AFT

School Improvement, the Gates Way

Eduflack Achievement gap, AFT, Arne Duncan, AYP, charter schools, DCPS, early college, Gates Foundation, national standards

Over at the Washington Post this AM, Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt asks the multi-billion-dollar question, How would Bill Gates repair our schools?  Reflecting on a recent interview Gates had with WaPo, Hiatt opines that Gates is an advocate for the sort of reforms that EdSec Arne Duncan and DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee evangelize.  He points to the status quo — collective bargaining agreements, tenure, resistance to charter schools, and opposition to pay for performance — as some of the great roadblocks that Duncan, Rhee, and even Gates face in their quest to improve public education.

Eduflack agrees that, for the most part, Duncan and Rhee must play within the system.  For all of this talk about innovation, Duncan must still balance the concerns voiced by traditional groups such as AASA, NSBA, the teachers unions, and others.  As for Rhee, all but the good chancellor have recognized that the American Federation of Teachers is not simply a work-around, and is a reality that must be talked to, dealt with, and respected.  In both cases, innovation and improvement can only come with, to a great degree, buy-in and support from those considered a part of the education “status quo,” the very component so many of us point to as the roadblock to real, significant change.
But Bill Gates, and the Gates Foundation, are a completely different story.  In recent years, the Gates Foundation has invested billions of dollars into our public schools.  It has experimented in small schools and has staked its claim in high school reform.  It has supported dual enrollment and early college programs and invested in libraries and other resources.  Now, it embarks on a path of human capital, seeking to invest in the teachers and administrators that are a necessary component to school turnarounds and school improvements.
So who says Gates has to play by the rules and the confines of the current system?  After all, this is a man who released a box full of mosquitoes as an international conference so all could feel the possible threat of malaria.  This is a man who built a global corporate giant out of his garage by refusing to abide by mores and by never hearing the word no.  This is a man who is investing significant wealth into American public education, despite so many people telling him it was a lost cause and he was throwing his money into a pit that will never yield a return.
To date, the Gates Foundation is thinking about the right issues.  School structure.  Teacher training and support.  Rigor and relevance of instruction.  Connections between K-12 and the workforce.  Pay structures that reward success.  Student assessments and standards.  Return on educational investment.  The Foundation has tried to implement these issues in a number of ways, trying pilot projects across the nation, looking for promising practice, and hoping to find real solutions that can be adopted at scale across the United States.
The latter is the most important point for reformers.  How do we adopt proven solutions at scale?  To date, we are tinkering around the edges.  We can point to achievement gap solutions in Ohio, early college successes in the JFF network, and virtual options in Texas, for instance.  These issues have come, in large part, from working within the system, as Gates seeks to supplement existing efforts and provide the funding to do more within the current system, essentially layering potential solutions on top of systems that may well be broken at their core.
More than a year ago, Eduflack reflected on this same issue.  How can Gates get more bang for its buck?  How can it move from tinkering to dropping a brand-new engine into our public schools?  How does it move from supplementing what is broken to supplanting?  How does it use its power, vision, and checkbook to literally build that better mousetrap.
In recent months, Bill Gates has laid out his vision for what our schools need to improve.  That vision is reflected in Hiatt’s piece this morning.  Flexibility in structure, evidenced by a greater need for charter schools.  Flexibility in human capital, evidenced by new formulas for training, hiring, and rewarding teachers.  Strong standards by which all students are measured, ensuring all students are embracing both the relevance and rigor of 21st century education.  And an unwavering commitment to success, whereby dropout factories are a thing of the past and dropping out is viable option for no student and no family.
So it has me back to my original thinking.  Forget about supporting existing school districts and trying to layer new programs on top of old, failed efforts.  Now is the time for Gates to be bold and different.  Now is the time for the Gates Foundation to chart a different course.  Now is the time for Gates to reject the status quo, and chart a completely new path for K-12 education in the United States.
It is a simple one.  Gates needs to get in the business of empire building.  Instead of investing in urban school districts and trying to overcome decades of problems that have become ingrained on the schools’ DNA, Gates needs to begin building alternative school districts.  That’s right.  Forget charter schools, we need charter districts.  If the current model is broken, as Gates claims, the answer is not to fix.  The true answer is to create a better one.  Move into an urban center and set up a K-12 charter district.  Determine the most effective, research-proven curriculum.  Train, hire, and support the best teachers.  Reward those teachers properly.  Apply strong standards to every student, accepting no excuses and demanding proficiency and success from all.  Better align our elementary, middle, and secondary school programs.  Engage students early on, so they see the relevance of their academic pursuits.  Offer internships and externships so all students see the career opportunities before them.  Build the buildings, implement the learning structures, acquire the technology and learning materials, and do what is necessary to get us to success.  No boundaries to prevent us from doing what is necessary.  No excuses to fall back on.  
These new school districts can build on the successes of Gates programs to date.  They can take the best of Early College High Schools, of the Ohio High School Transformation Initiative, and of Green Dot Schools.  They can also build on the efforts of KIPP and Teach for America and even from school districts like NYC that are truly thinking outside the box.  They can borrow and steal from the very best in school reform, community engagement, corporate innovation, and some of the news ways of thinking coming from small, nimble not-for-profits.
Then take this new system and provide families the choice.  Those who wish to remain in the traditional school district that has served their family for generations can do so.  Those who are seeking new options, those who are seeking new opportunities, those seeking more choice can opt for the Gates route.  It is about providing options and choice.  If implemented properly, such choices not only offer a strong Gates model, but the competition forces traditional school districts to act differently, improve, and meet the demands of their current customers — the families.  If done well, the rising Gates tide would lift all schools — traditional publics, charters, and privates alike.
I know what many are thinking — what an absolutely ridiculous idea.  Funders don’t do such a thing.  They provide resources to support the current infrastructure. They fund new projects and new ideas.
 They supplement, they don’t compete.  Yes, that may have been the way we have traditionally worked, but does it need to be that way?  Do philanthropies need to simply serve as advisors, consultants, and checkbooks, or can they get more active?
When Bill Gates built Microsoft, his mature business model was not to simply advise IBM on the operating software they needed.  He determined the status quo — both in terms of hardware and software — weren’t cutting it.  He tried working as part of that system, and it just didn’t work.  So he turned the industry on its head, positioning software as the driver in the technology industry.  Microsoft became Microsoft because he offered consumers a choice, and he offered them a better one.  After a while, it was no choice at all.  If one wanted to succeed in business, one had to use Microsoft products.
So why can’t we do the same in education?  Why can’t Gates use its investment to build a better school district?  Take all of those great minds that have been assembled at the foundation, and do it differently and do it better.  From the top down and the bottom up, build a school structure that is both student and teacher focused, geared toward real results, and not beholden to the status quo or the ways we used to do it simply because that is how we used to do it.
Could this path be a complete failure?  Absolutely.  The Foundation could get into the middle of it and find that curriculum selection, teacher training, and CBAs are far more difficult than they ever envisioned.  They could discover that managing buildings or dealing with operational issues is not what they want to do.  They could realize that human capital management is simply too difficult a nut to crack, particularly if they are not in charge of the pre-service education that delivers the teachers to their door.  They could even find that the first or second generation of this experiment is a failure, and they have to keep changing and adapting on the fly to meet goals and deliver on their promises to the community.  And, shudder, they could even find themselves lapsing into models and behaviors far too similar to the school districts they are trying to change and offer an alternative to.
Or it could just work.  Gates could pick a four or five cities, invest significantly in those cities and demonstrate how district-wide change can happen at the city, school, classroom, and student level.  They could identify those best practices that can indeed be replicated at scale in districts throughout the nation.  They can find a way to build better pathways and make real opportunities available to more students in need.  They can truly build a better learning environment, particularly for those who have been dealt a bad hand for far too long.
Let’s face it.  If anyone can do it, Gates can do it.  And at this point of the game, not trying is far worse than the risk of failure.  If the EdSec is going to stake a number of school districts with the funds to Race to the Top, why can’t Gates do the same?  We let ED fund internal improvements designed to improve current districts.  Gates funds the construction of new school districts focused on 21st century needs and expectations.  And we see who provides a better education, and a better ROI.  Let the best model win.
Now that’s a race any reformer would watch, from pole to pole.

