother, though, NELP is not likely to cause much of a ripple in the education improvement pool.  (And I know it doesn’t need to be disclosed yet again, but Eduflack served as a senior advisor to NRP, helping guide the Panel through its entire life and afterlife.)
Why is NELP different from NRP?  First, NRP took a hard stand on key issues.  The Panel purposely avoided publishing another “consensus” document along the lines of the National Research Council study that came out when NRP began its work.  The result?  A lot of attention — both good and bad — for its findings.  We knew exactly where NRP stood on issues, and loved them or hated them for it.  
Second, NRP took complex issues and related them back to the end user.  There was a reason we pushed so hard for a video report to accompany the telephone book-thick Report of the Subgroups.  Teachers, TA providers, and practitioners needed to see the Panel’s findings in real practice.  Seeing the reccs at use in classes like theirs and with kids like theirs made the NRP real and practical.
Third, NRP was audacious in its findings.  Teaching Children to Read essentially told the education community that reading instruction in the United States was broken, but we knew how to fix it.  The Panel (or at least all but one of them) boldly went out with real solutions to fix the teaching of reading, keeping the report viable long enough for policy and funding, in the name of Reading First, to catch up with the recommendations.  
I want to see those three characteristics in NELP and its Developing Early Literacy report, but it just isn’t there for me.  As I read it, the report is a consensus document, proven by the nearly seven years it took to produce the end product (for the record, the NRP study was conducted and released in on a two-year calendar).  The study, its executive summary, and even its press release seem to be written by researchers, for researchers, with little link back to the educators and caregivers needed to implement the findings.  And finally, the report is beige at best, blending in with dozens upon dozens of other education studies hoping to catch the attention of a well-meaning policy crowd.  The report is nice, but it isn’t the end all-be all, nor is it the solution so many of us are looking for.  it is a report that contributes to the discussion, providing some fresh perspective on what early childhood educators have known for some time.  It is nothing more, nothing less.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t hope for NELP (and similar reports) and the impact it can have on early learners.  Just yesterday, NIEER released its report on its recommendations to the Obama Administration on early childhood education.  PreK Now has been calling for an early childhood ed czar in the White House, with the group serving as the most consistent drumbeat for improving early childhood education.  So we have both means and opportunity.
Means and opportunity for what, you may ask?  The opportunity to move early childhood education toward the top of the list when it comes to education improvement initiatives.  How?  Through five easy steps:
* Step One: Identify clear policy initiatives.  PreK Now and NIEER have already gotten the ball rolling on this.  Obama campaigned on dramatically increasing funding for early childhood education.  The policy initiatives are coming.  Those leading this fight need to streamline our thinking, focusing on the top three issues (TBD) and keeping the collective focus on those issues only.
* Step Two: Identify a leader.  Libby Doggett is right.  We need an early childhood education czar.  We need someone in the White House who can harness the power of what is happening in ED, HHS, Labor, and everywhere else in the Administration to ensure that preK dollars are wisely spent and all programs are pointed toward core goals and real ROI.
* Step Three: Build a coalition.  PreK Now and NIEER are ready for this.  NCFL is probably game as well.  Bring aboard the teachers (through both AFT and NEA), the content leaders (IRA), and the policy hounds (NGA, NCSL, CCSSO, and National Head Start Association), and you have a real network to identify the national clarion call for early childhood ed reform.
* Step Four: Focus on the research and the results that come from it.  NELP provides some core research findings to get us started, as does some other work offered by the research community at large.  But at the end of the day, we need to know how to effectively measure any improvements that are put forward.  That means core academic standards for our preK programs which means a greater emphasis on instructional matters in early childhood programs, including Head Start.
* Step Five: A bold idea to stir the pot.  Call for Head Start to be moved from HHS over to ED.  Early childhood education is the gateway to K-12 success.  If every student is reading at grade level by the end of fourth grade (a task that nearly 40% are unable to master today), we must start instruction earlier than we are now.  NELP provides some of the necessary instructional building blocks for literacy.  Let’s take it even further, ensuring that preK is about both the social and academic preparations all students need to achieve.
Five easy steps doesn’t mean the work itself is easy.  But if early childhood education is going to get its due (and if the NELP findings are going to get any legs and be put to practical use) this is the roadmap we should be unfolding.  Now is the time for those leaders and that coalition to come together, embrace a select group of policy initiatives focused on ROI, and then push, push, push to get buy-in and adoption with fidelity, and then we may be onto something here.
At its best, NELP is one of many tools that show us what is possible and what intellectual resources we have to work with.  Now is th
e time to take that potential and move it into real actions and real improvements.  That isn’t going to come from a meta-analysis.  It comes from real policy, real advocacy, and real leadership.
  

