assessment

This Year’s Top Ed Tech Issues?

Eduflack assessment, High School, technology

Over the last week, Eduflack has been teasing out a few of the key issues the education technology community has identified as top priorities for 2010.  Interestingly, many of these topics are not limited to ed tech, but are applicable to the entire eduworld.  So I thought it was worthwhile to take a look at the full list from the folks over at ISTE (www.isteconnects.org):


1. Establish technology in education as the backbone of school improvement. To truly improve our schools for the long term and ensure that all students are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve in the 21st century, education technology must permeate every corner of the learning process. From years of research, we know that technology can serve as a primary driver for systemic school improvement, including school leadership, an improved learning culture and excellence in professional practice. We must ensure that technology is at the foundation of current education reform efforts, and is explicit and clear in its role, mission, and expected impact.


2. Leverage education technology as a gateway for college and career readiness. Last year, President Obama established a national goal of producing the highest percentage of college graduates in the world by the year 2020. To achieve this goal in the next 10 years, we must embrace new instructional approaches that both increase the college-going rates and the high school graduation rates. By effectively engaging learning through technology, teachers can demonstrate the relevance of 21st century education, keeping more children in the pipeline as they pursue a rigorous, interesting and pertinent PK-12 public education.


3. Ensure technology expertise is infused throughout our schools and classrooms. In addition to providing all teachers with digital tools and content we must ensure technology experts are integrated throughout all schools, particularly as we increase focus and priority on STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics) instruction and expand distance and online learning opportunities for students. Just as we prioritize reading and math experts, so too must we place a premium on technology experts who can help the entire school maximize its resources and opportunities. To support these experts, as well as all educators who integrate technology into the overall curriculum, we must substantially increase our support for the federal Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program.  EETT provides critical support for on-going professional development, implementation of data-driven decision-making, personalized learning opportunities, and increased parental involvement. EETT should be increased to $500 million in FY2011.


4. Continuously upgrade educators’ classroom technology skills as a pre-requisite of “highly effective” teaching. As part of our nation’s continued push to ensure every classroom is led by a qualified, highly effective teacher, we must commit that all P-12 educators have the skills to use modern information tools and digital content to support student learning in content areas and for student assessment. Effective teachers in the 21st Century should be, by definition, technologically savvy teachers.


5. Invest in pre-service education technology. Teacher preparation is one of the most important aspects of a world-class 21st Century system of education and learning.  A federal investment in a new, technology-savvy generation of teachers is critical. To ensure their success in the classroom, pre-service teachers must be prepared to use technology and integrate it into the curricula before their first day as a teacher of record. By fully funding programs such as Preparing Teachers for Digital Age Learners (PTDAL), we can ensure that the United States produces the most technologically savvy educator workforce in the world.


6. Leverage technology to scale improvement. Through federal initiatives such as i3 grants, school districts across the nation are being asked to scale up current school improvement efforts to maximize reach and impact. School districts that have successfully led school turnaround and improvement efforts recognize that education technology is one of the best ways to accelerate reform, providing the immediate tools to ensure that all teachers and students have access to the latest innovative instructional pathways. If we are serious about school improvement, we must be serious about education technology.


7. Provide high speed broadband for all. The connectivity divide may be the most critical aspect of both our digital divide and our learning divide over the next decade. We must continue our national commitment to ensuring broadband access for all students through initiatives such as the E-Rate program.  Today’s classroom applications require significant bandwidth that many schools lack. Students who don’t have Internet access at home face a significant hurdle to participate in school assignments and produce high quality schoolwork—and their parents are hindered in school-to-home communications. We must provide high-speed bandwidth to our nation’s classrooms and focus on the school-to-home connection so that all students can succeed.


8. Boost student learning through data and assessment efforts. In schools across the nation, teachers, principals, and district administrators are increasingly discovering the benefits of real-time instructional and curriculum management systems. To maximize these efforts, we must provide educators with the systems, knowledge, and support they need to effectively tailor their teaching strategies and better meet the individual needs of each learner. Teachers’ capabilities to use data to improve instruction are equally important to contemporary data and assessment systems.


9. Invest in ongoing research and development. With the current push for both innovation and school improvement, it is essential that we, as a nation, invest in the research and development necessary to identify what is driving increased student achievement and why. Increased investment in education R&D, particularly with regard to innovation in teaching and learning, ensures that we remain a global leader in education. By stimulating meaningful, broad-based research and the dissemination of such research, we can ensure that the quality of teaching and learning in our classrooms keeps up with the goals and expectations we set for our students.


10. Promote global digital citizenship. In recent years, we have seen the walls that divide nations and economies come down and, of necessity, we’ve become focused on an increasingly competitive and flat world. Education technology is the great equalizer in this environment, breaking down artificial barriers to effective teaching and learning, and providing new reasons and opportunities for collaboration. Our children are held to greater scrutiny when it comes to learning and achievement compared to their fellow students overseas. We in turn must ensure that all students have access to the best learning technologies.

So we are seeing the full rodeo here.  We have school improvement issues, including boosting high school graduation rates.  We have relevant instruction.  We have teacher quality and support, both preservice and inservice.  We have data systems and improvement.  We have global competitiveness.  And we touch on issues related to ESEA reauthorization, RttT, i3, and most points in between.

In years past, it seemed like ed tech was an island unto itself.  But if this list is an indication, it looks like ISTE is working to position its members as a core part of the school improvement infrastructure.  This is a necessary move if we are to truly maximize the resources and opportunities available to both our teachers and our students.  But the big unanswered question is a relatively simple one.  Is the traditional K-12 infrastructure prepared to accept ed tech as a non-negotiable in the school improvement/student achievement movement?

Assessing Assessment

Eduflack accountability, assessment, AYP, national standards

Over at ISTE Connects, they are continuing the countdown on the Top 10 education technology issues facing the eduworld in 2010.  In the latest installment, ISTE’s Hilary Goldmann focuses on the issue of assessment, noting that “we’re looking for better, richer, and more diverse assessment measures. Assessments that provide early feedback in the learning process, not just high-stakes bubble tests in a few content areas that don’t really evaluate the skills students will need. We can do better than this, and we must.”

