early childhood education

Education Policy and 2010 Elections

Eduflack Arne Duncan, assessment, early childhood education, ESEA, i3, Math, NCLB, RTT

This time tomorrow (or possibly this time Thursday or Friday, depending on how close some elections out west may be) we will know what the 112th Congress will look like and we will have a clear sense of who will be sitting in the big desks in governors’ offices across the nation.  You have to be living in a cave (or be in complete denial) not to know that big change is coming.  So how will such change affect education policy plans for 2011 and beyond?

ESEA Reauthorization — We will likely see ESEA reauth in 2011, and it may actually be helped along by Republicans taking over the U.S. House of Representatives.  Rep, John Kline (MN) has already been working closely with Chairman George Miller (CA) on the legislation.  So while Kline is likely to give the draft a greater emphasis on local control and rural schools, it should still move. 

And the U.S. Senate will follow the House’s lead.  It is expected that Chairman Tom Harkin (IA) will remain in charge of the HELP Committee.  But major changes on the committee (due to election results and retirements) may change the Senate perspective.  If anything, it may help focus Harkin and get him to move on a meaningful piece of legislation.

Common Core Standards — Tomorrow, we are likely to see a lot of governor’s offices change parties.  Inevitably, that is going to lead to many seeking new GOP governors to reconsider their states’ adoption of the Common Core Standards (all in the name of local control).  And we may well see a few states pull out of the process, particularly if said states were RttT losers and are particularly proud of their state standards.  Texas and Virginia can serve as the model for these “rebel” states.

Phase Three Race to the Top and Phase Two i3 — Many are hoping for another round of both RttT and i3.  But additional rounds mean additional dollars.  And if the lead-up to today’s elections mean anything, it is that folks are frustrated with how many federal dollars have been spent over the past 18 months.  If we are seeing new RttT and i3 processes, it likely means having to move money from existing programs and existing priorities, a task that can be difficult during the reauthorization process.

Early Childhood Education — ECE has been the big loser in the last year.  Despite a great deal of rhetoric about the importance of early childhood education and plans on what should be done, ECE simply hasn’t been shown the budgetary love.  And that is unlikely to change.  ECE advocates will likely be fighting for the scraps in the larger picture for the coming year, particularly if they cannot find new champions on the Hill from both sides of the aisle.

Public/Private Partnerships — We have long relied on public/private partnerships to help move education issues forward, and STEM education is the latest in a long line of such efforts that the education establishment and the private sector have been able to work together on.  But will the Administration’s attack on business, particularly the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, make it more difficult to cut a deal to advance STEM in 2011?  Or will the business community move forward without Obama and company?  Only time will tell.

Teachers — EdSec Arne Duncan’s Teacher campaign is off and running, and it is likely to gain speed following the elections and stronger GOP representation in the states.  Many see the Teacher effort, led by Brad Jupp, as an alt cert campaign (an unfair characterization, but it has stuck).  So an anti-teachers union sentiment could give the recruitment effort some legs, particularly as new Republican governors look to model their administrations after NJ Gov. Chris Christie.

And what are the likely unsung issues in our post-election environment?  Parental and family engagement is at the top of ol’ Eduflack’s list, as folks see the need for community buy-in on reauth and other issues in a difficult budget year.  The assessments aligned with the Common Core will pick up steam.  And we are likely to see state legislatures take on an even stronger role in education issues, particularly as we look at the future for ESEA and Common Core.  And with all of our focus on reading for the past decade, math is likely to step into the forefront, particularly as more and more people raise issues with the math common core.

And so it begins …

Good, Bad, and Promising

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, AYP, early childhood education, NAEP

In many ways, yesterday reflected the good, the bad, and the promising with regard to educational improvement and student achievement data.  On the positive front, in New Jersey, a NIEER-led study found that students who participated in high-quality early childhood education programs outperformed those who were not exposed to similar preK efforts.  On the negative, Maryland’s Abell Foundation found the state’s secondary mathematics curriculum to be lacking.  And then we have the new NAEP data, which shows a narrowing of the achievement gap, particularly in the lower grades.  