Take Me Home, 21st Century Teachers

Eduflack Achievement gap, High School, STEM, Students, technology

Twenty-first century skills seems to be the topic of the day again today.  Over at Fordham Foundation’s Flypaper, Mike Petrilli takes a vastly different point of view from dear ole Eduflack, boiling down the issue of 21st century skills to making our kids tech savvy (http://www.edexcellence.net/flypaper/index.php/2009/01/the-conceit-of-21st-century-skills/#comments).  I agree with Petrilli.  Today’s students don’t need any help at all figuring out how technology works.  My two-and-a-half year old son is already more skilled on the iPhone than the eduwife, knowing perfectly well how to turn it on, get it out of sleep mode, and flip through the pages to get to his favorite game (the one with the rabbit eating the carrots and dodging the cans, for those in the real know).

And Robert Pondiscio over at Core Knowledge blog comments on my earlier posting about the real dangers of sacrificing content in the name of 21st century skills. Again, I agree with Pondiscio’s premise and point.  But one can teach the finer points of the War of 1812 beyond the chalkboard and mimeographed pages.  Content still remains king, but we also need to take a careful look at delivery.
We’re seeing the shift in our assessments, as bubble sheets are giving way to computer-based exams.  We’re able to use technology to determine student reading levels.  And states like Florida and Alabama are now requiring virtual education as part of their curriculum, with the latter now requiring virtual education as part of graduation requirements.  That, my friends, is 21st century skills, gaining the content knowledge we’ve prized for decades through new channels and new technologies.  Imagine the difference of studying the Civil War from a classroom in Minnesota, using a tattered grade reader and a chalkboard, versus learning it in a virtual environment with students who live around the block from the very battle sites you are studying, where you can access Brady photographs and clips from Ken Burns’ Civil War series.  That learning 21st century skills.  It’s all in the delivery.
This week’s Education Week has another interesting take on 21st century skills.  Stephen Sawchuk has a piece on how teachers in my former home state of West Virginia are adapting their practice to better meet our 21st century world.  And Sawchuk has one paragraph that helps sum it up:

Business leaders and policymakers more and more say those higher-order, critical-thinking, communication, technological, and analytical skills are the ones crucial for students to master as they enter a service-oriented, entrepreneurial, and global workplace.

I appreciate the sentiments recently offered by Petrilli, Pondiscio, WaPo’s Jay Mathews, and Andy Rotherham.  This is a real discussion that those committed to education improvement should be having.  How do we continue to adapt and improve classroom curriculum to ensure rigorous, relevant courses that hold a student’s interest?  How do we ensure the core content areas we all know are important –the reading, literature, math, science, and social sciences — remain in the curriculum and are effectively consumed by our students.  Current student performance scores show that the old way of delivering such content isn’t working with every student.  If we are going to close achievement gaps, boost performance numbers, and improve graduation rates, perhaps we need to rethink how we are delivering the content.  Some may call that a semantic matter of packaging, but I see it as a core part of 21st century skills.  21CS is about how we deliver content, not what we are delivering.

Yes We Can … Or Will We?

Eduflack Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, AYP, early childhood education, High School, NCLB, Obama

How committed are we, as a nation, to improving public education?  A decade or two ago, education ranked as a top issue in the minds of the American voter.  Yet this time around, education was an also-ran, a second-tier issue at best.  In survey after survey, we hear that America’s schools in general need improving, but not mine.  The common thought is that Rome might be burning, but my own neighborhood school is doing just fine, largely because I know the principal, I know some of the teachers, and my kid goes there.  And I wouldn’t send my child to a bad school, at least not intentionally.