If one puts an ear to the eduground, one hears multiple discussions on the topic of assessments.  Many states are waiting to develop new tools until after the common core standards have been finalized and adopted.  Others are working at improving their current measures, with the true leaders adopting new online or computer assisted assessments to provide educators and policymakers alike with a broader and more comprehensive set of data points.  And then there are a few voices in the wilderness advocating for the elimination of assessment entirely, believing it is unfair to measure students or teachers on the results of an exam or a collection of tests.

Of course, we are assessing all of our students now.  Under NCLB, every state in the union (even you Texas) is working to demonstrate Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP.  Each state sets their own learning standards and each year we evaluate how many students are proficient (according to those standards) compared to the previous year.  Those states that show year-on-year gains quickly become our case studies.  Those that flatline on proficiency or, heaven forbid, slip, are put on our lists.

In the pursuit of making the AYP success list, many states have been accused of lowering standards in order to show continued gains on the assessments.  And some started at a low threshold for proficiency to begin with just so they could have high marks right out of the box a few years ago.  As a result, we have a mis-mash of state learning standards. 

Don’t believe it?  Take a look at some of data released by Gary Phillips of the American Institutes for Research last week at the Quality Counts event.  Phillips took a look at state test scores, state academic standards, and comparable international benchmarks.  We shouldn’t be surprised to see that those states with the highest AYP scores are those with some of the lowest standards.  And those states with the highest standards (and some of the lower proficiency numbers) are the states mostly closely aligned with the international learning standards set forth by TIMSS, PISA, and PIRLS.  (And just as interesting, how a state does on eighth grade NAEP seems to align pretty well with how it does in international comparisons.)

So which becomes more important when it comes to student proficiency?  Is the emphasis on how many students score high enough on the scale or is it making sure that students are working on a scale that ensures they are academically competitive with their peers, regardless of country?

Common core standards is intended to fix some of this, supposedly giving all 50 states (and DC) one common standard to work toward and, presumably, one common assessment to measure it.  But it begs two important issues, one of which Goldmann highlights, the other illuminated by Phillips and others.

First, can one single exam adequately assess the teaching and learning in a classroom, or do we need multi-variable assessments that look at both formative and summative assessment?  It it a single state-administered exam, or is it a state exam influenced and shaped by ongoing tests and temperature-taking in the classroom at all points along the learning process?

And second, and perhaps most importantly, how do those assessments stack up outside of our fine union?  How do they match up to PISA and PIRLS?  Are the offering multiple-choice, constructed-response, extended tasks and project queries?  Are they offering on-demand and curriculum embedded tests and tasks?  Do they assess both knowledge (recall and analysis) and assessments of performance (demonstration of ability to apply knowledge in practice)?  Do they effectively measure whether all students have both the skills and knowledge to succeed outside of a classroom environment?

Ultimately, we are putting an awful lot on the shoulders of “assessment” when we talk about school improvement, student achievement, and the narrowing of the achievement gap.  But if we don’t have the right yardstick, we’ll never know exactly how far we’ve come and how far we still need to go.  By taking a hard look at the data, as scientists like Phillips have, and building better mousetraps, both in terms of content and the shift away from those bubble sheets, are essential steps forward.

Cart Awaiting a Horse

Eduflack accountability, assessment, high-stakes testing
A little more this week from Eduflack guest blogger, Dr. John Jensen …
Several decades ago when differences between right and left brain thinking were first explored, a story was told to illustrate.

During World War II, many harbors in Hawaii were blocked by sunken warships, one important channel in particular. After the war, engineers puzzled over how to move them out of way. As they found themselves stumped, someone said, “I know a captain who has a reputation as a good problem solver.  Let’s invite him in.”     

They brought the captain to an overlook where, standing among the important brass, he could see the masts of vessels protruding from the water. As he stared at them, someone nearby heard him muttering, “Mother… Mother… the garden.”  The image that came to him was of his mother breaking large clumps of sod into smaller ones, which suggested his solution: Don’’t try to move the ships. Break them into pieces and leave them there–a solution that worked.

Which is to say that if we find ourselves stumped over education, could we consider a different viewpoint? 

The title above hints at a shift. Recently I happened across two reports, one on the ongoing work on national standards, and the other on the international education conference in Helsinki earlier this fall. The reports presented exactly opposite views on how to get quality education. The Finns hosting the conference, as is widely acknowledged, get the best educational results in the world. Two features of their system stood out for me. They 1) insist that teachers know their subject matter, and 2) they allow them great latitude in designing what they personally will teach. 

How unusual!  Find someone who knows and ask him to do what he knows.  What an innovative model!  One wonders what would happen to the entire American economy if such an insight were widely accepted instead of having the state micro-manage everything from the top down.  The US model in contrast 1) presumes that teachers don’t know their subject matter.  Once accepting that as inevitable, the second step follows: 2) spoon-feed them every detail they must teach.  

It’s clear that the Finn model works and, as best we can tell, the US model doesn’’t. The conclusion is obvious. Do the US model more intensively!  Bring into education more people who know even less about teaching, and specify in even more detail what they must teach. Exert more control of the process with less confidence in and freedom for teachers to teach what they know.

I sympathize with policy-makers who don‘t know what to do with their big hammer, the billions they’’re anxious to spend. They don‘’t know what, among their myriad of options, to spend it on that will make the most difference.  A possible corner is at least to define what students need to know in the subjects most commonly taught.            

Sensible as it may sound, even this has its holdouts. Alaska and Texas want no part of it.  Texas, I assume, is independent  enough to believe that their own people know better what their children should learn, but Alaska (my home state) is a different matter.  The knowledge useful for living in many of its remote communities and even larger cities can diverge greatly from what one needs to know in the continental US; climate, weather, geology, environment, wildlife, fish, transportation, Native heritage, and energy, for instance.  The concerns of a Boston or St. Louis are far off the mark, hinting further that a varied and changing world could soon make the current knowledge disseminated today
 in any city moot even there.