Moving the Accountability Ball Forward

Eduflack Achievement gap, AFT, AYP, high-stakes testing, national standards, NCLB

Many educators have seen recent discussions about topics such as multiple assessment measures and the problems of teaching to a “bubble test” as early indicators that the high-stakes world of No Child Left Behind accountability are coming to an end.  We hear talk about the “whole child” and skewed test scores and such, hoping that we will find qualitative measures by which to evaluate our schools and our students.

But it all begs the question — why are we so afraid of accountability?  Why is it that only folks like NYC Schools Chancellor seem to be relatively lone voices in being unapologetic for testing and for endorsing the notion with teachers teaching to an assessment that measures student progress?  Why do we believe having hard data on where students stand up, even against the state academic levels, to be a bad thing or a necessary evil?  And how do we move the discussion from a fear of assessment to improving the utility of our accountability measures?
The spring edition of the American Federation of Teachers’ American Educator takes a look at the issue, including pieces by Richard Rothstein and company about how we need to look at the issue of accountability beyond just the core quantitative numbers.  The articles are well worth the read.
What was most interesting is Rothstein’s call to “enhance” accountability by combining student assessments with “careful school inspections.”  Currently, we look at assessment as a measure of basic academic knowledge, coupled by critical thinking and problem solving skills in more advanced assessment models.  Rothstein seeks to expand the tick list, adding evaluations of items such as arts and literature appreciation, employment preparation, work ethic, physical health, and emotional health.  These, he posits, are a collection of our ultimate expectations for public education, and thus should be part of the assessment process.  Again, how do we measure the whole child?
Rothstein does offer some interesting specific on how to improve student assessments.  Namely:
* Assess representative samples of students at the state level and on a regular schedule, not only in math and reading, but in other academic subject areas — science, history, other social studies, writing, foreign language — as well as in the arts, citizenship, social skills and health behavior.
* Gather better demographic data.
* Report NAEP scores on scales, not achievement levels.
* Use age-level, not grade-level, sampling.
* Supplement in-school samples with out-of-school samples.
The latter four all fit within the general push to apply multiple measures to our assessment efforts, all in the hopes of providing a more “comprehensive” view of what is happening in the schools, using data for informative processes, and not necessarily for punitive or even intervention purposes.  I’ll admit, when I hear many of the ideas put forward by folks like Rothstein, I usually see them as attempts to weaken our accountability and assessment systems.  Age-level sampling, for instance, weakens the notion of grade-level proficiency.  We know what it takes to successfully complete the fourth grade, not what it takes to move from 10 years old to 11 years old. So let’s park that for a later discussion on the softer sides of accountability.
I’m particularly taken with the notion of expanding the slate of course subjects for which we assess student ability.  Just as we look at student achievement on reading and math, we should be evaluating students (and by extension, teaching) in other subjects.  The visual arts, for instance, are identified as a core subject under NCLB.  Can anyone tell us, though, how we assess student achievement in the visual arts?  Is there a good state arts exam we can point to as an exemplar?
if we are to expand the scope of student performance, though, don’t we need to start with national standards?  Can we effectively evaluate student achievement without clear, uniform learning standards?  Don’t we need a real understanding for what students are supposed to know as part of eighth grade life sciences or 10th grade U.S. government?  If we are to move comprehensively look at student achievement across all academic subjects, don’t we need to set expectations for proficiency now?  And if we do so, doesn’t it make sense to set a uniform expectation for all students?
AFT’s discussion should be seen as a positive development for those advocates of student assessment and accountability.  We are not talking about turning back the clock on nearly a decade’s worth of investment in strong student assessment models.  We’re not giving time of day to ridiculous drivel such as those offered by resident curmudgeon Joanne Yatvin that the feds should “lose the words ‘achievement’ and ‘rigor,’ which have no connection to the inquisitiveness, determination, creative thinking and perseverance students need.”  (And kudos to Joanne Jacobs to calling Ms. Yatvin to task for wasting space with this relic of an idea from a failed educational era.)  If anything, we need to restore real meaning to words like achievement and rigor, using them for more than just a punchline for whine parties hosted by the status quoers. 
No, American Educator demonstrates that assessment is here to stay.  It is no longer a matter of will we or won’t we.  The challenge before us now is how do we strengthen the system.  How do enhance assessments so they provide a more complete picture of student achievement?  How do we use data to improve instruction and hold all in the learning process accountable?  How do we ensure that every child is equipped with the skills and knowledgebase to move forward academically?  How do we hold our schools, teachers, and students more accountable, laying out clear standards, clear expectations, and clear rewards for measuring up?
We are definitely approaching a new day when it comes to student assessment.  We have the opportunity to strengthen our systems, ensuring that data is not just punitive and information is used to improve instruction and measure the true abilities of our children.  If the Obama Administration is serious about our need to innovate in the classroom, we all must recognize that innovation only works with hard, research-based measures to evaluate its effectiveness.  Innovation without assessment has no impact.  Great innovation can only go to scale if we assess its impact, measure its value, and assess its outcomes.