We know from student performance data, though, that many of our schools are not doing just fine.  Students in all grades are still struggling to master basic reading and math skills.  A third or so of all ninth graders won’t complete high school four years later.  And only a third of those same original ninth graders will end up earning some sort of postsecondary degree.  We promise our children a world-class education, but we are still delivering as if it is class in a 19th century world.  This shouldn’t be a fight about status quo or not.  We all should agree there is room for improvement in our early childhood education and K-12 systems.
Over at USA Today this morning, the editorial writers riff off of will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” to spotlight the dire educational situation for African-American boys.  The graduation gap between black and white males is staggering.  Sixteen percent in Texas, 18 percent in Georgia, 21 percent in California, 22 percent in Florida, 26 percent in Pennsylvania, 30 percent in Ohio, 36 percent in New York, and a whopping 42 percent in Illinois.  In most of the states analyzed by USA Today, less than half of African-American males graduate from high school, and the number usually hovers in the 30-percents.
The full editorial can be found here: <a href="http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/index.html#entry-60921352
USA”>blogs.usatoday.com/oped/index.html#entry-60921352
USA Today uses the will.i.am song as its lead-in because it was a popular motivator in the 2008 elections, driving generations and demographics of voters to the polls (and to volunteerism) for the first time ever.  The video created for the song (and the Obama campaign) was viewed on YouTube nearly 15 million times, serving as a rallying cry for a significant portion of the American populace that felt their voice had been ignored in the past, and now was their time to stand up, speak clearly, and bring about real change in their community and their nation.
Step one was accomplished.  The “Yes We Can” president was elected.  Now comes the hard work.  Moving from “yes we can” to “yes we will.”  Current economic times make it difficult to say yes to a host of new education initiatives, programs, and efforts designed to make good on what millions of Americans committed to.  But it also provides a real opportunity for those committed to change to come together, set some common goals, and build community commitment to long-term improvement. 
Case in point, the Forum for Education & Democracy.  Until today, the Forum was known mostly as a convener, bringing together leading stakeholder voices to focus on “equitable access to quality schools for all American families.”  Today, though, the Forum launches down a new path of advocacy, looking to transform Obama’s mantra of “Yes We Can” into real school improvement.
Launching a national advocacy campaign, the Forum has begun a petition drive calling on the Obama administration to focus on four key commitments when it comes to school improvement:
* Every child deserves a 21st century education
* Every community deserves an equal chance
* Every child deserves a well-supported teacher
* Every child deserves high-quality health care
The national online petition is complemented by a new website — www.willwereally.com — and a new YouTube video featuring the ideas and, more importantly, some of the students, who can be affected by a new national commitment to public school improvement.  The video in particular (found on the home page) is worth checking out.
I’ll admit, there is a lot of wiggle room in the four key issues the Forum is putting out there through its Will We Really effort.  As a community, we still haven’t defined what a 21st century education is, nor have we come to consensus that 21st century skills should be the focus of our K-12 system.  We all agree that every community deserves an equal chance, until that means taking resources from my community to help another.  And we all believe every child deserves a well-supported teacher, until that discussion turns to boosting pay for good teachers and the new taxes that come along with it.  Like most in education reform, the real devil is in the details.  How do we capture these mission statements into actionable policy?
That is a question that will be left to EdSec in-waiting Arne Duncan and his presumably able team of leaders over at ED.  It is a question that will be left to our governors, state departments of education, mayors, and superintendents.  It is a question that will be left to the influencers — the Forum for Education & Democracy included — who are lining up to recommend new programs, new policies, and new ideas for a new administration.  And it is a question for the hopefully millions of parents, students, and Americans that will sign onto the Will We Really petition and remind decisionmakers of our national commitment to these fundamental principles.
For Eduflack, the answers are found in a few places.  First and foremost is the research.  How do we better collect, analyze, and apply data on our students and their achievement?  That data determines what is lacking in classroom instruction today and how to deliver a 21st century education.  That data helps us see what supports today’s teachers need, and how educators can learn from and lean on one another.
The second is ROI, or return on investment.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  We cannot change simply for change’s sake.  We must bring forward meaningful improvements that boost student achievement, get better teachers in the classroom (and keep them there), and convince every student that dropping out is never a viable alternative to earning that high school diploma.  We must start early, recognizing that high-quality early childhood ed programs ensure that disadvantaged youth have that equal chance to achieve.  And we must invest in instructional programs that get students performing at grade level and exceeding expectations.  Like it or not, we’re still talking about ensuring that no child is left behind.  Will We Really is just looking more at the whole child, and not just the quantitative performance measures of NCLB.
The achievement gap highlighted in USA Today should be a national embarrassment.  In 2009, graduation rates between African-American and white males should be nearing equity, not approaching 30 or 40 percent.  And we haven’t even looked at the gender gap issues.  Does anyone really want to see the numbers as to how black males measure up to white females?  Of course not.  
We’ve moved far beyond the issue of whether we can or not.  It is now an issue of whether we will.  Can we rediscover education as a national priority?  Can we clearly see the linkages between a high-quality K-12 education and economic opportunities?  Can we acknowledge we have no choice if we want to remain an educational and economic leader?

Putting the Schools In the U.S. Senate

Eduflack Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, charter schools, early childhood education, ELL, NCLB, STEM

If this is how 2009 is starting off, it is going to be a very fun and interesting year for Eduflack and the education improvement community.  Word out of Colorado this afternoon is that Gov. Bill Ritter has selected a replacement for U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, who is moving over to be Secretary of the Interior.  Over the past few weeks, a lot of names of been mentioned for the Senate seat, including those of sitting congressmen and the Denver mayor.  So why is Gov. Ritter’s selection so exciting for Eduflack?  Ritter has chosen Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet to represent the Centennial State in the senior legislative body.