But let’’s say the macro-plan has its way and we could standardize what students need to know, what then?

To me this is the cart waiting for a horse, a cart we wouldn’’t need if we just had a horse.  What curriculum do you want to tow along?  Ask the Finns, who say that the curriculum is what a teacher who knows the subject is ready to teach. But even settling that, we still need the horse:How do we get students to learn what is either in the teacher’s mind or, lacking confidence in their mind, in the national standards?

How?  That we even have to ask the question is my concern. If we have any doubt about how to do this, then it’s premature to define standards nationally or require particular knowledge in teachers. The “horse” is what moves everything else–to know that you can teach students whatever you want to teach them each, always, and every time. Do this with a lot of learning (a good start is “whatever the teacher wants to teach.”). After much of that, look around and inquire, “Is there anything essential we haven’’t covered?” Let teachers teach what they want to for eleven and a half years and spend the last semester on lacunae.  These are likely to appear much less significant once you already have a child saturated with usable knowledge, but if something is both missing and important, cover it then.

First, though, do the big chunks, the stuff good teachers already know.  Stay out of the way while they do it and don’t micro-manage.

 

(John Jensen is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of The Silver Bullet Easy Learning System: How to Change Classrooms Fast and Energize Students for Success (Xlibris, 2008), which he will send free as an e-book to anyone requesting it. He can be reached at jjensen@gci.net.  This post represents the opinions of Dr. Jensen only.)

The Race Officially Begins … Now

Eduflack accountability, Arne Duncan, assessment, charter schools, RTT, STEM, teachers

At 9 p.m. this evening, the starting gun for the Race to the Top officially started.  While many states are already laps into their applications (and many may even be running in the right direction), the U.S. Department of Education officially released the RFP, along with some interesting insights as to how applications will be scored moments ago.

So what are we looking at?  We’ve essentially whittled 80 pages of a draft RFP into an “easy-to-read” 14-page summary.  The four pillars of the Duncan regime remain the same (standards, assessments/data systems, teacher quality, and school turnaround).  To win, states must have no barriers to linking student achievement data to teachers and principals for the purpose of evaluation.  The timetable is as projected back in the early fall, with Phase One applications due in mid-January (to be awarded in April 2010) and Phase Two apps due June 1 (to be awarded September 2010).  But we’ve added two bidders’ conferences scheduled for next month in Denver and DC.  So there are some new factoids here.
In addition to the four pillars, RttT lays out six additional priorities:
* Comprehensive approach to education reform (an absolute priority)
* Emphasis on STEM (a comprehensive preference priority)
* Innovations for improving early learning outcomes
* Expansion and adaptation of statewide longitudinal data systems
* P-20 coordination, vertical and horizontal alignment
* School-level conditions for reform, innovation, and learning
Of these priorities, only STEM is worth extra points on the scoring, offering an all-or-nothing 15-point bonus to those states with both a clear record and clear plan for STEM education.  (That 15 points represents 3 percent of the total score.)  The others are general value-adds or reflected in other larger scoring buckets.  
So what does that overall scorecard look like?  What’s the rubric on which states will be evaluated?
States are working toward a max of 500 points (including STEM emphasis).  “State success factors” represent 125 points, or 25 percent of the total score.  These factors include how well the state’s reform agenda is articulated, whether the state has infrastructure to implement the agenda, and its ability to demonstrate success in raising student achievement and closing the achievement gap.  “Standards and assessment” is good for 70 points, or 14 percent, essentially measured by adopting common core standards and developing the assessments to measure against those standards.  “Data systems to support instruction” is worth 47 points (9 percent) and is focused on the longitudinal data systems all are talking about.  
“Great teachers and leaders” are worth 138 points, or a whopping 28 percent, and while it continues to focus on teacher quality and effectiveness, this time around it has a far greater emphasis on principal quality and effectiveness.  “Turning around the lowest-achieving schools” is worth only 50 points, or 10 percent of the total.   “General” collects the remaining 55 points (11 percent), with most points coming from ensuring conditions for high-performing charter schools “and other innovative schools.”  
As these 500 points are broken down, ED is giving slight emphasis to what states have already done (52 percent of the score), or their “Accomplishments” versus 48 percent of the score coming for “Plans” for the future.  So that’s an interesting wrinkle for those who are trying to build a new reform city on their old education hill.
In announcing the RFP, ED says it reviewed the nearly 1,200 responses (1,161, actually) that were submitted to the draft, and made changes reflecting the ideas put forward by those concerned citizens and groups.  But despite a 12-page document prepared by ED on the “major changes” that have been made to the RFP, the final looks remarkably similar to the original draft that sparked so much interested many months ago.  Yes, there are some changes, including the highlight that states should use multiple measures to evaluate teachers and principals.  School district buy-in also plays a larger role in the final than it did in the draft.  But while some of the definitions have changed, the overall goals, tenor, and vision remains whole.  It seems ED has clarified some of the gray areas from the first go-around, but hasn’t quite changed those issues that many found objectionable or fraught with potential problems.  Based on many of the comments Eduflack has read, there are going to be a significant number of disappointed organizations out there, even among the traditional ed reform circles.
So what do we make of all of this?  First off, it is clear that those with the dreaded teacher firewalls are going to have a hard time meeting the point threshold.  So California, Nevada, New York, and possibly Wisconsin may have some problems.  Signing on the dotted line for core standards is also a must, so Texas and South Carolina may be on the outside looking in as well.  But it seems ED has softened its overall approach to “my way or the highway,” making firewalls and common standards the only true non-negotiables for winning a grant.
Eduflack is most interested by the emphasis on accomplishments, though.  We’ve heard a great deal about what states are doing right now to better position themselves for Race.  The thought seems to be that a new coat of paint on the ole education system would provide more curb appeal and give the impression that a state is “reform minded.”  But with the final scoring, ED is making clear that Race states are those with both a strong track record on improvement and innovation and a desire to ratchet up current work to the next level.  This is not a start-up enterprise, with states needing to demonstrate a proven and ongoing investment in the four pillars prior to the RttT announcement.
And what does this mean for the total number of winning states?  We’ve heard everything from four or five total winners to upwards of 40 states getting a taste of the winner’s circle.  Based on the summary and documents circulating this evening, Eduflack suspects it will be somewhere in between.  In Phase One, we’re likely to see four or five winners, stacked mostly by those states in the Gates Foundation’s Top 15 list.  Phase Two will probably see another dozen or so, giving us 20 or so total winners.  Interestingly, there will be time for Phase Two applicants to see who wins Phase One and make some final changes to their apps before submitting in June.  (And we should also note that ED cites $4 billion available for RttT, with the remaining $350 million going to support the development of assessments aligned with core standards, funding that is being discussed at ED-sponsored public forums this month.)
Regardless, the 500-point scorecard is going to have many states (particularly those Gates-incentivized states that have been feverishly writing their apps believing the draft RFP would be final are going to be scurrying the next two months to revise and extend their remarks.  Teacher and principal quality is priority one, with strong explanation of state success factors a very close second.  The two represent more than half of the total score.  Standards, assessments, and data systems clock in for nearly another 25 percent.  School turnarounds are worth only 10 percent, with charter school conditions worth almost the same amount as overall commitment to turnaround efforts.  And those states that are already invested in STEM (like Colorado, Missouri, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) need to take advantage of the 15 percent bump their track record provides.
How many points will it take to win the Race?  That’s to be determined.  We still don’t know what curve states will be scored on.  But at least
we are now clear on distance, terrain, and other Race conditions.  The gun has officially sounded …
  