“Because I’m the Mayor, That’s Why!”

Eduflack Achievement gap, AFT, AYP, Bloomberg, Chancellor Klein, DCPS, Fenty, Michelle Rhee

One of the billion-dollar questions in education improvement these days is whether change is better served through mayoral control or strong superintendents.  To many, traditional superintendent/school board structures are merely the last line of defense for the status quo, with supes looking to protect the same old structures and programs, because that’s the way we’ve always done it.

Mayors, on the other hand, have a bully pulpit unlike any superintendent.  They can force through real change, rallying key stakeholders (like the business community and philanthropy) that may otherwise back away from the same-old, same-old.  They can push through the new, even if it may face resistance from those defenders of the status quo.  They can put new leadership in place, layer in the necessary oversight, and do what is needed.
So it seems obvious that, at least for struggling urban school districts, mayoral takeover is the way to go.  But as Eduflack wrote last month, such moves aren’t necessarily slam dunks.  For every New York City success (and I realize that there are many who doubt the NYC DOE miracle), there is a Detroit.  Even recent research out of the Brown Center found no real school improvement impact coming from mayoral takeovers.
Apparently, the Wall Street Journal sees things a little differently.  Late last week, under the banner headline, “For More Mayors, School Takeovers Are a No-Brainer,” reporters John Hechinger and Suzanne Sataline describe how “more U.S. cities are considering scrapping a longstanding tradition in American education, the elected school board, and opting to let mayors rule over the classroom.”
For its case studies, WSJ offers up for mayors and their education successes.  In Boston, where Mayor Tom Menino took over the schools in 1992, they credit the takeover with major achievement gains in national math tests and the opening of charter schools.  In Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley took over in 1995 and is credited with improvements on state test scores.  NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2002 takeover is credited with raising high school graduation rates by 11 percentage points.  And in DC, the new kid on the block, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s 2007 takeover is also credited with raising graduation rates in a majority of high schools.
I learned long ago, courtesy of my friends up at Gotham Schools, to be careful when defending the improvements in NYC.  For the record, I believe that Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein have done a great deal when it comes to improving NYC schools.  We’ve seen the data and heard it retold by folks like the Broad Foundation.  Student achievement gains may not be exploding, but they are moving forward.  And such progress is a significant achievement in a system as large and entrenched as NYC.  Yes, I recognize that some teachers and parents have taken issue with the approaches Bloomberg and Klein have taken.  But at the end of the day, I continue to appreciate Klein’s unapologetic approach, particularly when he says there is nothing wrong with teachers teaching to a test if such a test is a fair measure of student performance.
Eduflack is really scratching his head, though, when it comes to branding DC as a successful mayoral takeover model.  If anything, Fenty and DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee have earned significant incompletes at this point.  Yes, Fenty has given Rhee the power.  But she still is fighting to implement a new staffing structure and is now preparing for what could be a bloody showdown with Randi Weingarten and the American Federation of Teachers over tenure and teacher incentives.  And while Rhee declared victory over the summer for first-year student achievement gains, the real win only comes when such gains are demonstrated year-on-year-on-year over the next three years or not.
But how can DC claim victory when it comes to raising high school graduation rates?  Most education researchers will tell you that student dropouts occur primarily between eighth and ninth and ninth and 10th grades.  The common belief is if you can get a student into the 11th grade, you probably can get them to stick around.  So how, exactly, does Fenty take credit for raising high school graduation rates in a majority of high schools when he only has one year of data (2007-08) to look at?  If more kids graduated during the first year of his mayoral control, is that due to mayoral leadership or to efforts put in place by the former superintendent and current high school teachers three or four years ago?  Most would say 2008 graduation rates are due to 2005 activities, those interventions taken years before Fenty took over.
I recognize we want to see Washington, DC’s schools succeed.  Even though DCPS is the smallest of the four school districts spotlighted, it carries a cache that Boston and even Chicago does not.  It is our nation’s capital, and a school district long seen as a disaster that simply cannot be fixed.  We embraced Rhee’s year one student achievement gains last summer as proof of success, even through we knew, in our heart of hearts, that a lion’s share of the success probably belonged to Cliff Janey and the previous regime.  We want and need DC to succeed, so we grab onto whatever we can.  We cannot afford for DC to become another Detroit, at least when it comes to mayoral control and school success.
WSJ does the field a disservice, though, by declaring such victory in Washington, DC.  Yes, we can look at places like Boston, Chicago, and NYC and look at five or more years of progress and results.  Any ed researcher worth her salt will tell you we need that much data to truly know whether a reform has been successful or not.  A year’s worth of data is meaningless.  We need some year-on-year information, a longitudinal view, to truly measure.
I’m the first to stand up and say we need to do whatever it takes to improve opportunity and success in public schools in our urban centers.  We have too much at stake, and too far to go, to pussyfoot around or nibble around the edges when it comes to real reforms and measurable improvements.  If it takes a mayor to take those steps, all the better.  It provides us a strong leader who can be held accountable for such efforts.  Let’s model best practices where there is evidence of real success.  If that comes as a result mayoral control, terrific.  
But we have to remember that for every mayoral success, we have equal parts failure or lack of impact.  Now is certainly not the time to declare premature victory or to misrepresent data that is, or is not, even there.  Although year’s worth of information is interesting, it is a far cry from a school improvement victory.  DC still has many miles to go before it is ready to even think about declaring a major win as a result of mayoral takeover of the schools.
  