Many will remember that President-elect Obama was vetting Bennet for the EdSec position, with teams on the ground in Denver up until Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan was named Educator in Chief.  Now Bennet moves into a far more interesting position, becoming a U.S. Senator with hopefully a seat on the Senate HELP Committee.
For the life of me, I can’t remember a former schools superintendent serving in the U.S. Senate.  We’ve had educators and professors and college presidents, sure.  But there are few who can speak on issues such as urban education, equity, and school improvement like the Denver Schools superintendent.  Ritter’s announcement is a big win for public education, a big win for reformers, and a big win for the Senate as it plans for NCLB reauthorization.
In moving from the Rocky Mountains to Capitol Hill, Bennet brings an interesting portfolio of moving policies into action.  His background in city government and private business show a leader who can bring together stakeholders and recognizes the needs and roles all audiences can play in the process.  What can that mean for federal education policy?  Let’s look at two areas where Denver has led.
Issue One — Teacher performance pay.  Many would say that Denver’s ProComp program is the only truly successful teacher incentive program out there.  The President-elect has already gone on record in favor of performance pay for teachers.  Bennet is now in a position to take the lessons learned in Denver (both the positives and the negatives), and apply them on the federal stage.  If EdSec in-waiting Duncan is going to seriously look at teacher performance pay (particularly with ED’s EPIC program holding hundreds of millions of dollars for such efforts), there is no better ally and advocate on the Hill to lead the effort than Bennet.
Issue Two — STEM education.  Colorado has been a leader in Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics education, with the Colorado Department of Education and the Colorado Math, Science, Technology, and Engineering Education Coalition (COMSTEC) taking the lead.  Denver, and its public schools have been at the center of it all.  Working with the University of Colorado-Denver and the Governor’s Office, Denver Public Schools has been working hard promoting STEM education and linking STEM literacy with economic possibilities.  Bennet can immediately become a leading voice for the intersection between education and the economy.
Add to that Bennet’s exposure to student equity issues, charter schools, the achievement gap, ELL, and other such issues, and you have a real platform and real experiences to build upon.  The education community has been eager to have a practitioner in charge on Maryland Avenue.  Now they also have an experienced practitioner writing policy under the Capitol dome.  If Senators Reid and Kennedy are smart, they’ll quickly give Bennet a seat on the HELP Committee.  And Bennet should be tasked with moving the Obama education platform — and NCLB reauthorization — by focusing on the school administrators and the educators necessary for the success of both.
Bennet’s soon-to-be constituents in Colorado, along with the entire school reform community, will expect a lot from Bennet.  He’ll be expected to deliver and deliver fast, particularly with a 2010 special election staring him down.  He has the opportunity to hit the ground running and make a national name for himself as a seasoned voice for education improvement.  Is it asking a lot?  Sure.  But Bennet’s ability to navigate issues such as incentive pay, charters, early childhood education, and ELL show he’s up to it.  Welcome to Washington, Mr. Bennet!

Resolving in 2009

Eduflack Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, AYP, early childhood education, national standards, PD, SBRR, STEM

The start of a new year brings us a new page, a clean slate, and an opportunity for growth and redemption.  For whatever reason, we seen the beginning of a new calendar year as the one day in 365 to focus on improvement and ways we can better ourselves and the communities around us.  With such an outlook comes resolutions.  And while Eduflack likes to see himself going against the grain more often than not, that doesn’t mean I don’t see the value in setting some goals and publicly declaring some resolutions for 2009.