There’s Gambling in Our Ed Assessment Casablanca?

Eduflack accountability, assessment, AYP, national standards, NCLB
Yesterday’s release of the National Center for Education Statistics’ report Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto National Assessment of Education Progress Scales: 2005-2007 seemed like it was almost lifted from the movie Casablanca.  We are shocked, shocked to learn that many states’ “standards” are hardly standards at all.  For years, we’ve been reading about how student proficiency on state exams has been on the rise, while NAEP scores have remained virtually stagnant.  Now, NCES paints a grim picture of the situation, demonstrating that most states are below or only meet the basic learning standards established by NAEP.
How can that be?  The cynic in us says that states have been downgrading their state assessments to meet NCLB and AYP expectations.  As they need to demonstrate year-on-year gains in math and reading, they’ve had to readjust their tests and their scoring scales to demonstrate such gains.  It is why we hear that, according to state data, students in Alabama beat students in Massachusetts when it comes to reading proficiency.  Of course, there is no telling what those numbers would look like if Bay Staters were taking Alabama’s state test instead of their own MCAS.  The full NCES study can be found here.
Perhaps the strongest statement on the NCES report came from Congressman George Miller, the chairman of the House Education Committee.  In response to the latest data comparisons, Miller said: “The quality of a child’s education should not be determined by their zip code.  It is unacceptable that many states have chosen to lower the bar rather than strive for excellence.  This means that many students aren’t even expected to rise to meet rigorous standards — they are allowed to linger in a system that doesn’t challenge them to do better and doesn’t help them to develop the complex skills and knowledge needed to succeed in the jobs of the future.”
These are strong words from the man who is in charge of managing reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act next year, the Congressman who will ultimately decide the future of AYP, the adoption of core standards, and the development of the assessments and data systems to track against those standards.  And they are right on the money.  Effective assessment has hardly been a strong suit in U.S. public education, particularly considering the rough patchwork that has long made up our testing systems.  That’s why so many people are providing a big bear hug to the notion of common core standards.  In the pursuit of a better mousetrap, we hope that core standards provide a common baseline for all assessment, regardless of the state administering the exam.  If we accept the concept of core standards, it means that fourth grade reading proficiency means the same thing in Alabama as it does in Massachusetts, the same in Texas as it is in Oregon.  And if the we are all working off the same standards, in theory, we should all have similar benchmarks by which to measure proficiency.  Proficient is proficient.
But if we are moving from the promise of core standards to the realization of common expectations, we can’t overlook some of the core realities that underly the data.  Yes, we should be appalled that proficiency percentages on state exams don’t track well with NAEP proficiencies.  But we should be equally appalled (if not more so) by what NAEP itself tells us.  
As Eduflack has discussed before, the eighth grade reading NAEP has long been considered the best measure of true student achievement.  It provides a strong longitudinal approach to learning (as kids have been taught reading four eight years), and those reading skills are essential to success in other academic subjects.  We look at Massachusetts, with the highest eighth grade NAEP scores, and see it as the gold standard in reading proficiency.  But only 43 percent of Massachusetts eighth graders score proficient or better on the reading NAEP.  Is that really the bar we want to set, where nearly six in 10 students are scoring below proficient?  Is that the best we can do, or the best to which we aspire? 
Core standards will only take us so far.  At some point, we have to raise our game when it comes to both teaching and learning, ensuring that all students are gaining the skills and knowledge necessary to both hit the mark on the requisite assessments and achieve when it comes to both college and career opportunities.  Standards only mean so much if we aren’t achieving the goals they set forth. 

Millions and Millions of Minutes

Eduflack accountability, assessment, NAEP, national standards

It’s been used by education reformers and praised by the folks like Newt Gingrich.  Business leaders point to it as a sign of the looming “crisis” our education system may be facing.  It’s been screened at policy events and cited in opinion pieces.  The “it,” of course, is the movie 2 Million Minutes: The 21st Century Solution.  Produced by Robert A. Compton, the film is demonstrates how the United States is failing to keep up with the world (notable India and China) when it comes to education.

