AYP

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.

Finding a School Year Model that Works

Eduflack Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, AYP, stimulus

We all know how the system is supposed to work.  You start your school year right after Labor Day.  You attend school Monday through Friday, usually from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., for the next 10 months or so, with breaks for Christmas and the spring and most of the major holidays.  You wrap up in early June, with students planning three months of fun and working parents looking for three months of childcare coverage.  Despite popular belief, many teachers use their summer months to take seasonal jobs to supplement their incomes.  Rinse and repeat.

Over time, folks have pushed back against the model.  We’ve had those who believe the school day should start later in the morning, particularly for secondary school students (the premise being their minds aren’t as sharp first thing in the morning and it would help better manage transportation issues).  We’ve had those who say the system is built on an agrarian notion that children needed to be home during the summer months to help work the fields and harvest the crops (a task few of our students are doing these days).  And we’ve even have those who believe that extended summer break is a detriment to student learning, offering too large a gap in instruction and forcing a new re-ramp up process each fall that sets many students behind in the learning process.
So from time to time, we hear the calls for year-round schooling, where the school year will be 12 months long (for today’s debate, let’s set aside the collective bargaining agreements virtually every teacher operates under and believe such a move to be possible).  Typically, the arguments against year-round schooling have little to do with the students or with instruction.  We fret over how to deal with child care (if managing summer break weren’t hard enough, now we need to manage a series of long breaks across the year?!), what it means for schools with no air conditioning, and what it means for transportation and food service costs.
We also talk about the need to innovate, the need to do something different to spur student learning and boost student achievement.  Is there learning skill and content loss as a result of a three-month vacation?  Yes, if parents aren’t keeping their kids reading and engaged during that summer break.  Could a year-round schedule provide students a true learning scaffolding that lets us build on knowledge acquisition without having to rebuild annually?  Yes, assuming we are providing the proper supports and professional development for the teachers we would be asking more of.  Is it even feasible?  We may soon know, thanks to the good educators over in Milwaukee.
About a week and a half ago, Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent William Andrekopoulos floated the idea of taking the entire district year round.  The idea has yet to be embraced, and a recent study of Milwaukee’s pilot efforts show mixed results.  But he is soldiering on.  (The most recent article can be found in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel here).  I must admit, I’m not sure what to make of the research study.  To me, it doesn’t seem like they have enough year-on-year data to make any hard decision yet.  And the fact that many kids in the year-round classrooms didn’t realize the new school year started August 1, and didn’t roll in until September, raises all sort of issues.  But you have to give Andrekopoulos credit for trying to think outside the box.  He has his eye on the goal line, and isn’t letting recent criticism or current budget problems hold him back.  
But I would push the good superintendent even further.  MPS has never been afraid to try new things in the quest for student improvement.  Just look at their experiments with both vouchers and charter schools.  You will be offering year-round school in about 10 percent of your buildings this coming fall.  At best, this is still a pilot.  But you are piloting it under the notion that school year is still just 175 academic days.  Why not expand that?  If you are worried about student learning retention, why not push it to 200 academic days.  That’s less than a 15 percent increase in academic time.  WIll it boost student achievement scores 15 percent?  Maybe.  We don’t know what impact it will have, but one has to assume that additional classroom time, time that is focused on academic subjects, can only help student achievement on the state exam.
What about just extending the school day itself?  If we can’t boost the number of academic days, what about adding an extra hour of instruction to those 175 days we have?  Traditionally scheduled schools can add an extra class.  Block-scheduled schools can explore topics in further detail.  Again, we expand the amount of academic-focused time in the school year, it logically follows we will expand student achievement, no?
The timing of Milwaukee’s call for year-round schooling is an interesting one.  Just yesterday, USA Today reported that, in face of current budget realities, more and more schools are looking at shifting to four-day instructional weeks, shortening the school year, and such.  They cite an Arizona district looking to cancel Friday classes for the next two years to save a half-million dollars in HVAC and transportation costs.  A California district that is dropping block scheduling so it can save a million bucks in reduced teacher need.  And even a Kansas district that changed the end of the school year from May 22 to May 1 to reap a whopping $32,000 in annual savings.
Don’t get Eduflack wrong.  I recognize the grim realities the current budget crisis is having on our schools.  We are asking school districts to do more and more with less and less.  But at a time when our top educational concern should be boosting student achievement and equipping all students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in even the toughest of economic storms, is the answer really cutting back school days and reducing the amount of time students are spending in a structured learning environment?  For struggling students or those in poor communities, is less instruction, reduced access to teachers and role models, and even fewer days with a hot breakfast and lunch provided the path to closing the achievement gap and providing opportunity to all?  Hardly.  And let’s face it.  When we talk about scaling back the school day or cutting instructional time, it is low-income and minority kids that are hit first and hit hardest.  How in the world do we close the achievement gap while denying them classroom time?
In our current pursuit of innovation and our race to the top, it seems we should be looking for ways to do more with what we have, not to do less.  If we want our kids to achieve, to hold their own on international benchmarks, and just to be able to read and write a grade level, we need to expand learning opportunities, not shrink them.  We need to call for more mandatory learning time, not move courses and pathways into the optional category.  We need to expand the learning day, expand outside-of-school-time academic efforts, and restructure our efforts so we maximize resources and provide more to our students.
In business, tough economic times often lead to two paths of thinking.  The first is to hunker down, make deep cuts, do with the bare minimum, and hope we can ride out the worst of it.  That seems to be what so many of our schools are preparing to do today. The second path, the path that many an industry leader and innovator chooses to take, is to use these times of uncertainty and worry to expand.  To grow.  To make acquisitions.  To do different things.  To redefine oneself to new markets and new customers, taking advantage of uncertainty by
demonstrating your own strength, certainty, and ability.
We need to find more of the latter in our K-12 infrastructure.  The EdSec and his team are promising billions in resources to schools that seek to innovate and improve.  Let’s just hope those dollars are going to school districts that are pushing to do more and try new, and not to those that are hoping to hoard for the next rainy day or tough budget choice.    