First, our collective resolutions.  Looking across the education improvement community, I hope we can all resolve to:
* Be more proactive in our communication.  For too many organizations (U.S. Department of Education included), communication consists mostly of one-way discussion (media releases) and reactive activities in response to someone else’s one-way discussion.  We need to be proactive.  We need to build dialogues and discussions.  We need to set the debate and establish the vocabulary, and not have it dictated to us by a select few.
* Engage in innovative communication.  If 2008 taught us anything, it is that there are multiple channels and endless ways to engage on key issues.  Media releases and outreach to daily newspaper reporters are just the tip of the iceberg.  We need to better engage the online community, including websites and the blogsphere.  We need to add pictures to our words, using great technologies like Flip video cameras to provide real multimedia discussions.  And we need to use social media outlets to continue to build, cultivate, and expand the discussion.  That’s one of the reasons I started Educommunicators (www.educommunicators.com), and it is what I hope the community will evolve into in 2009.
* Better understand our audiences and know who can trigger real change.  Discussions of education improvement should not be limited to policymakers, particularly just to those at the federal level.  Discussions need to focus on a range of stakeholders — teachers, school administrators, school boards, CBOs, the business community, state officials (from the governor to the chief state school officer to the legislature), Congress, the new Administration, and the membership and trade groups that represent all of the above.  We need a large table, and many seats at it, if we are to bring about real change and real improvement.
* Better use of the data.  Unfortunately, research was used in 2008 primarily to punish rather than to inform and improve.  We use the WWC to spotlight those programs we believe don’t make the cut.  We use AYP scores to punish schools.  We use state tests to highlight the laggards and point out what our students aren’t doing or don’t know.  Research and data points should be our path forward.  They should chart the course, showing us our priorities and helping us measure our progress.  Data should be both diagnostic and inspirational.  
* Prioritize our policy asks.  We start the new year with an open book full of asks and wishes.  And we do so in an economic environment that discourages anything new and anything with a real price tag.  We cannot do everything, at least not now.  This year is about better using our existing resources and making sure our top needs are being met.  That means more effectively using existing Title II dollars to strengthen our teachers.  It means better using Head Start and other federal programs to improve early childhood education.  And it means using past Reading First and other Title I dollars to ensure that our school districts have the instructional materials and technology necessary to continue forward progress, even in a year of severe budget cuts.
* Recognize that the federal government cannot solve all.  We cannot forget that the feds are responsible for less than 8 cents of every dollar spent on public K-12 education in the United States.  ED has the bully pulpit to provide us leadership and vision, and needs to put it to better use each and every day.  But the real forum for improvement and work is at the state level.  As we look to 2009, we need to look at ways to better engage state governments, better help them navigate their budget crises, and build a better public education system to meet their community and economic needs, both now and in the future.
* Place outcomes over process.  Education improvement is not about specific programs or laws.  It is about outcomes, and it is about results.  It is about student achievement and forward progress.  Too often, we lose sight of that.  We worry about how we are getting there, instead of focusing on the end destination. NCLB was the perfect case in point.  In previous years, we were so hung up on the law itself that we lost sight of the equity and achievement it intended to bring.  It is all about the results.  We can’t forget that.
As for Eduflack, I have a few personal resolutions for this blog as well:
* I resolve to spotlight the success stories and the tales of positivity and progress.  It is easy to dwell on what is going wrong and lament the problems in public education.  We all need to do a better job talking up what has promise, and sharing best and promising practices so they can be modeled by others.
* I resolve to offer a broader national view of education improvement efforts.  Too often, my attention is seized by what is happening in the DC or the NYC media.  I need to do a better job focusing on what is happening across the United States, not just in my own back yard.  The real work, the meaningful work, is happening out there on Main Street USA.
* I resolve to step up my advocacy for issues I believe to be important to education improvement.  Successful communications is about advocating for change and helping stakeholders take the steps necessary to implement that change.  Eduflack should be one of the levers in such improvement efforts.  I’ve never been one to be afraid to speak my mind, question the status quo, and generally agitate the system.  This blog will continue to do just that.  But it will do it smartly and with purpose.  Eduflack will continue to push for STEM education, research-based reading, early childhood education, teacher training and PD, and national standards.  That’s just who I am.
* I resolve to amplify the voice of the virtually voiceless.  This blog is a megaphone for successful communication of education improvement efforts.  That means spotlighting issues not in the spotlight, highlighting organizations that may not be highlighted by others, and focusing on good actions, not just those who are responsible for them.
* I resolve to distinguish between reforms and improvement, with an emphasis on the latter.  In 2009, our top priority should be closing the achievement gap — the gap between Black and white, between Hispanic and white, and between rich and poor.  Our investments and actions should all point toward how we bring achievement and equity of learning to all students.
I also recognize my limitations.  Eduflack is essentially a one-man band, meaning the personal and professional can often get in the way of good blogging.  I have my priorities.  Family comes first, and my wife and two perfect toddlers will always come before a blog post.  I have my business, which allows me to pursue my passions of putting the critiques on this blog of how to effectively communicate and engage to work for organizations and issues that mean it most.  I usually look to avoid blogging about my clients and am always diligent about disclosing my relationships when I do focus on the good work of the good organizations I partner with.  That will continue.
I know that my blog postings are too long, often defeating the purpose of the medium.  That’s just me.  I’m trying to fully embrace Twitter in 2009 to streamline some of my thinking (you can find me as Eduflack), but my 2009 postings will cont
inue to read more like essays than quick dump-and-runs.  Again, that’s just me.  To quote the great sailor-philosopher, I am what I am.
Here’s to a productive, meaningful 2009.  A year when EdSec in-waiting Arne Duncan and company seize the full power of the ED bully pulpit.  A year where more people realize the intersection between school improvement and economic empowerment.  A year when data is better collected, better understood, and better used.  A year when public education truly improves, and not merely changes for change sake.  Here’s to a year of possibility and true public engagement on important education issues.  Here’s to 2009.