Individually, the data tell very specific stories.  Collectively, though, there is much room for interpretation.  Those with rose-colored glasses will see that student achievement is on the rise, we are making improvements, and continued and increased investment in key areas will only help continue the trend.  The cynics will note the data show we are starting strong, but between both Maryland and NAEP, we are failing to truly kick into gear as we head to the finish line when it comes to K-12 improvement.
In my discussions with some experts on the range of data yesterday, Eduflack heard a very interesting observation with regard to the Jersey data, but which is applicable to all.  Many are trumpeting the NIEER study as proof positive that preK is the solution to all of our struggles.  But this expert observed that New Jersey does not have a P-6 problem, it has a K-12 problem.  PreK may be helping students start off on the right foot, but something happens during their journey to take them off track.  By the time middle school sets in, the gains and advances are long forgotten. And by the time many of those students become high schoolers (if they choose to remain in secondary school) they are risk becoming nothing but a statistic of what could have been.
The NAEP data seems to tell a similar tale.  Over the last decade, we have collectively invested significantly in closing the achievement gap in the lower grades.  Setting fourth grade reading and math as our goal, we have worked hard to lift all boats, recognizing that improved instruction, teacher quality, assessments, and accountability would help all students.  Increased dollars for Title I schools and classrooms at risk were expected to give an even larger boost to those students from historically disadvantaged groups, thus starting to close the dreaded achievement gap.
So what does the data tell us?  We are starting to make real inroads in closing the elementary school achievement gap, with both fourth grade math and reading proficiency gaps closing by five points nationally.  (Though the 26-point gap in math and 27-point gap in firth grade reading are still very disturbing.)
But what happens when we move four years forward to eighth grade?  By the end of middle school, those gaps remain large.  The eighth grade math gap stands at 31, closing only two points in nearly two decades.  The reading gap is slightly better — only 26 points — but it has only closed three points in 15 years.
Why is this important?  We like to believe that providing strong building blocks early in the educational process will result in a lifetime of benefits.  Yet when we look at these new NAEP numbers, we see that the math achievement gap grows over a student’s career, while the reading achievement gap remains flat.  We may be starting strong, but at the halfway point of the race, we’re starting to lose a step or two.  And if the long-term NAEP data released earlier this year is any indication, by the time we get to the end of our K-12 experience, the gap has widened and our historically disadvantaged students are huffin’ and puffin’ as others cross the finish line.
Then there is the trickle-down effect.  The math achievement gap in 8th grade has direct impact on science achievement for all students.  The reading gap affects history and other social science classes.  Even if we aren’t measuring student performance (at least not through AYP), reading and math performance has a direct impact on total student learning.  Those students who are struggling to read in eighth grade are likely struggling in all of their subjects.  Those students who have difficulty with may are likely having the same issues in the sciences and other subjects that are seen as “must knows” for success in today’s economy.
What are our takeaways?  First, the gains in the elementary grades lend credibility to the ongoing push for greater accountability in school improvement.  We’ve focused our efforts on the early grades, and we are starting to see the impact.  Test scores are rising, achievement gap is closing.  That’s a good thing. 
But the real challenge is how we continue the trend.  How do we extend elementary school progress into the middle and secondary grades?  How do we replicate (and measure) student performance in math and reading in other core academic subjects?  As we identify the interventions that are working for our younger learners, how do we replicate and accelerate such interventions in the later grades? 
Yes, our questions continue to mount.  We talk a great game about innovation and school improvement, but we are still scoring an incomplete when it comes to our final scores.  We are starting to ID what works … and what doesn’t.  We are prioritizing student performance, data collection, assessment, and accountability.  We are talking about moving away from the status quo “solutions” that have had little impact and are focusing the improvements and innovations that are proven effective (including the increased investment in teacher quality). 
We should celebrate the progress that is made in the early grades and the impact that high-quality preK is having on student performance in those early grades.  But if we are going to truly, really, meaningfully address that K-12 problem, we need to broaden our view beyond elementary school.  Success is ultimately measured at the finish line.  That means high school diplomas, 17-year-old NAEP, and the knowledge and skills displayed by high school graduates.  Anything short of that is simply missed opportunity, unmet expectations, and what could have been.

Requiring Quality in Our PreK Programs

Eduflack Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, AYP, early childhood education, stimulus

What, exactly, is the future of the federal
investment in public education? 
For months now, we have tried to cobble together an answer to that
question, using presidential campaign rhetoric, economic stimulus package
priorities, and now Presidential budget decisions to help us see where we are
headed as a nation.   Since
assuming his position in late January, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has
provided us little more detail, sticking mostly to the talking points on
stimulus and education’s impact on the economy. 

But few seem to have a clear sense of what the
U.S. Department of Education has in store for the future, particularly the
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).  The general agreement is that
reauthorization could happen as early as this fall and as late as the summer of
2010, but it is indeed coming.  The
common logic is NCLB will stay relatively intact.  Along the way, we hear about efforts in Washington, DC to
construct more comprehensive reading legislation (to replace Reading First) and
a framework for national standards (expected to be delivered by Achieve to
Duncan in the coming weeks), but where, exactly, will our future priorities
lie?

Recently, Duncan and his lieutenants have been
focusing on four key policy pillars on which the new U.S. Department of
Education is constructed.  First,
implementation of college and career-ready standards and assessments.  Second, creation of comprehensive data
systems that track students throughout their education career and track
teachers back to schools of education to better understand which programs are
producing teachers that make a difference.  Third, recruitment, preparation, and reward of outstanding
teachers, paying more to teachers who work in tough schools.  And finally, turn around of chronically
underperforming schools.

What figured prominently during President Obama’s
campaign – but what seems to be missing from the core tenets – is early
childhood education.  Early and
often, Obama campaigned on the notion of a strong national commitment to early
childhood education.  Instead of
just focusing on access and an expansion of current programs, the President
seemed focused on committing to quality just as much as he committed to
quantity.  The talk was not
universal preK; the rhetoric was high-quality preK.