Trust Us, We’re With DCPS

Eduflack AFT, DCPS, IES, Michelle Rhee, SBRR

Data can be a dangerous weapon.  In public education, we use it to validate ideas, attack initiatives we are unsure of, and guide spending and policy decisions.  Over the last decade, we’ve seen a massive transformation on data and research — what counts and what doesn’t, what’s good and what’s bad, what’s evidence-based and what’s purely squishy.  Through it all, though, we clearly know that data is an important component to an effective argument.

Along the way, we have picked up a few key pointers.  There is a difference between quantitative and qualitative research, with the former a stronger measure of effectiveness.  A medical model with control groups is the ideal, but is also impossible to achieve in the schools, as no student or no class wants to be the one that receives no instruction at all, limited to sit there like a bump on a log as every other child learns.  And methodology and documentation is king, particularly so others can scrutinize the process and replicate the research study to quiet the doubting Thomases.
When the National Reading Panel released its Teaching Children to Read report, it generated a firestorm of reaction and overreaction.  Many questioned the personalities involved.  Others scrutinized the methodology, and some the findings themselves.  So it fell to Rutgers University Professor Greg Camilli to replicate the research.  He applied a broader, more appeasing methodology, and found the same essential results as the NRP.  So the research debate ended (and the field focused on fights over personalities and implementation.)
When the Institute for Education Sciences released its Reading First Impact Study last year, it was seen as the final nail in the RF coffin.  Here was the gold standard in research models — IES — finding that there was no measurable impact of the high profile reading initiative.  But those who take a closer look at the research saw real problems in the methodology.  First, the study did not take the issue of “contamination” into question, all but saying that students in RF schools received different instruction, different textbooks, and differently trained and supported teachers than those in non-RF schools.  We know that is not the case.  But even more damning is that the Impact Study looked at a relatively small sample size to reach its conclusions, and did so in a way that the research can never be replicated.  There is no public record of what actual schools were studied.  And there is little hope that such information could ever be obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.  So hundreds of millions of dollars in education policy has been decided by a study with questionable methodology that can never be validated and replicated by another researcher, as the field scrambles to try and validate (or invalidate) the findings.
Why all of this background?  To show that the quality of research and the transparency of the process is key.  We trust that the evidence will guide us to strong policy and funding decisions.  We look for the data, believing the numbers will serve as a compass pointing toward student achievement.  And despite Mark Twain’s warnings about statistics, we still hold them to be a primary driver in our decisionmaking.  Citing data and research studies is often the final piece to closing a deal in education improvement these days.
Which is why the most recent pronouncement coming out of Washington, DC Public Schools is all the more problematic.  By now, most know of the battle between DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee and the American Federation of Teachers over the issues of tenure and teacher pay.  For more than a year now, Rhee has been pushing the notion of dramatically increasing salaries for effective teachers (assuming the give up tenure) and has secured outside, private funding to accomplish the pay raises.  Critics have attacked her for many reasons, one of which is the sustainability of such pay raises.  What happens when the outside foundations or corporate sponsors move on to the next issue?  How will DCPS be able to sustain the new, higher pay structure?
On a radio program yesterday, Rhee stated she had a research report from an economic consultant showing that the plan can indeed be sustained.  But she won’t name the consultant.  And she won’t release the report.  She wants us simply to take her word that she can make up the supposed $100 million pledge to DCPS for pay raises if need be, while waiving an unnamed report from an unnamed researcher to prove her point.
The full story can be found in this morning’s Washington Post — www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/02/AR2009030202785.html?hpid=moreheadlines  
Let me say for the record that Eduflack believes that Rhee’s teacher pay structure can indeed be sustained.  Quite honestly, she has no choice.  If she signs a contact with the Washington Teachers Union outlining a pay structure that will offer $135,000 salaries to non-tenured teachers, she needs to honor the CBA, regardless of changes in her financial pipeline.  A deal is a deal.  (Though Eduflack seriously doubts that AFT will ever agree to the deal, at least as it has been presented to date.)  She’s resourceful and will find the funds from other donors, or from within the DCPS budget itself if necessary.
But waiving around an unnamed research study that supposedly proves your point, no questions asked, but refusing to provide details, identifiers, or even the study itself is just amateur grandstanding.  The “I have in my hand” approach asks us to trust Rhee when, quite frankly, she hasn’t earned the trust of those she is seeking to reach.
If Rhee wants to show her teacher pay plan is sustainable, she needs to release her research study know and get it into the hands of every member of the city council and every leader at WTU and AFT.  And she needs to get its toplines to every single teacher in DCPS.  She should be making the data case now.  If she has the research, post it online, distribute it at DCPS headquarters, heck, hand it out to everyone coming to visit the Lincoln Memorial.  Get the data out there, let it speak for itself, and let your opponents see the true strength of your argument.
Trying to sidestep a major question like sustainability with a “Trust me, I’m with the government” approach just doesn’t cut it in the new era of 21st century school improvement.  Our schools, educators, and students have been sold a lot of vapor in recent years.  Victory comes to those who can prove their point, and have the data to back it up.  Until Rhee releases this economic study on the sustainability of her pay proposal, she can’t win the day.
  

The Measure of a Successful Graduate

Eduflack AFT, AYP, High School, high-stakes testing, national standards, NGA

This has been an interesting week for national education standards and firm performance measures.  We celebrated President’s Day on Monday with AFT President Randi Weingarten making the case for national standards on the opinion pages of The Washington Post — www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/15/AR2009021501257.html.  She makes a compelling case, a case that Eduflack and other have been making for quite some time.