Looking for a Chicago Education Miracle?

Eduflack Achievement gap, AFT, Arne Duncan, Broad Prize, Chancellor Klein, charter schools, NCLB

Eight years ago, the education community was all abuzz about the “Houston Miracle” and how then EdSec Rod Paige was going to take the magic that transformed the Houston Independent School District into a Broad Prize winner, federalize it into No Child Left Behind, and leave a path of school improvement and student achievement in its wake.

Nearly a decade later, we’re still waiting for some of that magic.  Chalk it up to poor implementation, increased criticism, a lack of faith, or even programs that didn’t work.  But those Texas improvements, carried out in theory with even more zeal by EdSec Margaret Spellings, are still a work in progress.  We still haven’t bottled what made HISD the success story it was in 2000-2001, and we likely never will.
Interestingly, we are not hearing the same claims about Chicago Public Schools and the real impact EdSec in-waiting Arne Duncan can have on our nation’s schools — until now.  Maria Glod’s piece in today’s Washington Post paints a picture of an urban school district of reform, innovation, and improvement.  Test scores up, achievement gaps closing, performance pay awarded.  The full story can be found here — www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/29/AR2008122902672.html?hpid=topnews  
Eduwonkette (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/eduwonkette/) has been telling a different story on Chicago and its data.  So have others on the blogsphere who look at the third-largest school district in the nation and wonder if it has come far enough and if it has accomplished enough to be sold as a success story.
Leading an urban school district is hard work.  The life expectancy for a schools superintendent is about three years.  Duncan has been there more than twice as long.  He’s worked with a strong union (the AFT affiliate in Chicago) and he’s managed to expand charter schools and implement a performance pay plan that seems to be working, at least according to WaPo.  And he’s mostly done it without drawing headlines for himself.
This past fall, Eduflack learned how strongly folks feel about NYC Public Schools and the alleged turnaround led by Chancellor Joel Klein.  I’ve remarked that the NYCDOE has demonstrated improvement.  Test scores are up.  Achievement gap is closing.  NYC kids are doing better against students upstate than they used to.  Such remarks brought a hail storm of attacks from those on the front lines in New York, those who believed that such statements were merely the PR work of a zealous schools chancellor.  Folks just didn’t want to believe that NYC schools and NYC schoolteachers had begun to turn the corner on student achievement.
The same could be said about Chicago.  Demonstrating eye-popping results in a school district of 400,000 is near impossible.  Incremental gains are the proof.  The case studies and stories offered by Glod and WaPo give us insight into the sorts of improvements Duncan and his team have brought to Chicago.  We know there is a lot more we need to learn about Duncan and Chicago.  But the data demonstrates an uptick.  And we all know that upward movement is better than downward.
But there is a larger issue here, one not raised during the Paige era and one that should be raised during the Duncan era.  The EdSec is not intended to be a superintendent in chief, the top supe in a nation of chief school officers.  He is meant to lead federal investment, policymaking, and thought leadership on education.  Yes, being a supe brings a unique perspective to that job, allowing very real experiences in boosting student achievement, closing the achievement gap, and negotiating collective bargaining agreements with teachers to educate and color one’s world view on education policy.  It demonstrates one understands the challenges facing today’s educators and today’s school leaders.  And it shows appreciation for practice and impact, and not just theory.
It is silly to think that Duncan is going to transform the nation into one larger version of Chicago Pubic Schools.  The CPS experience is helpful in showing us what Duncan thinks of issues like charter schools and performance pay.  It is useful in showing how well the incoming EdSec works with teachers, how much respect he shows them, and how much power he grants them in school improvement efforts.  And it helps determine whether he is an improver or a status quoer, whether he will go along with what has always been done or whether he will bring about real change for a real goal.
We shouldn’t be looking at Chicago test scores and ask how we replicate the experience nationwide.  Instead, we need to look at the innovations implemented by Duncan, the team he’s built, and the relationships he’s established with Chicago teachers, families, and community and business leaders and use all that information as a map for what is possible and where ED may head.  We look at the Chicago experience to measure Duncan’s character and set our expectations for the next four years.  