But what, precisely, is high-quality early
childhood education?  For decades
now, many have viewed the 800-pound gorilla in the ECE room – Head Start – as
being little more than glorified babysitting.  Instead of using the time to help disadvantaged or
low-income students get a jump start on their academic futures, Head Start just
focuses on the “social” aspects. 
We make our youngest learners more comfortable with existing in a
learning environment.  The
pre-reading and pre-math skills such learners needed simply come once they
officially entered kindergarten – and entered miles behind their academically better-off
peers.

In recent years, we have watched the universal
preK movement transform from the hare into the tortoise.  Supporters of universal preK have
watched new plans ground to a halt and have seen existing programs slowed or
scaled back, all because of a smaller pot of resources going education
needs.  Smaller state budgets,
caused by less-than-planned real estate taxes, have forced some tough decisions
when it comes to public education. 
And early childhood education was one of the first on the chopping
block.

Last month, the Pew Center of the States
released Leadership Matters: Governors’ Pre-K Proposals Fiscal Year 2010.  Looking at recent education budgets
proposed by the current state chief executives, Pew found that our greatest
fears are likely not going to be realized (unless state legislatures have
anything to do with it).  Despite
our states’ economic struggles, 14 states are proposing increases in early
childhood education investment. 
Thirteen states are proposing to level fund programs.  And three states are looking to
establish preK efforts where there currently are none.  All told, our nation’s governors intend
to boost FY2010 investment in early childhood education by 4 percent over
2009’s commitments.

The Pew study only tells half the story,
though.  The other 50 percent still
has yet to be written.  Sixty
percent of our states are looking to start, continue, or strengthen their
investment in preK.  But what are
they investing in?  How do we
ensure that we are investing in high-quality early childhood education?  How do we measure return on investment
in preK?  How do we make sure our
youngest learners are gaining the academic building blocks needed to succeed
throughout their academic careers, overcoming some of the learning gaps that
have long dogged disadvantaged students and have long dug a deep scholastic
trench between the haves and have nots?

The doubting Thomases would say one cannot truly
quantify results in early childhood education.  But we know that to simply be incorrect.  When it comes to pre-reading, we know
the letter recognition and vocabulary skills three- and four-year olds can gain
to prepare them for the research-based K-4 reading instruction that will
transform them into proficient, confident readers.  We know the numeracy that all students need to know to
maximize the start of their K-12 experience.  And we know the core skills all students require to be ready
to learn when they pass through those kindergarten doors for the first time.

So what, then, does quality look like?  We can turn our gaze to two unlikely
places – Washington, DC and Texas – to provide us some real insight into
high-quality, effective preK instruction. 
In Washington, the AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation,
through the DC Partnership for Early Literacy, is working in some of our
nation’s capital’s lowest-income communities, yet posting significant gains on
student early reading achievement. 
Based on standardized, nationally normed assessments, AppleTree students
gained 21 percentile points in vocabulary proficiency, placing them higher than
the national norm and more than doubling the gains demonstrated by students in
DC Head Start classrooms.  Among
AppleTree’s lowest 50 percent of students, learners posted even more impressive
gains – 26 percentile points, nearly tripling typical Head Start results while
working with students from similar demographics.

In Texas, the Children’s Learning Institute,
through its Texas Early Education Model (TEEM), is now working with more than
61,000 young learners across 38 communities in the Lone State State.  There, students are achieving and
demonstrating progress in key literacy skills, including phonological
awareness, rapid letter naming, and vocabulary development.

These two programs are not merely the exceptions
to the rule.  They are worth
acknowledging for two reasons. 
First, they are demonstrating results.  Both AppleTree and TEEM help define what high-quality early
childhood education is, how we can measure it, and the sort of results we
should expect from effective preK. 
More importantly, though, both programs also demonstrate that our
youngest learners can benefit from the same policy pillars that Secretary
Duncan is putting in place for our K-12 systems.

In early childhood education, we also see that
standards and assessments are key, particularly if we expect to demonstrate and
measure the results that define quality. 
In ECE, we also see that data systems are key, providing educators and
policymakers the information necessary to bridge three-year-old programs to
four-year-old programs to kindergarten and beyond.  In ECE, we know that effective teachers are the key to a
quality program, and early childhood educators must be well trained, well
supported, and constantly encouraged to improve their practice and improve
their knowledgebase.  And in ECE,
we know that our most disadvantaged students – those from historically
underperforming neighborhoods – are the kids that most benefit and most need a
high-quality, academically focused preK experience.

Nationally, we believe that every child should
have access to a high-quality education. 
We believe that student achievement is king, and all learners should be
proficient and should be able to demonstrate that proficiency, both in the
classroom and on state and national assessments.  We believe that a strong public education is the gateway to
a strong future, both for the individual and society.  And we believe, or should, that we must hold our systems
accountable for the quality and effectiveness of the education they deliver.