Saying No in the Last Frontier

Eduflack Achievement gap, AYP, NGA, stimulus, Workforce

Perhaps it is the old Capitol Hill rat in me, but Eduflack finds it fascinating to watch some Republican governors perform these painful Kabuki dances to refuse portions of the economic stimulus package.  I sort of understand Louisiana’s concerns regarding unemployment funds and the required changes ARRA money would demand of state unemployment laws.  After all, no one want to make legal changes that will require state fiscal obligations well after the federal dollars are gone.

I find it more difficult for South Carolina to consider refusing the education stimulus dollars wholesale, putting the jobs of 4,000 teachers in the Palmetto State at risk.  The political cynic in me has to believe that SC Gov. Mark Sanford is simply using the issue to gain some better negotiating ground with the state teachers’ union on larger issues.
But I am really scratching my head trying to figure out what goes into the thinking process of Alaska Gov. — and once and future GOP superstar — Sarah Palin.  Or maybe there is nothing going through that pretty little head at all.  For those who missed it, this week Palin announced that Alaska will NOT be taking the Title I and IDEA funds made available through the economic stimulus package.
That’s right.  Alaska will be refusing the automatic increases in Title I and special education dollars that are being readied for immediate delivery to the states.  No to dollars that will be distributed through existing funding structures with no real new regulations or requirements of them.  No to dollars to fund federal education programs that are mandated by law and required by statute.  After all, it is not like Alaska can all of a sudden decide it is not going to abide by the IDEA laws and refuse special education services to students in need.
What is even more entertaining is the reasoning that the good governor of the Last Frontier provided.  Following is a statement from the Governor’s official website:
“The law requires me to certify that the requests I forward for legislative approval will meet the requirements of the ARRA to create jobs and promote economic growth,” Governor Palin said. “Legitimately, I can only certify capital projects that are job-ready. Alaska has seen unprecedented increases in the level of state funding for education because that is our priority. I don’t want to automatically increase federal funding for education program growth, such as the National Endowment for the Arts, at a time when Alaska can’t afford to sustain that increase.” “Simply expanding state government under this federal stimulus package creates an unrealistic expectation that the state will continue these programs when the federal funds are no longer available,” said Governor Palin. “Our nation is already over $11 trillion in debt; we can’t keep digging this hole.”