It also flows nicely from the report issued by NGA, CCSSO, and Achieve at the end of 2008, focusing on the need for the United States to pay closer attention to international benchmarking, a push to effectively capture the right data so we know how our students are performing when compared to their academic colleagues in other industrialized nations.
Yesterday, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland raised the ante a bit more, calling for an overhaul of the state’s Ohio Graduation Test, citing concerns that nearly one in 10 Ohio high school seniors fail to pass the OGT (after multiple attempts at success).  The full story can be found from Denise Smith Amos at the Cincinnati Enquirer — news.cincinnati.com/article/20090217/NEWS0102/902170316/1055/NEWS.  
It should be no surprise that some in Ohio are already wondering if changes to the OGT mean increasing standards and expecting more from our students (as is Strickland’s stated objective).  Typically when we talk about improving student assessment measures, it means one of two things.  The first is the fear we will ask for more from our students (as is happening in Ohio).  The all-to-often reality is it usually means a weakening of the standards, dropping expectations to ensure that more students are hitting the magic number and schools are reaching their AYP benchmarks.
But the Ohio experience raises a very interesting question.  Can our states provide an effective “graduation test,” one that is expected to measure the full value of a high school education, in the 10th grade?  Obviously, we aren’t testing students on the math and science concepts that are traditional in 11th and 12th grade classes (including Algebra II, Trig, Chemistry II, Physics, or even advanced life sciences).  In some locales, it means not measuring world or U.S. history.  In each and every school, a 10th grade “graduation test” only serves as half of an effective measure.
Yes, Eduflack understands the need to provide students a second chance to pass this important test.  Yes, I realize the stakes are high, particularly when you say a student can’t earn a diploma without demonstrating sufficient performance on a single test.  But can a test taken in the middle of one’s 10th grade year effectively measure the comprehensive learning acquired during the secondary school experience?  Can a graduation test taken two years early truly help postsecondary institutions and employers know the full skills and abilities of the students exiting our K-12 systems?
The answer is clearly no and no.  We tell every student that they need a high school diploma.  We tell them that dropping out is never a viable option.  More states are even shifting to an 18-year-old age requirement for students to drop out.  But how do we expect students to take their full high school experience seriously if we tell them in the spring of their 10th grade year (not even the mid-way point of the high school experience) whether they have passed or failed high school?  History tells us that “failure” tag is not one that inspires students to buckle down and do what it takes to pass on the second or third try.  Quite the opposite, it provides students an excuse to give up, whether then remain in the classroom or not.
Critics will obviously say that there is no effective way to administer a comprehensive exam and effectively evaluate students at the end of 12th grade; we simply don’t have the time to do it right.  It won’t be fair to students that they be denied their diploma because they failed an exam a week or a month prior to graduation, they say.  Students won’t have multiple opportunities to take the exam, working to fix what may have gone wrong.  Teachers won’t have the opportunity to provide the necessary interventions to fill the gaps.
That’s where concepts such as national standards come in.  Yes, we should know what every 10th grader (as well as other students) should know and be capable of doing at the end of an academic year.  Those standards are core to a successful K-12 learning experience.  If students are meeting standards at the end of 8th grade and 10th grade, they should be prepared to meet the challenges of a true graduation exam in 12th grade.  If they are off the mark come 10th grade, educators have two years to intervene and empower students with those educational building blocks they need to succeed.
Yes, Governor Strickland, the OGT is not rigorous enough.  Kudos for trying to do something about it.  Part of the problem is the nature of standardized testing.  Part of that is the reality that we cannot effectively measure high school performance less than halfway through the experience.  A truly rigorous graduation test requires measuring courses and content gathered in 11th and 12th grade.  A true exit exam, offered near the conclusion of 12th grade, may seem as the highest of the high-stakes test.  But it is the only way to truly measure whether our graduates have the skills and abilities holders of a high school diploma should have.  It is the only way to demonstrate to our postsecondary institutions and our local businesses and industries that K-12 graduates are capable of doing what we expect of each and every graduate.
National standards give us the regular, ongoing benchmarks to ensure we are hitting the academic marks we need to hit throughout the K-12 process.  Effective data systems — such as those being built in some states and those advocated for by the Obama administration through the economic stimulus process — provide us the information and the research necessary to ensure our kids are hitting those marks, while providing teachers the guidance on necessary interventions and needed steps to bring all students up to proficiency.  And meaningful, rigorous graduation exams, administered at the close of the high school experience, are the final measure to ensure the impact and effectiveness of that K-12 education.
This is not an either-or-maybe scenario.  We need the national standards, the data systems, the exit exams — and the policymakers, administrators, and teachers who know what to do with it all — if we are to regain our competitive edge and restore real value to a high school diploma.
If we are to deliver real return on investment for our school improvement efforts, we must take assessment and data seriously.  We can’t wait this out and assume it will get better on its own.  We need to get serious now about teaching, measuring, and evaluating the effectiveness of public education.  

Getting to the Heart of DCPS, Part II

Eduflack AFT, DCPS, Michelle Rhee

A friend and colleague raises a very interesting, cogent, and all-around dead-on point regarding DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s op-ed in this morning’s Washington Post (written about previously today).  How can a commentary piece like this be successful if there isn’t an “ask” involved?  There was no sale, there was no request for one’s vote, so wasn’t it a wasted opportunity?