Such belief systems should not be restricted to
our K-12 systems, or even more narrowly construed for grades 3-8 when we
measure AYP.  If we expect to
transform every child into a successful learner, we also need to implement the
quality, accountability, and teacher effectiveness into our preK systems.  As our states look to invest in the
future of early childhood education, as the Pew Center indicates, we need to
make sure this money is going toward good programs that demonstrate true
ROI.  We need to look at programs
like TEEM, AppleTree, and others to guide our decisions.  Demanding early childhood education is
no longer enough.  We should be
demanding quality – and results – for our youngest learners as well. 


Let’s leave the babysitting to teenagers seeking
some extra spending money.  Our
early childhood education programs should be focused on providing the academic
frameworks that empower even the most disadvantaged of students to achieve in a
school setting.



A New Era for PreK?

Eduflack Achievement gap, early childhood education, Reading First

A few short years ago, universal preK was all the rage.  States large and small were jumping on the bandwagon, candidates for state office were running a platform that called for early childhood education, and we honestly believed that preK was moving from glorified babysitting to true, honest-to-goodness instruction for our youngest learners.  The federal investment in Early Reading First helped the cause, but in general we saw that one couldn’t truly improve elementary school academic proficiency without establishing some core building blocks in those years before kindergarten.

Then along came the economy.  Before the bottom fell out last fall, states had already been feeling the pinch on their budgets and their good intentions for universal preK.  Some plans were scaled back, some scrapped altogether.  We all knew it was an issue that warranted our education attention, it just wasn’t necessarily one that would get our top billing.  And in the current economic environment, only the top billing got our dollars and focus.
The good folks over at PreK Now (now part of the Pew Center on the States) have released a new study looking at the governors’ preK proposals for the coming fiscal year.  Leadership Matters: Governors’ PreK Proposals Fiscal Year 2010 provides some interesting information on the future of early childhood education.  Among PreK Now’s highlights, looking at gov proposals:
* 14 governors are proposing to increase investment in early education
* 13 govs are proposing to level fund early education programs, preserving current investment levels
* The governors of Alaska, North Dakota, and Rhode Island are proposing preK efforts where there are currently none
* Total proposed investment in FY2010 ECE is 4 percent greater than last year’s actual spending
On the negative, we have to hope that state legislatures will fully fund these efforts.  And on the truly negative, the governors of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina are all proposing cuts to their current preK investments.  Penny wise and pound foolish, particularly in this day and age.
So there is room for hope, but room for concern. At our highest levels of state leadership, we are seeing the value of ECE.  And in many states, we are converting that realization into real policies and real dollars.  Unfortunately, in some states — including those like Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and North Carolina that are known, fairly or no, for a high-quality education — cuts are coming.  And we all know that once cuts come, it gets harder and harder to restore them.  There, we have to hope that the legislatures will intervene and at least continue existing funding.
For those states that are looking to create new ECE programs, increase current funding levels, or even stay the course, there becomes one very important question: How do we deliver return on investment on early childhood education?  How do we make sure we have moved beyond glorified babysitting and are really focusing on instruction and academic and social preparation?  How do we ensure that quality preK is measured and assessed for having true quality?
Last week, Sara Mead and the folks over at New America Foundation worked to answer that question, providing some guidance, some data, and some color commentary on the issue of quality preK.  At a forum held last Thursday, New America took a closer look at the lessons that can be learned from data-driven early interventions for our youngest learners.  The forum can be watched on the Web, courtesy of New America, here.  
The playback on the forum is worth checking out, and not just because it features the AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation (a group Eduflack current advises) and its work with the DC Partnership for Early Literacy.  As our governors look at continuing their bets on early childhood education, it is valuable to see how evidence-based, early childhood literacy instruction can be effective, particularly with low-income three- and four-year olds.  The DC Partnership for Literacy is working with some of our most at-risk students.  If it can demonstrate true ROI when it comes to preK, it is offering something that every governor — particularly those in Alaska, North Dakota, and Rhode Island who are starting up early childhood efforts — may be able to really learn from.  When it comes to the future of preK, we all need to focus on quality, ROI, and its contributions to closing the achievement gap.  We need these investments to count for something.

Education Equality and Opportunity Now!

Eduflack Achievement gap, AYP, early childhood education, EdNews, NAEP

Last week, Eduflack had a Commentary piece on Education News on education equity.  Unfortunately, the link to the piece seems to have disappeared into the online ether.  But I wanted to share the piece, nonetheless.  So without further ado …

Aside from those who are polishing up their
“Status Quoer of the Year” trophies, most within the education sector recognize
that the future of public education has never been as intertwined with the
future of our economy as it is today. 
The school improvements sought by the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act (ARRA) and those long funded by groups such as the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation are not simply change for change sake.  They are specific actions designed to make our P-12 systems
more relevant to life after school, ensuring that more students see the career
options before them and possess the knowledgebase and skills necessary to
achieve in a 21st century workforce.