It is nice to know that Palin takes the whole notion of “shovel-ready” seriously when it comes to economic stimulus money.  But when it comes to statements like this, it seems the good governor is shoveling a little more than just snow.  Title I money is to ensure that students in the lowest of low-income communities have the resources necessary to access a high-quality education.  Surely, Alaska has low-income communities and students in need.  IDEA is intended to meet the needs of special needs students, those with legally recognized disabilities who may need special assistance or specific education interventions to maximize their learning opportunities.  I have to believe there is a special education population in Alaska (and a true cynic would point out that Palin’s youngest child would be classified in the IDEA population when he hits the public schools in a few years).
Palin’s entire argument against additional federal education funding is that, as the chief fiscal steward for Alaska, she can only take stimulus money that creates jobs and promotes economic growth.  Perhaps she needs to pay a little more attention to the content at those National Governors Association meetings she’s supposed to attend twice a year.  For a governor, education is the primary level for creating jobs and promoting economic growth.  Strong schools produce a pipeline of future workers prepared for the job opportunities of the future.  Students with a strong core education knowledgebase and 21st century skills are the ultimate catalysts for economic growth and opportunity.  At a time when so many governors are seeking to enhance their K-12 education options and provide more opportunity for students, Palin seems to be turning back the clock, hoping that minimizing the breadth and depth of public education is in the best interests of the next generation of Alaskans.
When the federal government announced $25 billion in additional, immediate funding for Title I and IDEA, the beauty of the plan was that there were no new substantial strings or bureaucracy attached.  Money would flow through existing funding streams, to current Title I and IDEA schools.  No new applications, no new formulas, no new requirements.  The dollars are intended to give a booster shot to existing Title I and special education classrooms, giving them a needed boost as the school districts around them are struggling.
Such funding is not an expansion of state government, nor will refusing the funding do anything to reduce the federal debt.  The money is obligated.  Refusing it does nothing other than punishing those students who need a helping hand the most.  How can one oppose additional resources to provide low-income students new learning materials?  How can one oppose additional investment in special education classrooms, particularly if it doesn’t come out of your own pocket?  And how can one say economic stimulus funds are only to go to capital expenditure projects, particularly after all of the guidance and language coming out of the US Department of Education talks about the need to invest in instructional materials, technology, teacher supports and such geared primarily at boosting student achievement.
Maybe Palin’s got it all figured out, and has a special plan to have all her schools meet AYP and have every student grade level proficient without needing additional dollars.  Maybe she already has the full confidence that all Alaska students — particularly those in Title I and sped classrooms — already have the plans and pathways in place to obtain the skills and knowledge to perform in the 21st century economy and secure the new jobs that are yet to be created.  Maybe she has a model for school improvement we’re just not aware of, and public education in Alaska is in great shape and good hands.
Or maybe she is just planning on using economic stimulus dollars to build weekend cabins for the caribou, believing they create jobs (at least for those building such cabins) and promote economic growth (establishing a tourist industry for the caribou, once we figure out how to tap into their economy).
Regardless, Palin’s decision is yet another display of trying to win political points at the expense of at-risk students.  Like every state in the union, Alaska has real needs when it comes to sustaining and improving K-12 public education.  Saying no to such education dollars to win kudos from conservatives or to better position oneself for higher aspirations in 2012 is just downright irresponsible.  Every Alaskan parent, every Alaskan student, every Alaskan business, and every Alaskan teacher should be offended by Palin’s line in the snow.  And every Title I classroom and special education program in the remaining 49 should li
ne up to ask for Alaska’s share of the economic stimulus fund.  
If they don’t want to improve educational opportunity in Title I and special education classrooms up in the Last Frontier, there are plenty of other responsible governors and schools superintendents who can make strong use of such an investment, and can even do so with job creation and economic growth in mind.  Even in Alaska, those education pathways can be bridges to economic and workforce success, particularly for at-risk students.  Otherwise, Alaska and Gov. Palin are simply building educational bridges to nowhere, failing to use all the resources available to them and failing to equip all students with access to the learning opportunities they both need and deserve.
  
 

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.
  

Engagin’ at ASCD

Eduflack AYP, Marketing, PR, technology

This morning, Eduflack led a nearly full session at the ASCD 2009 Conference down in Orlando.  The topic?  It should be no surprise that I spoke on effective communications in education.  If the initial evaluations are any indication, the session seemed to be a hit.  There was a real hunger from participants to learn more about successful communications, particularly how educators (especially school districts) could use blogs, Twitter, and social networking to enhance their activities.

Our focus this AM was simple.  The need for effective message.  The need to clearly identify primary and secondary audiences.  Ensure the message aligns with those audiences.  And deliver the message multiple times through multiple channels (media, events, publications, Internet, etc.)
Those who know me know there is a simple theory at the heart of all of the communications activities I advocate for and engage in.  I do not believe that simply informing audiences of good ideas is enough.  I believe in public engagement, the research-based, roll-up-your sleeves Dan Yankelovich sort that moves us from informing audiences to building commitment for a solution to mobilizing those audiences to action.  Successful communication is about using information to change public thinking and public behavior.  That’s the only way we bring about real, lasting improvement.
I made the audience two promises, promises I will fulfill here on Eduflack.  The first is to provide a detailing telling of the Inform-Build Commitment-Mobilization model, which follows and which friends and colleagues have heard far too many times coming out of my mouth.  The second is best examples of where to get information and who is doing blogs and such well.  The former follows, the latter will be provided Monday.
So without further ado, here is the idea paper I provided to scores of ASCD members this morning.  This think piece was written with the notion that, in today’s ARRA era, education improvement must be tied to economic impact:

 

Effectively integrating public education and its
impact on the economic opportunity into the culture requires an integrated
marketing and communications effort that embodies the most effective elements
of advocacy and social marketing. 
Success is defined by more than just educating key constituencies about
education efforts and their goals. 
True success requires stakeholders to take specific action – to
implement effective education efforts in partnership with educators and the
business community to directly improve education and job opportunities for all
students.  Such actions require us
to move from informing the public to
building commitment for a solution,
and, finally to mobilizing around
specific actions. 