In the general sense, I would agree with her every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  So it really has me thinking that I’ve let Rhee off easy this morning (in part because I think I see the larger end-game than is reflected in her 700 words).  Successful communications — whether it be a meeting, a speech, a commentary, or a conversation — requires maximizing opportunity.  When you are given access to the opinion pages of one of the top daily newspapers in the country, you need to take advantage of that.  Given the forum, if you fail to ask for something, it is a missed opportunity, no?  Isn’t that Sales 101?
Not necessarily.  That’s why I raise the question of intended audience.  We can only truly gage the effectiveness of a commentary like Rhee’s if we understand who she is trying to reach, first and foremost.  From the tone, the content, and the context, it is fair to say Rhee was not speaking to DCPS teachers, the parents of DCPS students, or even the regular reader of The Washington Post.  She wasn’t looking for votes for her alternative pay structure, nor was she looking for PTAs to rally behind her efforts in the name of DC’s students.  No, I would argue that her intent was much more primal than we would think.
Rhee had two goals here.  One, she remind key decisionmakers of her relevance and of the innovation behind her proposed teacher pay plan.  Thus, her only intent was to inform.  She wasn’t looking to sell or get buy-in.  She already has that buy-in from federal lawmakers, DC officials, and leaders at key education organizations.  She just needed to goose them a little to remind them of what she was doing and demonstrate that it fits with the new world order that took over federal education January 20.  She needed to show that in a golden federal education age that will spotlight Teach for America, New Leaders for New Schools, KIPP, ProComp, and others, she was still at the top of the reform class.
Second, she needed to reassure her potential funders.  It is no secret that Rhee has lined up significant corporate and philanthropic support for her plans at DCPS.  These donors are ready, willing, and able to support the sort of innovation she is advocating for and has been talking about since her arrival in DC almost two years ago.  This audience would be her soft spot today.  She needs to keep these donors on the line, even though this transformation is taking far longer than originally intended.  Today’s piece — and its intended crosswalk with upcoming federal education policy — was likely intended to remind those funders that this plan will work, DC will be at the forefront, and this is a model that others will follow (and one that will ultimately be embodied in national priorities coming out of a new Elementary and Secondary Education Act, along with a realignment of Title II).
If you look at it that way, the only ask or the only sale that Rhee is seeking is one of patience.  She needs her supporters to continue to trust her while she goes to the mattresses with Randi Weingarten and the AFT.  Today’s piece tried to position DC’s reforms on the side of angels, fighting the union to do what is best for teachers.  But if we were expecting Rhee to ask for help or support from rank-and-file teachers, principals, parents, CBOs, or the community at large, we were looking in the wrong place.
This was a strategically placed commentary designed to serve a specific purpose.  That purpose was not to amplify the drumbeat for public support nor was it drive new stakeholders to specific actions to help reform DC’s ailing public schools.  And that’s the cryin’ shame here.  
We all know Rhee isn’t in the business to make friends or to build consensus.  I appreciate (and applaud that).  But she needs a broader tent and a larger group of allies if she is going to succeed, particularly when it comes to implementing what is a complex and controversial idea (assuming she gets it passed the AFT).  While her piece in today’s WaPo serves a very specific purpose, it uses a water cannon to deliver what required a delicate pin prick.  And unless the Post is going to give her a weekly column, that does constitute a wasted opportunity of sorts.  Too many people will read today’s commentary not knowing its intended audience or purpose, triggering far more questions and concerns from those audiences on the periphery.
 

Trying to Win the Hearts and Minds of DC Teachers

Eduflack AFT, DCPS, Michelle Rhee, PD

The fight over the future of Washington, DC’s public schools continues.  For more than a year now, DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee has worked to secure buy-in for a new plan to incentivize teachers, all but eliminating the traditional tenure system that has long dominated our K-12 systems and replace it with a new meritocracy that increases teachers pay, but has been tagged with taking away their job security and current collective bargaining protections.

The battle has reached the stage when AFT President Randi Weingarten (she being the president of the NATIONAL American Federation of Teachers, not the DC chapter) has stepped in to serve as the primary spokesperson for DC teachers in this debate.
In this morning’s pages of The Washington Post, Rhee issues the latest volley in the ongoing tennis match regarding the future of DCPS teachers.  The op-ed is most cogent and compelling explanation of Rhee’s plans yet, and can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/08/AR2009020801711.html  
In her piece, Rhee seeks, rhetorically, to do two things.  First, she clearly aligns her long-term goals with DCPS to the long-term education goals of the Obama Administration.  She breaks her teacher plan down into five key areas — individual choice (teacher empowerment), measuring excellence (multiple measures of school performance), growth model for achievement (teachers aren’t expected to do everything and show success in one academic year), protection from arbitrary firings (saving teachers from principal firings), and professional development and support.  Essentially, if you like the President’s plans for education spending on the campaign trail and in the economic stimulus package, you should love what Rhee is attempting.
Second, Rhee is trying to portray herself as the true protector of the DC teacher.  Month after month, we have heard how DCPS is arbitrarily firing principals and teachers as part of its long-term plan (such stories may be unfair, but they are now a regular part of the dialogue).  She boldly proclaims that her plan is designed to protect teachers from such firings, stating that too many DC teachers are living in fear of being fired by their principals for non-performance reasons.  This was a new concern for me.
The piece is well written and chock full of informational nuggets.  But it begs one large question for Eduflack — who is the intended audience?  Clearly, this was not written for the DCPS teacher.  The content and tone is written as if Rhee is trying to explain the deeply rooted beliefs of DCPS educators to others.  So who is it for?  Is this truly a volley over to Weingarten, awaiting her return?  If so, this volley is likely to be returned with a decisive forehand, speaking on behalf of the “real” DCPS teacher.  Is it intended for the national education blob, carving out a new view on a stalled staffing plan?  Or is it a reminder to the DC policy community that Rhee is indeed relevant in this new administration, even with a new “top superintendent” at the helm over on Maryland Avenue?
Time will tell about the effectiveness of this latest missive.  Rhee still has miles to go if she is going to win over the hearts and minds of her teachers.  Focusing on teacher empowerment, professional development, and the need for longitudinal measures of teacher effectiveness is a good way to start.  Trying to position the elimination of tenure as a way to prevent arbitrary firings by principals, though is a head-scratcher.  At this point, I have to believe DC’s teachers trust their principals more than their central office.
But Rhee has laid out new parameters by which to measure and reward teacher performance.  This is more than just a score on the annual high-stakes test.  She’s planning on multiple uses for good data, including teacher achievement and educator needs.  That may be just what urban school districts need, particularly as the feds look to new data systems and multiple evaluation measures.
The ball is now in AFT’s court.  Weingarten can gently return the volley, seeking to build a dialogue on what beliefs she and Rhee hold in common, or she can return the ball down DCPS’ throat, putting teachers and their protection first and foremost.  Game on!

What’s Next for Federal Reading?