 

Education, or at least effective education, does
not happen in a vacuum. 
Improvement efforts must be tied to outcomes and to real-life
expectations.  That’s why we no
longer teach our children Sanskrit. 
It’s why typing has given way to keyboarding.  And it is why language instruction in Latin and Italian has
given way to greater emphasis on the teaching of Spanish, Chinese, and even
Hmong.  We do not, cannot, and
should not reform simply for reforms’ sake.  We need to ensure that changes are relevant to future
educational and career paths.

 

Yet even today, there are those who fail to see
the connections.  In recent years,
I’ve held focus groups and discussion sessions with teacher educators and
classroom teachers and school board members and policymakers, and some of the
comments were frightening.  Many
believe the quality of education in the United States is stronger today than it
has ever been.  Instruction has
never been more effective.  And
some believe achievement gaps and drop-out rates are simply urban legends, designed
to spur changes that are unnecessary and undermine the great work being done by
the system, overlooking that “the system” has nearly half of minority students
are dropping out of high school and where only a third of today’s ninth graders
will go on to postsecondary education.

 

For these doubting Thomases and the defenders of
the status quo, the recent data released by McKinsey & Company crosswalking
the achievement gap in our schools with the financial shortfalls of our economy
is downright startling.  McKinsey’s
April 2009 report, The Economic Impact of
the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools, paints a bleak picture of the
very real impact of the performance failures in our schools on the future of
our nation.  The student
achievement gap costs our nation $3 billion to $5 billion a day.  The achievement gap between black and
Hispanic students and white students costs us more than half a trillion dollars
a year, or 4 percent of our GFP. 
And the gap between low-income students and the rest can cost us upwards
of $670 billion a year, or 5 percent of GDP. 

 

Recognizing there are obvious overlaps between
those two disaggregated groups, we know that achievement gap costs us a bare
minimum of $500 billion a year. 
For those clamoring for additional dollars for our public schools,
believing that funding has been the only obstacle to student success, imagine
the impact half a trillion dollars could have on P-12?

 

Moreover, McKinsey’s data spotlighted the social
impacts of a struggling school system. 
The consulting company boldly proclaimed that data clearly demonstrates
that, as early as the fourth grade, achievement gap indicators demonstrate: 1)
lower rates of high school and college graduation; 2) lower lifetime earnings;
3) poorer health; and 4) higher rates of incarceration.

 

This data needs to end, once and for all, the
debate on how important student achievement is as an evaluation measure.  In today’s day and age, performance is
king.  Data is the driver.  And quantitative information needs to
rule the roost. 

 

Like it or not, that means student achievement is
determined by performance on state assessments and on Adequate Yearly Progress
measures.  Until we have national
education standards and national assessments, the state test is our tool.  It is the single measure that helps us
determine student proficiency and allows teachers and families to understand
where their children stand in comparison with others in the class, the school,
and the state.

 

Now is the not the time for debate about multiple
measures or looking for creative ways to evaluate students on qualitative
factors that cannot be captured on “high-stakes tests.”  The McKinsey data, coupled with the
warning calls and alerts issued for the past 25 years since the issuance of A Nation at Risk make one thing
clear.  The achievement gap is
Public Enemy Number One when it comes to the success of our schools.

 

Elementary school learning gaps are driven, in
large part, between the reading proficiency differences between low-income and
higher-income students.  Our
national high school crisis is further exacerbated by the irrefutable realities
than half of black and Hispanic students drop out rather than earn a high
school diploma.  And even for those
who enter postsecondary education, high levels of remediation, particularly in
English and math, only further emphasize the differences between the haves and
have nots.

 

The Education Equality Project has seized on the
McKinsey data, using the most-recent numbers as a beacon to draw attention to
EEP’s overall goal to eliminate the racial and ethnic achievement gap in public
education by working to create and effective school for every child.  Last week, EEP used the opportunity to
address the issue of teacher quality, and the irrefutable linkages between the
effectiveness of teachers and the performance of students.  This is particularly true of students
from historically disadvantaged populations, who are often saddled with
teachers who are unqualified, unprepared, or simply incapable of leading
struggling classrooms and providing the instruction necessary to overcome the
learning gaps identified by McKinsey and others.

 

The achievement gap is a national disgrace.  There is no question about it.  For the past decade, we have talked ad
naseum about student achievement and the need to reach AYP.  Noble goals, yes.  But in the process, we have neglected
the gaps and let far too many children fall through the cracks.  As a result, the NCLB era is one where
the differences between the haves and have nots continues to grow.  Race is more of an indicator of student
struggles than per capita spending. 
And those students who benefit the most from a meaningful public
education are often the last to actually receive it.

 

But it begs a larger question.  Can we truly close the achievement gap
before we have addressed the issues of equity and opportunity?  Can historically disadvantaged students
narrow the learning gap if they are not provided equal access to high-quality
learning opportunities?  Can we
improve the quality and impact of our public education system by simply
defining resources and equity by dollar signs, without factoring in quality and
impact?