 

There is a great difference between making
stakeholders aware of a concern like the need for more math or science education
to the more sophisticated level of informed public opinion necessary to reach
consensus and generate a sense of urgency that ultimately leads to the action
of adopting an education platform and integrating the educational and community
needs on such a platform.

 

The Inform-Build Commitment-Mobilize Action
process can be broken down to understand the steps necessary to move through
this process.  Using a seven-stage
model developed by Daniel Yankelovich of the Public Agenda Foundation, we can
analyze the process of engaging a target audience and moving them from
uninformed bystander to an action-oriented group, a group ready to
enthusiastically adopt public education solutions.  These stages are:

·     
Becoming
aware of the issues

·     
Developing a
sense of urgency

·     
Looking for
answers

·     
Managing and
persevering through resistance

·     
Weighing
choices

·     
Intellectual
acceptance

·     
Full
acceptance

 

In applying these seven stages to our key
audiences, we must recognize that each stakeholder group may be at a different
point along this continuum. Understanding this is critical to designing and
implementing the appropriate tactics to move them to action.  Many a plan has failed because it was
based on the assumption that one size fits all audiences. 

 

INFORM: The
first two stages occur in the Informing phase.

 

Before we
can get audiences to adopt public education reforms and embrace the portfolio
of research and recommendations available to them, we must first make them
aware of the issues at hand. 

 

Quantitative
research, coupled with stakeholder reaction and interest in education,
demonstrates the concerns our audiences have for workforce preparedness and
opportunity.  This data is even
further enhanced by a number of respected business and education organizations.    All audiences are looking
for solutions – solutions that can both be easily implemented and have maximum
impact on improving educational and economic opportunity.

 

While
many decisionmakers recognize that there are problems in meeting the coming
workforce demands, many do not agree on what those problems may be or what
actions might successfully address them. 
And, unfortunately, too many people believe that there is nothing that
can be done to fix these problems. 
High school dropout rates and postsecondary education preparedness
issues only complicated the discussion. 
Those that are poised to become leaders in true education improvement must
first convince K-12 and postsecondary education leaders, current and potential
employers in the state, state and local policymakers, and the public at large
that there are solutions that will work, and solutions their communities can
get behind and support.

 

Stage One: People
Become Aware of an Issue

 

In general, the public recognizes that meaningful
employment in the 21st century requires a basic understanding of reading,
math, and a collection of “soft” skills, often referred to as 21st
century skills. Better-educated consumers are now placing greater scrutiny on
the relevance of secondary and postsecondary education on employment
opportunities.  At this first
stage, states should develop messages and materials with clear, concrete
examples spelling out the problems. 
We do not need to worry about promoting our solutions just yet.  Our goal for this stage should be to
steer the debate on the skills needed for 21st century jobs.  This can be done through media
relations, special events, and the successful use of advocates.

 

Stage Two: People
Develop a Sense of Urgency

 

When a problem has existed for a long period of
time, people stop seeing it as a problem and start seeing it as a
situation.  For years, the public
has been flooded by news coverage that there is little, if anything, they can
do to keep jobs in their community or to gain the skills needed to hold onto a
job.  Many see job loss or employer
departure as a fact of life.   
We need to instill a greater sense of innovation and optimism among
stakeholders.  This increased
pressure on decision-makers can encourage the adoption of new approaches and
programs, such as those highlighted in education improvement efforts. 

 

Leaders like ASCD provide stakeholders a proven
solution to the problems associated with rigorous, relevant education and
preparation for well-paying careers. 
With the research and support, most “reforms” are not yet another new
initiative looking to turn our schools into test tubes, using classrooms to
test virtually any available idea while leaving many mandates unfulfilled.  Ultimately, leaders need to transform
the general perception that our schools have not adapted for the 21st
century, and thus are unable to prepare students for the rigors of both
postsecondary education and meaningful careers.  This effort needs to replace such cynicism with hope.

 

We can create this sense of urgency by showing the
enormous need for solutions in the communities gaining the greatest
scrutiny.  By focusing on past
successes and proven-effective methods, we can demonstrate the critical role of
a strong education, helping make key decisionmaking constituencies understand
the serious risks they face not using proven, comprehensive practice to improve
educational and economic opportunities. 
The most effective strategy here is to explain the negative implications
of maintaining the status quo in the context of the concern about economic
vitality of the nation, particularly among the public, policymakers, and the
business community.

 

BUILD
COMMITMENT: The middle stages help build commitment.

 

Once
individuals believe in your interpretation of the problem, they are ready to
commit to your solutions. Transforming a general education mission into a
public call to arms will require all involved parties to demonstrate to a
variety of audiences, in dramatic and memorable ways, that these solutions are
the right ones to improve efficiency and success.