Eduflack Achievement gap, AFT, early childhood education, IES, NCLB, PD, Reading First, SBRR

For decades now, the federal government has made teaching children to read a national priority.  Reading First is just the latest iteration of this commitment.  The Reading Excellence Act came before it, with other federal efforts before REA.  That’s why Eduflack is always surprised when he hears from reading advocates who are gravely concerned that federal investment in reading instruction will grind to a halt this year when RF ends.

Let’s be perfectly clear.  Reading First is dead.  There is no political will to continue this program, particularly with the baggage it carries.  RF has been tarred, feathered, and paraded through the town square as an example of poor government implementation and of questionable outcomes at best.  But that doesn’t mean the program, at least as it was originally envisioned in 2001, does not offer some strong instructional components upon which a better, stronger, more effective reading effort can be constructed.
To get us started, we need to drop Reading First from our vocabulary.  Call it “Yes We Can Read,” “And Reading For All,” “Literacy for America,” or anything else that will capture the hearts and minds of countless schools and families looking for literacy skills to improve their lots in life and close the achievement gaps in their schools.  (And while we are on the topic, no one in the Administration should utter the words No Child Left Behind or NCLB from this point forward.  That was the old regime.  As we focus on reauthorization and improving the law, let’s stick to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, until we come up with a stronger brand for our overall federal education policy.)
So how do we do it?  What are the core components of “Yes We Can Read” that redouble our national commitment to ensuring every student is equipped with the literacy skills to read at grade level, particularly by fourth grade?  How do we ensure that every child –regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or neighborhood — becomes a skilled, able reader?
Working from the strongest and best of RF — those components that have reading teachers, state RF directors, and a host of other stakeholders excited about reading instruction and certain that they are making the reading gains originally intended — we can build that better reading program by focusing on five key components:
1) Continue the commitment to scientifically based reading.  RF turned a new page on education research, how it is defined, and how it is applied.  It is important that any new education programs continue to rely on science as part of its policy.  We need to make sure we are doing what is proven effective.  If we expect to demonstrate return on investment, we must ensure our federal dollars are being spent on efforts that work.  That means demonstrating a strong scientific base.  We cannot lose sight of that.  But we must also broaden our view of that proven research base.  To date, we’ve been governing under rule of the National Reading Panel report.  That is a strong start.  But there is more to SBRR than just the NRP.  The National Research Council’s Reading Difficulties report, the Alliance for Excellent Education’s Reading Next study, the AFT’s Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science, and even the recent National Early Literacy Panel findings all contribute to the scientifically based reading base we must build upon.  If it is good, replicable research, we must include it into the equation.
2) We need to broaden our spectrum.  RF was built as an elementary school reading program, believing we could catch all kids and get them reading proficient by fourth grade.  Today, more than a third of our fourth graders are still reading below grade level.  We have millions of kids in danger of falling through the cracks.  Our federal reading program must be a P-12 reading initiative.  We need to start with the best of what was found in Early Reading First, ensuring our early childhood education efforts are empowering our students with early literacy skills.  We continue that through the elementary grades.  And then we move it through the middle grades and our secondary schools.  If reading is a lifelong pursuit, our federal reading efforts must continue across the educational continuum.  This is particularly true as we look to international benchmarks and state exit and graduation exams as the marks of success.
3) Federal dollars need to be focused on two key components — instructional materials and professional development.  We’ve wasted the past six years fighting over commercial products and which one of those is on a so-called golden list.  This is supposed to be about getting what is proven effective into the hands of good teachers.  The name on the box doesn’t matter.  We need to find a better way to make sure that good research is getting into the classroom.  Too many people took advantage of the intent of SBRR, selling research vapor and serving as 21st century RF profiteers.  Moving forward, it should be about content and proof, not branding.
We forget that 25 percent of the more than $1 billion spent on RF was intended for teacher professional development.   We also forget that effective instruction begins and ends with effective teaching.  Our teachers need to be empowered to improve literacy instruction in our schools.  They need to better understand the research and put it to use in their classrooms, using that knowledge to provide the specific interventions necessary to get all children reading.  We must recognize that such professional development should reach more than just the traditional ELA teacher in our elementary grades.  Every teacher across the continuum is, in essence, a reading teacher.  How do we help math and science and social studies teachers reinforce our reading priorities in their classrooms?  In many ways, research-based pre-service and in-service professional development is the single most important component to any future reading instruction effort.  We need to train, equip, and support our teachers in both the broader and the finer points of literacy.
4) We need to factor ELL and ESL into the equation.  At the end of the day, reading skills are reading skills, whether they are acquired in English or in your native Spanish, Hmong, or other language.  We teach all children to read, and then we convert those skills into English as needed.  With a growing immigrant population and school districts that are now home to 100+ native languages spoken in their hallways, we need to instill literacy skills in all students and then look for ways to transfer those skills to the English language.  Reading is reading.  Phonemic awareness and fluency and comprehension are universal, regardless of the language you may be starting in or what is spoken or read at home.
5) We need to better measure the impact of our efforts.  RF has been bottlenecked the past year over measures of efficacy.  The recent Institute of Education Sciences study on Reading First is seen by many as a repudiation of the program.  Unfortunately, it is not a study of SBRR, it is a study on the effectiveness of program spending.  As we’ve written about many times before, IES failed to take into account the issue of contamination, meaning that the study was built on the notion that only those schools receiving RF funds were implementing RF programs and SBRR, so we compared RF schools with non-RF schools to see the difference.  We know that to be a false comparison.  Publishers changed their textbooks to meet RF standards, and those new books were sold to all schools, not just RF schools.  PD programs were redeveloped to address RF expectations, and that PD was offered to all teachers, not just those in RF districts.  RF permeated all schools in the nation, whether they received a federal check or not.
A programmatic study, conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development (OPEPD) took this contamination issue into account, and its fall 2008 evaluation report identified real success in our federal reading initiative.
Regardless of one’s loyalties to IES or OPEPD, the next generation of federal reading needs to include clear measurements and clear assessment tools to identify our progress and determine true ROI.  How do we measure our success?  What tools, beyond the state exams, should be considered?  How do we quantify good reading PD?  How do we demonstrate that the good works performed by teachers, teacher educators, reading specialists, families, and CBOs is not for naught?  Good programs must be measured.  Great programs must be assessed, reviewed, improved, and strengthened over time.  
These five components provide us the foundations for a federal reading initiative that addresses the real-world needs of our classrooms today.  They recognize the need for federal funds, particularly at a time when state and local budgets are strained beyond belief.  They recognize the central role of the teacher, as an educator, researcher, and student.  And they recognize the ultimate end game we all are playing — to get every student reading proficient, ensuring they have the skills and abilities necessary to achieve in school and in society.
Even when we talk about 21st century skills or STEM skills, literacy remains key.  Nothing is possible if our students can’t read.  They can’t do advanced math.  They can’t study the sciences. They can’t explore our civilizations or our history.  They can’t even fully participate in the school chorus.  Reading is the heart and soul of the American public education system.  Now is the time to come together, tap available resources, and redouble our national commitment to getting each and every child to read.  It is the only way we close the achievement gap, boost student achievement, and improve graduation rates.  It all begins with reading.  And effective reading begins now.