 

The answer to all of the above questions is
obviously no.  The achievement gap
cannot be closed simply through rhetoric and pleasant dreams of lollipops and
rainbows.  It requires serious
investment in real solutions.  It
requires rocking the boat, doing things differently, and holding our states,
our schools, and our teachers to high expectations with high consequences.  It requires refusing to buy into the
status quo, and accept that the paths of the past have gotten us into the
crisis of the present.

 

So where do we go?  We need qualified, effective teachers in the classroom, and
we need to quantify their effectiveness. 
We need to demand equitable instructional resources for our schools,
ensuring that equity is measured at the highest points of the scale, and not by
dropping to the lowest common denominator.  We need greater accountability in the schools, both for
instruction and for how we utilize our education resources (particularly new
ARRA dollars) and ensure that such money is reaching those students most in
need.  We need to involve parents,
families, and the community in the school improvement process.  We need to ensure that those students
on the failing end of the achievement gap are given new access to the very best
instruction, from early childhood education to college prep curricula.  We need to collectively demand more
from our schools, and settle for no less. 
And we need to keep up the fight until both the opportunity and the
achievement gaps are things of the past, joining the phoenix and the unicorn as
mythical beasts of the past, never to be seen again.

 

We must also recognize we have no choice in the
matter.  As McKinsey has made
crystal clear, the stakes are simply too high for us to be content with the way
things are.  The achievement gap is
downright destroying the quality of our public schools, the impact of public
instruction, and the future of our economy.  To borrow from a mentor of mine, failure to act, knowing
what we know, is committing educational malpractice.  If education is indeed our next great civil right, now is
the time for our great march on Washington and now is the time for us to truly
act on our dream.

 

Next month, we celebrate the 55th
anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board decision, integrating our public
schools and offering the promise of equity and opportunity all U.S.
Students.  More than a half century
later, we still have many, many miles to go before the intent of that decision
becomes a reality in our inner-city and low-income schools.  What exactly are we waiting for?



Opportunity First, Then Achievement

Eduflack Achievement gap, AYP, early childhood education, High School, NAEP

How do we close the achievement gap?  The long-term NAEP data released earlier this week clearly demonstrate that we, as a nation, have been unable to make any real inroads at reducing the achievement gaps between minority students and white students.  Despite all our efforts and the best of intentions, the gaps between African-American and white students are as large as they were two decades ago.  The gaps between Hispanic and white students are as large as they were two decades ago.  And one can assume the gaps between low-income and high-income students are as large (or even larger) than they were two decades ago.