 

Stage Three: People
Look for Answers

 

Once people feel that an issue is urgent they
begin to demand solutions.  If we
have been successful in defining the issue in our terms, it will be easier for
us to state solutions convincingly. 
In this stage, people will demand action from policymakers and education
and business leaders.  This is a
good time to organize meetings to introduce specific actions that our audiences
can take to help us reach our goal. 

 

Stage Four: Manage
and Persevere through Resistance

 

Inevitably, some people will reject your
solutions.  This leads to the most
difficult stage of the process. 
Some audiences will be reluctant to face and accept the trade-offs that
come from choosing a specific plan of action and opponents will try to poke
holes in our ideas.  This
resistance may be heightened by the following factors:

 

Misunderstanding:  Some people will (intentionally or otherwise) misinterpret or
outright misconstrue your goals. 
They may question the purpose and motivations of both you and your
partners. 

 

Narrow
Thinking: Many
in our target audiences will miss the big picture and misunderstand the main
elements of the problem.  They may
determine that the problems in many communities are a symptom of the times, and
that employers may just improve themselves over time.  Here we need to expand stakeholders’ vision and demonstrate
that both the issue and the solution are not what they initially perceived.

 

Wishful
Thinking: Others
may fall into the clutches of those peddling miracle cures or silver bullets
aimed at solving an institution’s problems by simply adopting the next easy
quick fix, ignoring the research, strong partnerships, and impact on economic
development that must accompany such a change.  Here we need to inject a note of reality and point out the
logical consequences (and costs) of this line of reasoning.

 

Resistance
to Change: People
are sometimes eager to project the problem onto others. There will be some who
are content with the current state of K-12 education or the employment
situation, believing their local community is doing the best it can and does
not need change.  We can counter
this by pointing to overall benefits that come from relevant education, reduced
drop-out rates, an improved college-ready rate, and clearer paths to
employment.

 

The best way to avoid this resistance is to ensure
that everyone is involved in the process and that all of their concerns have
been heard.

 

Stage Five: People
Weigh Choices

 

After moving beyond initial resistance to tackling
the challenge of improving educational and economic opportunities in their
community, people will begin to weigh their choices rationally and look to a
variety of options for moving recommendations into practice.  At this stage, stakeholders should feel
that they have a range of choices and a reason to make them.  As leaders in this process – with a
special awareness of how decisions are made – we can clarify the pros and cons
of each decision and allow time and opportunity for deliberation. 

 

MOBILIZE
FOR ACTION: The final stages help mobilize our audiences for
action.

 

Changing
attitudes and informing the debate is not enough.  Just as a politician who has convinced 60 percent of the
public to support his/her issues, but who has not succeeded in convincing them
to go to the polls on Election Day, will lose the election, advocates for
improving school and school district management cannot accomplish their goals
unless supporters move from passive acquiescence to active engagement.  Public education succeeds when
policymakers and community leaders are actively supporting its solutions.  Once our target audiences are engaged
because they believe in the merits of our position, they will need to know what
we want them to do to help accomplish these goals.  So it is important that our communications and organizing
efforts include specific actions that supporters can take to help us reach our
goals.  In addition, we will also
need to make it easy and feasible for them to take these actions.

 

Stage Six: Intellectual
Acceptance

 

In this stage, many people will agree that
education improvement efforts are valid and will produce desired results, but
may not be willing to change their behavior or adopt recommendations.  We must recognize that this is a temporary
stage and that, with patience and continued effort, they will get there. It is
important not to expect too much, too soon.  The process of moving from awareness to action takes time. 

 

Stage Seven: Full
Acceptance

 

Given time, incentives, and opportunities to
consider their core values in light of challenges and needs, our audiences
should reach the final stage of full intellectual and emotional acceptance of
the importance of improving educational and economic opportunities.  Now is the best time to make sure that
there is a role for everyone to play in the effective adoption of education
solutions that directly impact educational and economic opportunities, giving
stakeholders the tools and information they need to persuasively move
themselves and others from awareness to action. 

 

Of course, different target audiences will reach
these stages at different times and go through them at different rates. We may
need to tailor the same event or materials to perform different functions
depending on where in these stages specific members of our audience stand. 

 

Education is an industry as driven by emotion as
it is by fact.  As a result, too
often, stakeholders decide that inaction is the best action, out of fear of
taking a wrong step or alienating a specific group.  For that reason, the Inform-Build Commitment-Mobilize Action
model is one of the most effective methods for leaders to educate key audiences
on the need for public education improvement and the long-term impact such
efforts have on strengthening the schools, the community, the economy, and the
nation as a whole.

 

The Future of Teacher Ed?