The movie is essentially the visual equivalent of Tom Friedman’s World Is Flat tome, watched through an entirely education lens.  Those living in the education policy world (particularly those who pay attention to international assessments like PISA and TIMSS) will not be surprised by what they see and hear.  China and India do a remarkably better job graduating students from high school (or high school equivalents) and the hard work is represented on international benchmarks and other assessments that measure student learning, particularly college and career readiness.  These countries are adapting, and adapting quickly, meeting today’s educational challenges and thus preparing for tomorrow’s economic opportunities.  Their students may be venturing across the Pacific to attend American colleges and universities, but the message is clear.  They are building a better 21st century mousetrap when it comes to teaching necessary skills and knowledge.
And for those looking for some positive news, the film’s producers have also found some American success stories in some unlikely neighborhoods.  So it does provide some hope, it what many may see as a hopeless situation.  The trailer can be viewed here. 
But 2 Million Minutes raises some interesting questions, particularly as we look at issues like common core standards and the assessments that will soon follow.  When it comes to programmatic and instructional innovations, Eduflack would like to believe the United States is second to none.  In my travels, I have seen communities, schools, and classes that were long written off succeed, despite the odds, out of sheet will.  They turned it around when it came to effective reading instruction.  They implemented groundbreaking STEM initiatives, ensuring that students and jobs were properly aligned.  They implemented technologies in ways never thought possible.  And they even enacted whole school reforms to boost expectations and drive achievement gains.  
Assessment, though, remains a tough nut for us to crack.  It was little more than a decade ago when it was every state for itself, with a mismatch of tests, standards, and expectations littering the national map.  In 2002, we made the national commitment to measure reading and math achievement (and in theory, science) in grades three through eight, presumably to give us a common frame of reference.  But assessments still vary, the once-a-year tests have their limitations, and we are still left with only the samples found in NAEP to stand as our only true common yardstick for student achievement.
If we are serious about running a school improvement and innovation race with the Chinas and the Indias of the world, we need to get serious about the assessments we will use to evaluate our successes.  That means setting new expectations for learning that measure beyond a common bubble sheet.  It means differentiated learning, investments in teachers, and holistic measures of effectiveness.  And it means a focus on higher order skills and the multi-faceted assessments that truly measure critical thinking, performance, and meaningful progress for all students.
At state education agencies across the nation, they recognize that current state assessments just aren’t cutting it.  But they are also pragmatists, recognizing that the new common core standards will demand a revision of any assessments used in the schools.  So no one is ready to invest in assessment overhaul now, knowing that it may be coming again in a year or two once the common standards are adopted.
Hopefully, the end game is not to simply find the one state assessment that is better than many others (and I know quite a few states that believe theirs is the gold standard).  Instead, we need to be looking at the assessment systems coming out of countries like Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and Singapore to guide our thinking., a new approach that measures not just the memorization of key facts, but the true comprehension and application of those facts in multiple learning venues.
Assessments and accountability aren’t going anywhere (particularly as we see what other nations are doing to leapfrog us on current international assessments).  So our challenge is to build a better assessment system, aligning a strong system of national standards (coming through the common standards push), a strong and robust commitment to teaching and learning in the classroom, and the evaluation of that learning through the proper assessments.  It is the only way we are going to be able to out-innovate the other guys, and it may be the only way that 2 Million Minutes becomes simply a warning of what could be, and not a self-fulfilling prophesy for where American public education is headed.
      
  

Retraining Teacher Training

Eduflack Arne Duncan, assessment, Teacher Education

Big to-dos this afternoon up at Columbia University, Teachers College.  Speaking before a packed house of students, teacher educators, and reps from the education policy community, EdSec Arne Duncan continued his push for improving teacher preparation in the United States.  Duncan challenged education schools to “make better outcomes for students the overarching mission” of today’s teacher preparation programs.

Clearly, today’s remarks at TC were “good cop,” compared with Duncan’s “bad cop” words a few weeks ago at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education.  Duncan praises AACTE and NCATE for their efforts to improve the quality of teacher preparation and the assessment and evaluation of prospective and new teachers.  He recognized the good works going on in states like Louisiana and New York.  And he applauds the innovations happening at institutions such as Emporia State University, Alverno College, and Black Hills State University.  He honored the good work of teachers, while calling for a common level of quality and effectiveness at schools of education across the United States.  The EdSec’s full remarks can be found here.
As Duncan embarks on his national effort to retrain our models of teacher training, he raises some essential issues.  With so much new money soon funneling into school districts for teacher training, hiring, retention, and reward, teacher quality is a must-discuss topic.  If we want tomorrow’s teachers to succeed (particularly if we are going to measure them based on student assessment data), we need to prepare today’s education students for these new paradigms and expectations.
One of the logical next questions coming out of Duncan’s TC speech is which are the IHEs that are failing to live up to these new expectations?  One would be hard-pressed to find a teacher’s college that would say they are failing at their mission.  This is particularly true when we think about their actual job description.  For decades now, the task before our colleges of education has been simple.  The taught the cores of both content and pedagogy.  They were expected to graduate a significant number of their students (at grad rates similar to the institution as a whole).  Their graduates were expected to pass state licensure exams.  And those graduates were expected to find employment with local school districts (or at least districts somewhere in the state).  These were our expectations of our ed schools, and based on these standards, most were indeed living up to the expectations.
Through his rhetoric, though, Duncan is looking to dramatically change the rubric by which we measure teachers.  Teacher quality measures are all about using student test data to determine teacher effectiveness.  We are no longer seeking “highly qualified” teachers, as mandated in NCLB, but are now seeking highly effective ones.  Clearly, the teaching profession is facing major changes.
But we need to learn to walk before we can truly run this race.  Through years of research, we know the components of effective teacher training, including strong content and pedagogical training, intense clinical experience, and mentoring and ongoing development once one hits the classroom.  This is particularly true of hard-to-staff schools and those being targeted by Duncan for school turnaround efforts, where quick-and-easy, low-impact teacher training efforts simply leave new teachers unprepared for the challenges of the modern-day classroom.
How do we make these components of a high-quality teacher education program the norm, particularly for those schools serving historically disadvantaged communities?  How do we find the balance between the inputs that go into building an effective teacher and the outcomes that prove it?  How do we ensure that teachers are the primary drivers of school innovation and improvement, and not merely stakeholders to whom new changes happen to?
And just as important, how do we build the data systems to prove it?  Across the nation, we have doubts about the power of our current collection methods.  We want to use student data to evaluate and incentivize teachers, but need to make sure we have the collection mechanisms in place to do so.  We need to break down firewalls and strengthen our connections.  But Duncan’s charge forces us to take it a big step further.  We collect student performance data.  We are to use that data to evaluate the performance of current teachers.  And now we want to use that data to determine those teachers colleges and alternative certification programs that are doing the job (along with those who are not).  A noble goal, but not one we are equipped to deal with, at least not with our current data systems.  
Before we start calling out individual schools of education for failing to live up to the expectations set by the EdSec (and Eduflack will admit there are quite a number that would make that list), we need to first set a clear rubric for how we are measuring effective teacher education.  Until then, we will simply be assembling a hit list of “laggard” colleges based on personal opinion, anecdotes, bias, or wild conjecture.  And while that may make good fodder for the blogs and faculty senate meetings, it is hardly the stuff that a new renaissance in teacher education should be based.
The EdSec is definitely on the right track.  But we must be sure we are making decisions based on good data and even better expectations.  We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve the quality and effectiveness of teacher preparation.  That means one chance to get it right.  Before we start asking colleges and universities to make changes to drive innovation and improvement, we need to be clear on what we are asking for and how we will measure it.  It is the only way to ensure we are truly improving, and not merely changing.