Some have looked at the NAEP scores, viewing them as a mantra from heaven.  Forget the gaps, they say, we need to focus on a rising tide that has lifted all boats.  Eduflack is the first to acknowledge that, as a nation, we made improvements, particularly in reading instruction.  And we did see upticks for all disaggregated groups.  A definite plus, particularly in an era where so many have questioned our focus on student achievement and evidence-based standards.
But there is no shaking the fact that the achievement gap is very, very real.  It is public enemy number one for our public schools.  If white students are outperforming minority students by 20, 30, or 50 points on standardized math or reading exams, that is a real problem.  All of the interventions, policies, and standards in the world mean very little if we can’t get all students up to a common level.  We cannot guarantee all students equal pathways to success as long as we are posting significant gaps in student learning and achievement.
Over the last few months, the education community has been focused on the notions of improvement and innovation.  In many ways, such concepts are step three in the education continuum.  Step two, leading to such innovation, is student achievement.  To get there, our first step must be one of opportunity, ensuring every student has access to the learning opportunities and resources that are necessary to moving down the pathways of success.
This AM, the Schott Foundation for Public Education released national data for its Opportunity to Learn Resource Index (OTLRI), a data-based tool designed to evaluate students’ access to such educational resources and opportunities.  Schott will be releasing state-by-state educational opportunity numbers next month, but the national numbers are just as frightening as the recent NAEP data:
Specifically, Schott found:
* Black students only have a 47 percent “opportunity to learn,” and Latino and low-income students only have a 53 percent “opportunity to learn,” compared to white, non-Latino students
* Only 15 percent of Black students are currently in well-resourced, high-performing schools, while 42 percent are in poorly resourced, low-performing schools
* Latino, American Indian, and low-income students attend poorly resourced, low-performing schools at similar percentages as Black students
* The average White, non-Latino student is twice as likely to be in a well-resourced, high-performing school
Why are these numbers so important?  We simply cannot close the achievement gap if we aren’t adequately resourcing those students on the losing end of the gap.  We can’t expect African-American and Hispanic students to pull themselves closer to their white counterparts if they are being asked to do more and more in poorly resourced, low-performing schools.  We can’t provide all students the promise of equal paths of success when white students are twice as likely to attend a well-equipped school than minority students.  
Full disclosure, Eduflack has been working with the Schott Foundation on early strategic efforts for its Opportunity to Learn Initiative, of which OTLRI is a centerpiece.  But I am involved in such issues because it becomes very personal for me.  Loyal readers know that, at the end of the day, it all comes back to family for me.  My views on education improvement are rooted in my experiences growing up in an education household, son of a college president and a high school English teacher.  It is rooted in the realization that my maternal grandfather was a high school dropout, who never saw the value of formal education, but who worked his tail off for nearly 40 years to raise a family of five children.  And it is rooted in knowing where my own children come from, and the paths that were almost taken for them.
Two days ago, my son celebrated his third birthday.  Miggy was born in Guatemala to a single mother with no formal education and an absence of basic literacy skills.  She put Miggy up for adoption a day after he was born, hoping for a better life for him, one where he could access a full spectrum of opportunities and could fulfill his true potential.  Last fall, Miggy’s full birth sister joined our family.  Now 19 months old, Anna Patricia entered this country just like her brother.  Both were immigrants in search of a better life.  And although Miggy came to the United States at seven months old and Anna at 13 months old, both are ESL children. 
Their story is not unlike a growing number of 21st century Americans.  As their father, I know I can provide them the educational (and other) opportunities that they may not have received otherwise.  They’ll get the formal early childhood education programs necessary to be fully prepared for the K-12 experience.  They will attend public schools in one of the finest school districts in the nation, gaining access to highly qualified and effective teachers and classrooms that are properly supported and resourced.  They will participate in a rigorous college prep curriculum (our district uses I, and they will have access to high-quality postsecondary options.  Miggy and my princesa will be provided every opportunity to learn, and if they don’t I will raise holy hell to ensure that any barriers are removed.
But I look at the Schott numbers and know my two children are the exception, not the rule.  Their fellow Hispanic students will have half the chance to access true learning opportunities than they do.  Hopefully, they will be at the top of the curve on the achievement gap, posting achievement numbers that can help close the Hispanic-white achievement gap.  They will demonstrate academic proficiency early on, and will never look back.  They will avoid the drop-out factories, and will never see dropping out of high school as a viable option (as my grandfather did).  They will be provided every opportunity to learn.
Our national goal is every student achieving and every student succeeding.  We want every student reading and math proficient by fourth grade, every student graduating from high school, and every child pursuing some form of postsecondary education.  It doesn’t matter their race, family education level, or family income level.  That is our goal for each and every child.  That is why we are growing closer and closer to the notion of a high-quality education being a right, and not a merely wish.
But we can’t achieve that goal until every child is provided an equal opportunity to learn.  And that opportunity cannot be the lowest common denominator.  Every student needs access to real, demonstrable educational resources.  Every student needs access to effective, well-trained teachers.  Every student needs pathways to the future.  Every child needs the sort of opportunities that Miggy and Anna will now have.
Until we can get to that stage, we can never close the achievement gap, and we can never eliminate the battle between the haves and have nots in public education.  Half a chance is not a chance.
 Fifty percent opportunity is not an opportunity.  And true achievement and innovation cannot occur without equal access to real, measurable resources and opportunities.  I know that is true for my two children, and I know it is fact for each and every child attending public schools in the United States, particularly for those for whom a strong education is their only chance at real success and real choice.
 

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.
    

Presidential Rhetoric, Education-Style

Eduflack Arne Duncan, charter schools, early childhood education, High School, NCLB, Obama, stimulus

The education game is on.  During last evening’s Presidential Address to Congress, President Obama dedicated significant time in his hour-long speech to the issue of education.  Such a commitment is typically unheard of in typical State of the Union addresses.  Often, a president will throw in a few sentences about education, one about the importance of teachers, one about the value of a college education, and then he will move onto to other issues more adept at capturing the hearts and minds of the American people.