Eduflack AYP, early childhood education, higher ed, Teacher Education

What does it take to train a better, more effective teacher?  If you listen to the experts, a great deal.  It requires significant knowledge in the subject matter.  Strong training in effective teaching methods.  Clinical training, including that as student teacher working under a strong, veteran teacher.  Ongoing mentoring and support, both during pre-service training and once one enters the classroom for the first time.  Teaching is not for the timid or the feint of heart.  Success is the classroom requires a great deal of preparation — prep in the content, the pedagogy, the research, and how to use it all effectively.  And then, of course, there is how one successfully relates with and leads the students in the classroom and continuous, content-based professional development.

No one ever said that teaching, or teacher preparation, is easy.  There is a lot involved in effective teacher training.  There should be, when we recognize just how much is at stake.  After all, it is just the future of our nation hanging in the balance.
We also recognize that most school districts get their teachers trained close to home.  They typically come from local, in-state teachers colleges and public universities.  All too frequently, we hear that those drawn into undergraduate education programs are some of our lower-performing students.  And we unfortunately know that those traditional teacher education programs that serve some of our lowest-performing, hard-to-staff schools are among our weakest, requiring less coursework, no clinical training, and lower expectations than those programs that may be serving better-performing school districts in the suburbs?
This is the way it was, and the way it is.  And many figure it is the way it will always be.  That’s what makes the University of the District of Columbia (our nation’s capital’s public IHE) all the more interesting.  In this morning’s Washington Post, UDC announces plans to shutter its undergraduate education program.  Why?  Too low graduation rates.  Too few prospective teachers passing their praxis,  Too little impact.  The full story can be found here — www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/08/AR2009030801641.html?hpid=moreheadlines.  
The statistics at UDC require a close look.  Only 7 to 8 percent of those students enrolled in the program graduate within six years of starting it.  The early childhood education major — with 150 students — yields only four to six graduates a year.  Enrollment is down overall.  Some years, the special education major yields no graduates at all.  
UDC hopes to fix the problem by focusing on graduate education programs, providing current and aspiring teachers master’s and doctoral programs that build on their undergraduate educations.  Current undergraduate advocates blame the problems on a praxis process that tests math proficiency after one’s sophomore year (“we’re not math educators”) and on a culturally biased system that favors white students pursuing public education careers, among other excuses.
But the UDC discussion in WaPo fails to ask a few important questions.  How many UDC graduates are taking teaching jobs in DC Public Schools?  And once those graduates begin teaching careers, how are they doing?  How are their students performing?  How are they leading their classrooms?  Are they moving the needle?  But we know all too well that such results-based questions are frowned on by some in education. 
Unfortunately, the situation at UDC is not an isolated incident.  There are teacher training programs across the nation that are not providing our prospective teachers the knowledgebase and skills they need to succeed.  There are programs, particularly those that serve as pipelines into our inner-city schools, that fail to provide the content knowledge, pedagogy, and clinical training teacher need to succeed.  There are those that mean well, but just are unable to hit the mark when it comes to expectations, needs, and demands of the 21st century classroom.
For quite some time now, Eduflack has believed that the teacher education community is in dire need of a Flexner-style study of our teacher training programs.  For those unaware, back at the start of the 20th century, the Carnegie Foundation launched the Flexner Commission to study the quality and impact of our nation’s medical training programs.  Flexner’s findings were startling — so many of those programs training our future medical doctors were a disaster, with no core curricular tenets and no quality or research behind them.  The findings revolutionized medical education.  A vast majority of medical colleges across the nation had their doors closed for good.  Those that remained bolstered their quality, turning out a better doctor to meet the growing medical needs of our industrialized nation.
Isn’t it time for such an approach in teacher education?  Don’t we need a comprehensive study of our teacher training programs, one that focuses on how we crosswalk the latest in teacher educator research with current curricula, ensure that teacher training programs are empowering our teachers with research-based instructional strategies, require clinical hours, build mentoring and support networks, use data in both instruction and intervention, and ensure graduates align with both the content and skill needs of the communities and states they are serving?  Of course we do.  
There is much debate these days between how alternative teacher training programs stack up to the traditional teaching pathways.  This discussion has picked up steam because of far too many traditional programs that simply are not up to par.  It’s not that traditional teacher ed doesn’t work, its that too many institutions are not providing the strongest program possible.  And important step to remedying this is to improve our schools and departments of education.  By improving quality — both of instruction and student — we improve our schools.  And when we improve our schools, we boost our children’s chance to succeed.
There is no doubt the teacher is the heart and soul of a school.  Getting a good teacher should not be a game of educational roulette, depending on the location of the table and how much money is in your pocket.  We should never have situations like we did a decade ago in Massachusetts, where upwards of half the students graduating from some of the state’s public teachers colleges were failing the praxis after graduating from college.  if a prospective teacher graduates from an accredited institution of higher education, we should have no doubt that they are equipped with the knowledgebase, skills, and ability to succeed in virtually any classroom with virtually any kids.
A sea change is coming in teacher education.  We are investing too much in teacher supports, pipeline creation, instructional development, and effective modeling of best practices necessary to improve teacher practice.  The stakes are just too high for us to fail.  We need to ensure that every product of a traditional teacher education program is equipped to lead the classroom, knows what she is getting into, and has the support and encourage to succeed, particularly in the early years.  A Flexner Commission for Teacher Education may be just what is needed if we are to move from a collection of UDC situations to the establishment of centers of teacher training excellence throughout the nation.
    