Data Use in Our Nation’s Capital

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, assessment, AYP, charter schools, DCPS, Michelle Rhee, NAEP, teachers

Last evening, Eduflack had the honor of testifying before the District of Columbia State Board of Education on DC’s student assessment scores and how they can be used in state-level policy development.  For those unawares, DC is an interesting case study in education system structure.  DC is both a State Education Agency (SEA) and a Local Education Agency (LEA).  The DC State Board serves as a state board in Massachusetts, Texas, or California would, and the SEA is headed by former U.S. Department of Education official Dr. Kerri Briggs.  The SEA is responsible not only for DC Public Schools, but also for the growing number of charter schools in our nation’s capital (with nearly a third of the District’s students attending charters, it is quite some job for the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE)).

I was the closing act for a three-part hearing.  The panel first heard from Mike Casserly, the chief of the Council of Great City Schools, who spoke to what other urban school districts are doing with their assessments and their data.  Then they heard a detailed presentation from State Superintendent Briggs and her staff, providing far greater detail on the DC-CAS numbers than was originally provided by the Mayor and Chancellor Rhee back in July.  Yours truly followed up the rear.
For readers who recall, I was harsh on DCPS back in July when they released the initial numbers.  I was concerned that student achievement, on the whole, ticked up, but there was a drop in AYP.  I was worried by Rhee’s comments about picking the low-hanging fruit to achieve those gains, knowing such fruit is now gone for later year replication.  And I was worried about declaring victory based on one or two years of data, when four or five years of real, substantive data is really necessary to see the true impact of reforms.
I was impressed with the probing questions the DCSBOE asked of OSSE and of the data, particularly its persistence in asking for greater disaggregation and a better understanding of what they do with what they have.  So what, exactly, did little ole Eduflack recommend to the District’s education leaders?  I can break it down into five key points.
1. The District should be reassured by the numbers presented by OSSE.  After further reflection and additional breakdowns, we can see that specific schools in DC are indeed trending up (though there are still some worry spots).  More importantly, DC is breaking the national cycle and is really making some progress in closing the achievement gap.  Both black and Hispanic achievement numbers were on the rise, while white student achievement remained relatively flat (noting, though, that only 5 percent of DC schoolchildren are white).
2. The most important data sets for DCSBOE to be concerned with should not be DC-CAS, but rather NAEP and NAEP-TUDA.  These data sets are the most accurate yardstick for determining how DC’s students are doing.  The District needs to better use the NAEP data, better slicing and dicing it to really understand what the data means and how it can be applied. DC also needs to avoid falling victim to the typical NAEP horserace games.  This is not about trying to catch Massachusetts in eighth grade reading NAEP or trying to outdo Atlanta in NAEP-TUDA.  DC needs to look at the data, look at the gaps, and set clear goals based on where DC is, and where they want it to head.  
3. As important as assessments are, Superintendent Briggs is correct.  It makes little sense to rework DC’s tests before core standards are complete and we know what new skills and benchmarks we are supposed to be measuring.  But rather than focusing on the assessment tool itself, DC needs to start taking a far closer look at its overall data system and how that system is better put to use.  This shouldn’t be about collecting more data, it is about better using the existing data.  How do they further disaggregate the numbers so DC families have a better sense for how individual schools and classrooms are doing?  How do they look at the data longitudinally, so they are not just measuring this year’s fourth graders against next year’s fourth graders, but are seeing how this years fourth graders are doing, performance wise, in fifth, sixth, and even eighth grades. 
DC not only needs to determine that it is improving, but it needs to know why.  The system has been layering reform after reform in the schools over the past several years.  It is near impossible to decide what is responsible for the gains and what is the chafe that should probably be cut away so the effective interventions can do their jobs.  In monitoring the schools and classes that are showing the most progress, DC needs to track the efforts that are resulting in those gains, looking at the clusters of specific interventions, and try to diagnose the best and promising practices that are happening in DC classrooms.
4. With that information, DC needs to do a better job of applying what it learns.  Principals and teachers need to be better trained in how to use the data, both before they enter the teaching profession and once they are there.  Best practices needs to be shared and modeled across the district.  Effective teachers need to serve as mentors for new teachers so they can teach good behaviors (hopefully before one has to unteach bad behaviors.)  And we need to give time for new interventions and reforms to take place.  While four or five years may seem like an eternity in education reform, changing horses after just a year or two of data, even if it is promising, is not necessarily in the best interests of DC’s students in the long run.
Many members of the board were focused on the back end, asking what could be done with regard to high school dropouts and college-going rates.  I urged them to look at the front end as well, and make sure that OSSE’s focus on investment in high-quality early childhood education is successfully translated into real ECE opportunities in DCPS.  One only needs to look at the impact of the Abbott decisions in New Jersey, and see how good early childhood education has now impacted student achievement and the achievement gap in some of the Garden State’s historically worst-performing school districts, to see that the gateway to long-term student achievement happens before kindergarten, and not in middle and high school.
5. Finally, this is a team game, and not a one-man sport.  Chancellor Rhee cannot do this by herself, nor can the DCSBOE take the responsibility entirely on its shoulders.  Lasting school improvement requires real buy in from parents and families, teachers, students, and the community at large.  With families in particular, they don’t necessarily understand the arcane definitions of AYP (particularly now that the U.S. Department of Education doesn’t even want to use the term), nor should they have to.  They want assurances that their kids are going to good schools, and if they aren’t good, they want assurances that everything is being done to improve them.  At the end of the day, families want to believe their neighborhood schools are good, particularly because they usually have affection for the principal and the teachers.  If all are invested in school turnaround, and all understand how we are doing it and how we are measuring it, we will come further faster.
Ultimately, it comes down to one key issue — how do we use the data we have?  In most cities and most SEAs, we have a wealth of data points, probably far more than most know are even there.  What we do with it is what is most important.  How do we use it to shape both teaching and learning?  How do teachers use data to implement specific in
terventions for struggling students?  How do we ID promising practice so it can be shared?  How do we find the most effective teachers and learn why they are effective?  How do we support what is working, while cutting away what may be tried, but is having no real impact?  How do we invest in the student, and not just the system?
A lot of questions, yes.  But just the sort of thinking many state boards are pondering as they enter into this new world order of assessments, data systems, achievement, innovation, and the like.
 