Hiding High School Graduation Standards?

Eduflack Achievement gap, AYP, High School, national standards, NGA, Spellings

In case you missed it (and you likely did, based on timing), the U.S. Department of Education finally released its non-regulatory guidance regarding a uniform national high school graduation rate.  Readers may recall that EdSec Spellings announced the federal government’s intent to adopt the four-year graduation rate established years ago by the National Governors Association, agreed to by all 50 states soon after, and adopted by many states already.  Well, on Christmas Eve’s Eve, ED decided to offer some of the specifics around the new grad rate.

The highlights, according to ED itself:
* Defines the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate, the extended-year adjusted cohort graduation rate, and the transitional graduation rates that are allowable until States must implement the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate
* Guides States in setting a single graduation rate goal and annual graduation rate targets
* Outlines requirements for reporting graduation rates
* Answers questions about how States include the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate and any extended-year adjusted cohort graduation rate in AYP determinations, including the use of disaggregated rates for student subgroups
* Explains how a State must revise its Consolidated State Application Accountability Workbook to include certain information and submit its revisions to the Department for technical assistance and peer review
* Clarifies the timeline for implementing the new graduation rate provisions, as well as the process for how a State that cannot meet the deadlines outlined in the final regulations may request, from the Secretary, an extension of time to meet the requirements.
Thanks to the FritzWire for drawing attention to the announcement.  The full non-regs can be found at: www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/hsgrguidance.pdf
Don’t get Eduflack wrong.  I’m thrilled ED has gone and endorsed the NGA formula.  They should have done so years ago.  I also recognize that ED is using an awful lot of words and “non-regulatory” language to describe what should be a simple concept.  At the end of the day, the federal government is saying a high school graduation rate is measured based on how many ninth graders complete their secondary school education four years later.  Obvious exceptions are made for transfers and deaths and such, but high school is a four-year experience, and the measurement is a four-year yardstick.
No, what troubles me is the timing.  At no time in our nation’s history is a secondary (and some form of postsecondary) education as important and necessary as it is today.  Under virtually no circumstances should we say it is acceptable for any student to drop out of high school.  Dropping out simply is not a viable option.  This new formula is a big deal, with major implications for the states and for the nation.  We need an accurate count of how many kids are graduating high school on time (and then we need to determine why the rest are not).  So why dump it during a holiday week when no one is paying attention?
Years ago, Eduflack was doing crisis communications work for a manufacturing company.  We had a big story coming out, a story we didn’t want to see in print.  We couldn’t control the story, but we did have some control over the timing.  Through some creative issue management, the article ran in a major daily newspaper the Sunday following Thanksgiving.  Few read the story.  The issue was forgotten before the post-holiday work week had ramped up.  It died a quick death in the natural news cycle.  The lesson here — there are good times to release important news, and good times to bury news of concern.  Thirty-six hours before Christmas simply isn’t the time to garner the attention of the populace, or even just the education policy chattering class.
And that’s a cryin’ shame.  The move to establish a common high school graduation rate is an important step forward in the discussion of national standards and student equity.  It puts all high school schools on a level playing field, letting parents, policymakers, and decisionmakers truly see what schools are doing their jobs, where the true dropout factories are, and who is hiding behind a mound of disaggregated data.
I’ve been hard on the EdSec for sitting out much of 2008, shying away from the controversial issues and losing grasp of what could have been a positive legacy of education improvement for this Administration.  Her announcement earlier this year to embrace a universal high school graduation rate was a moment of strength and of power.  Unfortunately, the potential has again been squandered, lost amid a pile of Christmas wrappings and end-of-the-year lists of who’s hot and who’s not.  If this guidance couldn’t be released in early December, it should have been held for the new year.  It should have been released when education reporters were in the office, ed bloggers were updating their postings, and policy websites were getting their usual traffic.
A Christmas Eve’s Eve dump does a disservice to those states who have already adopted the universal grad rate, and paid the price because it dropped their numbers virtually overnight.  It does a disservice to those who have been fighting for high school improvement and for national performance standards.  And it does a disservice to ED and the EdSec, who again score well on intent but struggle with the execution.
Is it too much to ask for ED to maximize the bully pulpit it possesses?  Is it too much to think major policy issues and efforts to improve our schools deserve the spotlight, and not simply a midnight release as the last person turns out the lights over at Maryland Avenue?        