Virtual School Cuts

Eduflack Achievement gap, AYP, charter schools, Online Education, technology

A great deal has been said (and written) lately about Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and his plans for charter schools in the Buckeye State.  As part of his state of the state address in January, Strickland embraced the notion of charter schools … as long as they were run by not-for-profits.  It was a bold stance, once that could be a precursor to future charter fights in the years to come.

Like most states, Ohio is faced with serious budget shortfalls.  Some may say the Ohio budget may be the most challenging, in terms of potential for massive cutbacks, save for California.  Even with support from the federal government under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Ohio is having to make tough decisions on its K-12 policy priorities.
Those decisions seem to be forcing Strickland to finetune his charter school philosophy even more.  Earlier this week, as part of the Governor’s budget, Ohio proposed that virtual charter schools suffer the same fate as their for-profit brethren — elimination.  The Governor proposed slashing 75 percent of funding for the state’s virtual charter schools, affecting 34 schools serving more than 23,000 students.
In previous budgets, Ohio’s virtual charter schools received approximately $5,400 per pupil for education.  The proposed budget drops that to $1,500 per pupil in aid.  The plan makes a clear distinction in aid formulas provided to brick-and-mortar schools and these virtual academies.  The full story, courtesy of the Columbus Dispatch’s Catherine Candisky, can be found here – www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/03/01/charter.ART_ART_03-01-09_B3_UDD2SLF.html?sid=101.  
Yes, virtual schools operate on less dollars than traditional, bricks-and-mortar schools.  Duh!  With no physical infrastructure to attend to, operating costs are indeed lower.  But these schools still need to invest in the technological infrastructure, curriculum, teacher salaries and benefits, educator PD, and student assessments, to name just a few.  There are real costs associated with virtual schools, particularly if educators are to ensure that students maximize the opportunities posed to them.
But it begs larger questions.  What are we getting, even for those reduced dollars?  Are virtual charter schools working in Ohio?  The Dispatch cites on K-12 virtual school that has regularly hit AYP numbers while earning a decent “continuous improvement” grade.  But that school is operating at a 35:1 student:teacher ratio, far above the 25:1 ration the proposed state formula expected.  What about the other 33 schools?
As we are seeing in Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Alabama, and a host of other states, there is a real role for virtual education in the K-12 experience if it is done right, done effectively, and done with the purpose of improving access and opportunity for all students.  We also know that virtual education can be an incubator for bad practice, with those seeking to make a quick buck taking advantage of a state or school district’s desire to innovate.  One only has to look at higher education to see how a good, well-meaning idea can quickly be bastardized.
So as Ohio’s virtual charter schools are facing the virtual guillotine, we must look at their success boosting student achievement and closing the achievement gap.  Like Ohio’s Connections Academy, are all the Buckeye State’s virtual schools regularly making AYP?  If not, why not?  Is the quality of instruction (and the quality of the teacher) the same as in traditional schools?  Are they improving access for all students, particularly those in low-income and hard-to-serve communities, or are the attracting a select group of students who can receive a good education in virtually any circumstance?  Are we seeing longitudinal data on student achievement, or are students not staying in the virtual programs long enough to measure true year-on-year-on-year data?  Are the programs proven effective, and can we demonstrate it?
Virtual schools are an easy mark when it comes to education budget cutting.  Most taxpayers and policymakers are under the impression that such programs are the playgrounds of white families with some financial resources.  The urban legend goes most minority and low-income families simply don’t have the technology at home to effectively engage in online education, and they certainly don’t have the familial oversight to ensure that students, particularly those in the elementary and middle grades, are putting in the time and effort required of effective virtual education.  (Hogwash, of course, but many believe it.)  Layer on the notion that most virtual teachers are non-union, many providers are for-profit, and we just don’t trust the rigor of “computer game” education and you can see why virtual K-12 schools are an easy target during tough budget times.
Is there a role for virtual education in our K-12 infrastructure?  Absolutely.  Can new technologies level the playing field and provide learning opportunities some schools could never get?  Absolutely.  Can virtual ed boost student achievement, close the achievement gap, and meet AYP just as well as a bricks-and-mortar school?  When executed properly, absolutely.  But such programs remain a supplement to the traditional public education network.  As much as some may want them to supplant failing programs, that will never happen, at least not in our current education mindset.
We’re all for innovation, as long as we innovate within reason.  If virtual schools are going to be fully embraced as a key component of our K-12 patchwork, they must first do a better job communicating their strong academic foundations, benefits, quality, and results.  Until then, many will continue to see them as online playing when “real” students are hard at work.  And as long as that is the case, they will always face potential cuts and elimination from policymakers balancing a range of interests, especially when virtual K-12 is seen as a boutique industry (and a mostly for-profit one at that).
  