Additional Thoughts for Rethink Learning Now

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, assessment, RTT, teachers

Yesterday, Eduflack opined on the launch of the Rethinking Learning Now initiative, a new campaign from the Forum for Education and Democracy (among others) that focuses on the need change the direction of education reform from a focus on testing toward a focus on learning.  My post can be found here.  I’ll say again for the record that the campaign is off to a great start, with strong messaging and strong visuals.  And I am proud that Eduflack’s learning story is one of the many stories that are included as part of the effort.

But some have thought I was a little too harsh on Rethink Learning Now, particularly on its first day.  I wanted to know the intended final destination before the first step was actually taken.  Fortunately, the Forum’s national director, Sam Chaltain, is not one of those voices.  For those who haven’t heard of Sam, don’t worry, you soon will.  In my repeated calls for a unifying voice for the loyal opposition, Chaltain is the real deal, one of the few I can see stepping up and leading a movement that doesn’t accept the current path as the only path.
So with no further ado, I am turning over the rest of this post to Sam Chaltain himself.  Rather than place his views as a comment on the side of the Eduflack blog, I though the following deserves its own entry.  The following is direct from the pen of Sam Chaltain, the National Director of the Forum for Education and Democracy. 

“Thanks for your thoughtful coverage of our campaign. Your question is the right one – and if our ultimate plan was simply to gather stories and assume that by their sheer weight and beauty mountains would move, we’d be doing everyone a disservice.

In fact, the Rethink Learning Now campaign is following two strategic paths simultaneously – one grassroots, one grasstops – and intending for them to converge as Congress turns its attention to ESEA.

For the next several months, while people around the country reflect on their personal learning experiences and describe their most effective teachers, we’ll be meeting with key offices on the Hill, gathering information, testing policy proposals, and establishing the campaign as a resource. We’ll also sponsor three Hill briefings this fall – one for each of the campaign’s core pillars – at which we’ll apply the growing clarity from the grassroots side of the campaign towards the creation of some specific policy proposals. Under “learning”, for example, it’s clear that someone needs to do more than say standardized tests are insufficient; they need to offer a better, more nuanced alternative that is innovative and actionable. Our grassroots campaign’s aggregate list of core attributes for powerful learning will be one piece of the puzzle in coming up with a balanced scorecard for student assessment. Under “teaching,” we’ll provide recommendations to Congress, based on the input we receive from people across the country, and outline a strategy for identifying, recruiting, supporting and retaining a true profession (instead of a ‘force’) of highly effective teachers. And for ‘fairness’, we’ll explore ways for the feds and state governments to work more closely to monitor, and ensure, an equitable distribution of resources so all kids have the same opportunity to learn.

Additionally, our partners at the Advancement Project are organizing 14 different regional meetings across the country, at which education advocates and civil rights leaders can spend time together examining their local strengths and weaknesses, connecting to the grassroots components of the national campaign, and providing input to shape any future federal policy recommendations. We’ll also explore a national convening of all of the campaign’s participants sometime next year.

In that sense, the Rethink Learning Now campaign is best understood as a coordinated one-two punch: first, establish clarity around the core objectives: powerful learning, highly-effective teaching, and a system that is committed to ensuring fairness; and second, take that coordinated energy and apply it toward specific proposals that result in a better, more attuned ESEA that empowers educators to create healthy, high-functioning learning environments.

I hope you will continue to cover the campaign, hold us accountable to offering thoughtful solutions, and join us in thinking aloud about how best to rethink learning, NOW.”
Mr. Chaltain, we appreciate the comments.  And we’ll gladly turn over the rostrum to you in the future when you want to expound further as these paths start coming together.

Rethinking Learning … Then What?

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, assessment, high-stakes testing, Obama, RTT

While it may be the hip and hot thing to do, Eduflack is not going to spend the majority of today’s blog talking about this afternoon’s Presidential address to students.  After reviewing the text of the speech, one lesson learned from my K-12 education comes to mind — Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.  While it is unknown if the final remarks circulated today were the intended remarks, what POTUS will say to students in Arlington, Virginia today really is much ado about nothing.  Read the remarks, and you will see a sprinkle of previous lines given by the President to civil rights organizations, with a heavy dose of the type of rhetoric often found in a mayor’s State of the City or a superintendent’s State of the Schools address.  Stay in school  Work hard.  Wash your hands.  Eat your vegetables.  You can find the full speech here, but those worried about indoctrination should have greater worries about the latest infomercial or news segment on Fox or MSNBC than today’s remarks.