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Seeking Measurable School Improvement in the Buckeye State

Eduflack Achievement gap, early college, Gates Foundation, High School

We like to believe that the federal level is where all the action is when it comes to education improvement.  It’s easier to wrap our hands around, with one national policy to keep an eye on.  And it is cleaner when it comes to funding, as we just watch federal funding streams and an annual appropriations bill that has stayed relatively level-funded for much of the past few years.  In reality (as EdSec designee Arne Duncan will soon realize), the feds only account for about eight cents of every dollar spent in the classrooms.  The federal level may be the rhetorical brass ring, but the real action (especially these days) is happening at the state level.

Don’t believe Eduflack?  We all know we’re asking our schools to do more and more these days.  Close the achievement gap.  Make AYP.  Boost the grad rate.  Hire and retain effective teachers.  Collect and use meaningful data.  All is in a day’s work for our schools.  Our current economy is putting a major wrinkle in our plans to do more and achieve more.  According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 27 states have cut education because of the economic recession.  We’ve read about the 9 percent cut offered in Alabama.  We were disappointed by the hundreds of millions of K-12 cuts proposed in our home state of Virginia.  We’re also seeing significant K-12 cuts either implemented or proposed in states such as California, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Ohio, and New York.  These cuts are real, and our students will be feeling them.
These past few weeks, Eduflack has been paying particular attention to the state economic realities, particularly in Ohio.  The Buckeye State has a new state superintendent — Deborah Delisle, the former superintendent of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district.  Delisle doesn’t seem to be deterred by these budget issues, as least according to a new piece from Cathy Candisky and the Columbus Dispatch.  www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/12/19/copy/delisle.ART_ART_12-19-08_B9_93C9GRJ.html?adsec=politics&sid=101  Candisky depicts a real school improver in her piece, despite a possible $2 billion cut to public education in Ohio’s upcoming two-year budget.
What is Delisle focusing on?  Teacher quality, drop-out rates, and achievement gaps.  She’s looking at replacing the Ohio Graduation Test with a college entrance exam, recognizing that graduation is one thing, but having kids prepared for college is something completely different.  She wants mentoring programs and a highly-qualified teacher in every classroom.  She wants to boost student quantitative measures while maintaining (and we presume increasing) students’ general love for learning.  And she recognizes her battle lines are being drawn in her urban districts, the low-income, low-family-education centers just like those she just arrived from.
Why is this important?  What Ohio and Delisle face is really a microcosm for what we collectively must address.  Her agenda is remarkably similar to what EdSec in-waiting Duncan will likely announce and what the Obama campaign had laid out.  Her challenges are near identical to what other states — like Pennsylvania, Florida, New York, Georgia, Arizona, California, and others — must face.  And she is doing so in a budget scenario that would be considered doomsday by far too many chief state school officers.  Yet she is rising to the challenge and not backing down.  Delisle is spotlighting the need for communications and better sharing of information, and isn’t claiming that the absence of increased budgets will keep her from achieving her goals.  She really is looking to build a “world-class education system” in Ohio, and she’s offering no excuses to get there.  And as we know from our politics, as goes Ohio, so goes the nation.
Fortunately, Delisle is not doing it alone, and she’s got some real successes to build on.  Yesterday, KnowledgeWorks Foundation released data on its high school improvement efforts in Ohio, embodied in its Ohio High School Transformation Initiative (OHSTI) and Early College High School (ECHS) efforts.  Over the last six years, KnowledgeWorks (along with the Gates Foundation and others) has worked with some of Ohio’s most struggling high schools.  Working with more than 25,000 students and 2,000 teachers, KnowledgeWorks has some pretty impressive data to talk about.  The graduation rates in OHSTI high schools is up 31%.  The graduation gap in OHSTI schools, compared to all of Ohio high schools, closed by 77%.  89% of OHSTI sites reported an increase on math and reading pass rates on the OGT.  ECHS students earned more than 10,000 college credits, with ECHS 10th graders outperforming the state average on the OGT’s reading, writing, math, social studies, and science portions.  The full announcement can be found here — www.edworkspartners.org/pr121908.aspx  (Full disclosure, Eduflack has been working with KnowledgeWorks on this important initiative,)  
These are real results in schools that many would have given up on years ago.  These aren’t cherry-picked high schools or those with the resources to supplement and enhance at will.  These are urban schools in communities that have gotten poorer and have watched family education levels drop over the last five years.  So if it can happen in KnowledgeWorks schools, it can happen just about anywhere.  The OHSTI and ECHS effort gives Delisle and other state superintendents a clear blueprint on the multiple pathways available to improve our high schools, and how those improvements can both improve grad rates and provide postsecondary options to those who never envisioned it.  More importantly, it gives Delisle clear data that proves her state mission is achievable, assuming school districts follow the right path to improvement.  And she should know, her former district was part of the OHSTI network.  Who knows better?