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.
  

Become a Teacher in Six Easy Lessons?

Eduflack AFT, NEA, Teacher Education

Most of us don’t bother to read the countless spam emails that enter our inboxes.  We view them like we do commercials, hoping to avoid as many as possible on our way to the content we want.  Not Eduflack.  I like commercials because they provide me insight into what key audiences and the public at large are thinking.  And I will check out some of the bulk emails I receive (I’m not foolish enough to click on any of the links, but I’ll look at the email content) to get a sense for where the industry, particularly the education industry, thinks money can be made.

My attention was really captured this weekend by an email with a compelling subject line — “Want More Vacation Days?  Become a School Teacher.”  The subject matter was what you would expect, a company called Eclipse Media Online looking to hook me up with the ideal online degree program to get me in the classroom quickly and racking up those vacation days.  I was promised I could “Get [my] Teaching Degree Online!  In My Spare Time From Home!”
Such claims are nothing new.  We’ve heard them from online institutions and diploma mills on daytime and overnight television for decades now.  What was so disturbing, though, was how the job of K-12 classroom teacher in 2009 was described.  A summary can’t do it justice.  Let me give you the full text:

Teachers play an important role in fostering the intellectual and social development of children during their formative years. The education that teachers impart plays a key role in determining the future prospects of their students. Whether in preschools or high schools or in private or public schools, teachers provide the tools and the environment for their students to develop into responsible adults.

Teachers act as facilitators or coaches, using classroom presentations or individual instruction to help students learn and apply concepts in subjects such as science, mathematics, or English. They plan, evaluate, and assign lessons; prepare, administer, and grade tests; listen to oral presentations; and maintain classroom discipline. Teachers observe and evaluate a student’s performance and potential and increasingly are asked to use new assessment methods. For example, teachers may examine a portfolio of a student’s artwork or writing in order to judge the student’s overall progress. They then can provide additional assistance in areas in which a student needs help. Teachers also grade papers, prepare report cards, and meet with parents and school staff to discuss a student’s academic progress or personal problems.

Many teachers use a “hands-on” approach that uses “props” or “manipulatives”to help children understand abstract concepts, solve problems, and develop critical thought processes. For example, they teach the concepts of numbers or of addition and subtraction by playing board games. As the children get older, teachers use more sophisticated materials, such as science apparatus, cameras, or computers. They also encourage collaboration in solving problems by having students work in groups to discuss and solve problems together. To be prepared for success later in life, students must be able to interact with others, adapt to new technology, and think through problems logically.

Honestly, I don’t know what part of this email I should find most offensive.  Teaching as a gateway to increased vacation days?  Teaching responsibilities defined as playing board games and reviewing artwork portfolios?  Instructional materials described as “props” or “manipulatives,” like teaching is no different than selling a time share to young people?  Or the fact that some people are going to get this email, click through, write their tuition checks, and believe they are on the path to becoming high-paid, highly vacationed, effective teachers, all from the privacy of their bedrooms and the comfort of their well-worn bunny slippers.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  There is are few jobs as difficult as teaching, particularly in today’s high-stakes, high-expectation, high-criticism environment.  As the son of two educators (my mother a retired high school English teacher, my father a political scientist by trade and college president by path), I like to believe there is a little more to the profession than these sorts of emails put forward.  I see nothing about the countless hours my mother put in at night, on weekends, and during the summer grading, preparing, and planning.  I see nothing about the supplies she purchased or the emotional, intellectual, and sometimes financial support she provided her students.  I see nothing about breaking up fights or having to deal with parents who couldn’t accept that their kids simply failed to do the work.  I see nothing about the constantly changing PD expectations, the certification procedures, and the graduate degree requirements.  I see nothing about the notion that you are expected to work for 200 straight days, with no vacation or sick time intended to be taken during the school year.  And I see nothing about the second jobs and seasonal employment so many of my mother’s colleagues had to take to pay the bills or to actually use a few of those well-earned vacation days.
I know, I know, I shouldn’t get so worked up about a spam email that was never really intended for me in the first place.  But I know that teachers — and their training, recruitment, and retention — is a major issue for states and school districts today, and is going to be a major policy concern for the federal government and the U.S. Department of Education in the coming years.  Having worked for an online college of education, I know it isn’t as simple as the marketing campaign makes it seem (no matter what those institutions on the other end of the email want to believe).  And I know if we are really going to focus on student achievement and school improvement, it is all about putting good, well-trained effective educators in front of a classroom, and not merely a warm body who responded to an email campaign at the right time.
Teaching is hard.  Effective teaching is both an art and a science.  It requires the right person, the right motivation, the right training, and the right ongoing development and support.  The AFT and NEA have invested a great deal of intellectual and financial capital into promoting teacher professionalism, the nobility of the profession, the real challenges of good teaching, and the believe that not everyone is cut out to lead a classroom.  If we have individuals choosing teaching as a profession to increase their vacation time, we have far more important issues in public education that we recognize.  What’s truly scary is that folks are getting rich marketing “teaching” as a career path anyone with a computer and an interest in board games can and should pursue.