No, I’m more intrigued by some of the other actions swirling in the edusphere.  Over at USA Today, today’s he said/she said is on Race to the Top and the need for innovation in the schools.  As expected USA Today speaks for the reformers, those supporting the current agenda moved forward by EdSec Arne Duncan and the team at the U.S. Department of Education.  Speaking for the loyal opposition is Marty Hittelman, the president of the California Federation of Teachers.  We’ve all read about the teachers’ concerns with RttT (particularly the National Education Association’s strong “comments” regarding the RttT draft guidance).  Much of the content of Hittelman’s piece , found here, should surprise no one.  But the most interesting line is one we have all suspected, but no one has been willing to say in public — “our opposition to ‘Race to the Top.'”  For the record, Hittelman has made clear that the California Federation of Teachers is opposed to Race to the Top.  Now we finally have a game, where major groups are starting to pick sides.  (It of course makes it a little easier to be opposed to RttT when it is clear your state won’t receive it, but you watch you top elected officials scramble to enact “reforms” to align with what ED is looking for in the law.)
For weeks now, Eduflack has been calling for the loyal opposition to come out of hiding and have their voices heard in this great debate over reform and innovation in public education.  I believed the initial salvo, launched by EdTrust, DFER, EEP, and CAP, was a good first start.  CFT’s remarks in this morning’s USA Today move the ball further down the hill.  And this morning we have a new public information campaign designed to poke fist-sized holes in ED’s plans over accountability and student achievement.
Today, the Forum for Democracy and Education, among others, launched a new campaign called “Rethink Learning Now.”  Backers of the effort call it a “national grassroots campaign to change the direction of public education reform — from a focus on testing to a focus on learning.”  To support the effort, the Forum is collecting “learning stories” from leaders across the country, seeking tales of those learning experiences that have shaped one’s lives.  The point is to demonstrate that real learning is not measured by the score on a state assessment, it comes from those qualitative and intangible moments where one discovers the motivation for learning and education, beyond just quantitative achievement.  The campaign’s website can be found here, complete with the EdSec’s learning story.
  
Rethink Learning focuses on three key buckets — learning, teaching, and fairness.  The motives behind the three are simple.  Learning cannot be measured simply by student performance on state assessments.  Teaching cannot be measured simply by crosswalking teachers with those same student test scores.  And as long as we have the resource gaps between the haves and have nots, we can never truly deliver high-quality teaching and learning to all students.
I will give it to the Rethink Learning Now folks.  Their TV commercials are top notch.  This AM, CNN previewed one commercial in particular.  In it, a tween goes on about how states are now using third grade student test scores to determine potential incarceration rates, then following the path to talk about how we are spending more on prisons than we are in schools.  The visuals of the bright-faced kids in orange prison jumpsuits drives the message home, and speaks to the President’s message about the need to stay in school and the EdSec’s recent bemoaning of our national 30 percent high school dropout rate.  For an attention-getter, the Forum has hit a home run here.
But the nagging question is what do we do with this?  Once all of the learning stories are collected, once we have shocked those suburban parents who will watch such commercials on CNN, once we have driven a self-selected group of individuals to visit the Rethink Learning website and enter their contact information, what do we do with it?  Do we declare mission accomplished because we have hit a certain number of visitors?  Do we bask in the glow of folks seeing some edgy commercials?  Do we celebrate some of the celebrities who have shared their stories, thus giving the campaign an A for effort?  Or do we expect more?
Those who have read Eduflack for a while know that I am a disciple of the Yankelovich school of public engagement.  it isn’t enough to simply inform individuals about an issue, as Rethink Learning Now is doing.  That is merely the first step to a more complex engagement effort.  Informing is the easy part.  You then need to move on to building commitment for a solution and mobilizing around a particular action.
Building commitment is more than just building an email list.  It is gaining proactive participation and support for a particular solution.  And mobilization comes when we get those stakeholders to say and do whatever is necessary to bring about change.  So the question before Rethink Learning is what is the ask?  
Do we want to join with the California Federation of Teachers to fight federal provisions that say a good teacher is measured by how well his or her student does on the state exam?  Do we want to join with the Broader Bolder Approach to Education and oppose the general education accountability framework in general?  Do we want to join with the Opportunity to Learn folks in the name of multiple measures and equity of resources?  Is it a little of each, or is it a new path that the Rethink Learning organizers are planning for down the road?
Regardless, Rethink Education and its backers need to have us stand for something, and not just argue against something.  It is no longer enough to say that state assessments are unfair or that we need to look at the whole child to get a full measure of the quality of education.  It is no longer enough to say that there are too many intangibles to teaching that we can’t effective measure good instruction.  And it certainly is no longer enough to say we need a different approach, particularly if we aren’t willing to offer up the specifics of that approach.
Rethink Learning should get credit for breaking through the white noise and having its voice heard at a time when most are only listening to the folks at ED.  But now is the time to maximize that opportunity.  If folks are listening, they need to hear what is worthwhile.  They need a real call to action, a direction, a goal.
 They need to know what they are working toward, how to measure success, and when we will be able to declare mission accomplished.  Otherwise, this is just the latest in grassroots campaigns that mean well, but have no lasting impact on the education infrastructure. 
The next decade of public education reform is being determined right now, as we sort out RttT, i3, and then ESEA reauthorization.  We’ve got group after group talking, with many afraid to offend the power structure and even more trying to be everything to everyone.  What we need is a voice what can harness the power of the naysayers and backbenchers and offer a unified alternative to what is moving forward.  And in the immortal words of Elvis Presley, we are in desperate need of a little less conversation and a little more action.  Please.