School Leadership in Big D

Eduflack Achievement gap, AYP
Where exactly is the intersection between effective school district management (particularly on the financial side) and student improvement?  It’s a question that many have been asking for quite some time, particularly in this era of mayoral and state takeovers of school districts.  Usually, these takeovers happen when both the financial and the academic are failing, when community leaders see no choice but to step in and protect both taxpayer dollars and the students are public schools are intended to serve.
And then you have places like Dallas, Texas.  Over the weekend, Dallas’ mayor, Tom Leppert, indicated he is considering a mayoral takeover of Dallas ISD.  Anyone who has watched the financial “challenges” in the district, knows that something different must happen in the Big D.  And those who have watched cities such as New York and Washington, DC cede control of the schools to the mayor can point to the benefit a new outlook, new attention, and, most often, new leadership, can have on a struggling school district.
The full story of the mayor’s intentions can be found in this past Sunday’s Dallas Morning News — <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/022209dnmetmayordisd.3ebacba.html.
What”>www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/022209dnmetmayordisd.3ebacba.html.
What makes this exploratory takeover so interesting, or at least newsworthy outside of Texas?  Nothing, until the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution released its latest report yesterday.  Lots of great information in the report (particularly the issue of PISA being used as an international benchmark, but I digress), but two important nuggets for us to consider.
First, Dallas ISD ranked second among nearly 40 large-city school districts when it comes to academic gains.  While Dallas still has significant work to do, particularly compared to suburban and rural districts across the state, it is making progress.  To say that Dallas’ improvement efforts are outperforming districts like Miami, New York, and Chicago is saying something.  (Of course, critics would say Dallas was so far behind these other districts to start that they had no option but to outperform other districts, at least in terms of growth.)
Equally important, the Brown Center looked at mayoral takeovers and found the data “inconclusive” when it came mayoral control’s impact on school improvement.  Yes, there are significant benefits to mayoral takeover, including higher per-pupil expenditures, more focused leadership, and a broader “community” helping to lead the schools.  But for every NYC success story, we have the potential of Detroit, where mayoral control didn’t work, and they are now returning to the old model.    
The full story on DISD and the Brown Center is in this morning’s Dallas Morning News — <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/022509dneduurbanschools.f1d859.html
So”>www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/022509dneduurbanschools.f1d859.html
So what do we take from all of this?  First and foremost, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to fixing struggling schools.  Mayoral control can be a benefit, or it can be a burden for city leadership.  It all depends on the personalities involved, the commitment from the city, and the buy-in from teachers and administrators across the district.
Second, it demonstrates how difficult it can be to measure school effectiveness with one ruler.  The Brown Center data shows real gains, though they started from a tough spot.  The state assessment — TAKS — shows a district in need of much help.  The Newsweek rankings of the top high schools put the top secondary school (or one of them) squarely in DISD.  Layer on top of that financial mismanagement and leadership chasms, and you can see why there is a growing drumbeat for a new approach to school leadership.
It’s funny.  When Eduflack was living in Dallas (2005 and 2006), there was a citywide plan for DISD to win the Broad Prize in the coming years.  It was a bold and ambitious plan, bringing the schools and the community together to improve instruction, support teachers, and raise student achievement.  Guess the wheels fell off that bus once I left town.
Regardless, the Dallas education community is facing a serious discussion on the future of their public schools.  Mayoral control may be the answer, but it works better in cities with a strong mayor.  That’s not the Dallas model.  The improvements documented by the Brown Center are good, but they must be sustained and demonstrated over the long term.
As Robert Frost would say, Dallas has many miles to go before it can sleep.  The community is definitely aware of the need for improvement and the challenges before it.  But it takes a strong leader to move that awareness into action.  Is Superintendent Michael Hinojosa up to the challenge?  Is Mayor Leppert?  Only time will tell.  The winner will be whomever can win over the hearts and minds of the teachers, parents, and business community in Big D.  Effective change can only occur when stakeholders are buying into the plan, and so far, neither Hinojosa nor Leppert seem to have fully “sold” their vision to the audiences they need to see it through.  But change is coming …

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.