Yes, Obama had a lot to say last night.  The economy, home ownership, energy, national security, healthcare.  All got their due.  And education was right in there as an A-list issue.  Clearly, the President sees the clear connect between an improved K-16 education system and an improved economy, how a strong education leads to good jobs and meaningful contribution.  He sees the next generation of the American workforce will require new levels of knowledge and skills that the generations before them never envisioned.  If anything, he made a clear and compassionate case for 21st century skills.
The full transcript from last night’s speech can be found here, though it is a much more impressive watch than it is a read: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/obama_address_022409.html?hpid=topnews
Of”>www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/obama_address_022409.html?hpid=topnews
Of course, a significant potion of last night’s education segment was dedicated to higher education.  That should surprise no one.  For the past two years, Obama has spoken of postsecondary education as a primary pathway to life success.  He has pledged to get more kids to go to college, help them pay for it, and then use their talents in the community well after they earned that degree.  And in times of economic trouble, nothing hits the heart better than improving one’s lot in life through learning.  Challenging every American to seek at least one more year of education, whether it be in college or a vocational program, was a bold statement.  Stating that dropping out is never an option is always a crowd-pleaser.  And setting a goal of repositioning the United States as the nation with the highest percentage of postsecondary degree holders by 2020 is an interesting idea (though I’m curious to see how we are defining degrees and how we are equating simply earning the degree with effectively putting it to use).
A few points — some policy, some rhetoric — truly grabbed Eduflack’s attention.
On the policy front, the President made strong commitments to both charter schools and performance pay for teachers.  The latter should be no surprise.  Obama has long advocated for incentive pay, even during a tough primary knowing it may have cost him the support of teachers (or at least the teachers’ unions).  He hasn’t forgotten how important it can be to incentivize educators, particularly those in hard-to-staff communities facing real academic challenges.  By boosting funding for the Teacher Incentive Fund in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he has signaled that performance pay (and possibly differentiated pay scales) are on the horizon.  Perhaps he may even lean to newly minted U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado for some ideas on how to take Denver’s ProComp model to national scale.
On charters, the President put charter schools firmly in the center of his education improvement agenda.  Although he provided no specific details, just by singling them out he built a bridge to an important education community and showed his design for change, innovation, and improvement in our public schools.  It is almost hard to believe that a president or two ago, a Democrat couldn’t even utter the word charter without getting the ire of the education establishment.  For Eduflack, the question for the future is whether the Administration — particularly through the Office of Innovation and Improvement and the newly created Innovation Fund — will broadly define charter schools or whether they will take the new world view pushed by Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, limiting our commitment to charters to those that are run by not-for-profit organizations.
The final policy piece?  A renewed commitment to early childhood education.  The President made clear that student learning starts “from the day they are born to the day they begin a career,” and we need to redouble our efforts to deliver real instruction and real learning to children well before they hit kindergarten.  That got applause from Eduflack, but we probably need to retool the statement to address the reality that education continues well beyond the start of a career.  Just ask all of those most recently in the workforce who we are asking to retool, or those teachers for whom we are rightfully investing in improved, content-based professional development.  Learning should be a lifelong pursuit.
And the rhetoric?  As many pundits have already proclaimed, President Obama is clearly a master of the television medium.  He knows how to deliver a speech, and knows how to do it well with real impact.  In the education portion of our program, that was most clear in his articulation of the role of parents.  Again, this has been a key component of his stump speech, and a topic touched on during the Democratic Convention last summer.  He made crystal the job of educating our students is not just left to teachers, and that parents play an equally important role by being involved, taking an interest, and leading by example.  I still believe there is a real need for an Office of Family Involvement over at the U.S. Department of Education, an infrastructure that can harness the power of a wide range of communities and focus on how the home can supplement what is happening in the classroom.  If not an assistant secretary office someone at OESE, OPEPD, or OII needs to take it on as a priority cause.
In his remarks, it is also clear that Obama (and his speechwriters) are clear in their vision and passion for how one talks about higher education and its impact on the individual and the community.  What was interesting, though, is that the speechwriters still seem to be seeking and searching for that same confident voice on K-12 education.  Yes, there were applause line for things like charter schools and dropping out is never an option, but the passion and connectivity was lacking, at least compared with other sections of the speech.Obama didn’t sell the K-12 ideas as well as he did higher education or energy.  Maybe he wanted to stay away from NCLB, maybe he wants to give EdSec Arne Duncan a full latitude in establishing the agenda, or maybe he is still waiting to find that balance between the tried-and-true and innovation (or the status quoers and the reformers, as some prefer).  Over time, we have to hope that the K-12 section, particularly with regard to elementary grades and instructional building blocks becomes clear and a true rallying cry for school improvement.  To truly sell the vision, he needs to speak with confidence and authority on some of the details, particularly as it relates to instructional innovation.
What was missing?  In his discussion of how we can effectively use our educational infrastructure to improve our economy, I wish there was clear, specific mention of STEM education. When done well, STEM education is about well more than just 21st century skills.  It is exactly about equipping all students with the math, science, and technology knowledgebase they need to contribute to the economy and fill the very jobs Obama is looking to create.
I had also hoped to hear a call for national standards.  In talking about global economic competition, we not only need clear national academic standards, but we probably need to tie those to intern
ational benchmarks (as NGA, CCSSO, and Achieve have recently called for).  The Administration has been dipping its toe into the national standards pool, and the financial commitment to improve state data systems is a good step forward.  But the rhetorical nod to a single expectation for student achievement in the United States would have been a powerful, defining statement.
What fell flat?  The attempt to brand this new approach to P-16 as a “complete and competitive education.”  While I appreciate the attempt, I don’t think the concept holds the rhetorical power we both seek and need.  The Administration is looking for a way to improve on No Child Left Behind, both as a policy and as a rhetorical statement.  It may be a punchline to jokes now, but the phrase “no child left behind” wielded enormous power in the early days of the law. It meant something, particularly when combined with lines about the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
Lines like “dropping out of high school is no longer an option” are good initial steps.  But we still need to capture an umbrella brand and a bumper sticker phrase to define what this new era of innovative public education really stands for.  Complete and competitive are nice attributes, but they aren’t the headline.  It may just be window dressing to some, but how we talk about federal policy and the labels we ascribe to it can be just as important — even more so — than what’s under the hood.  Obama captured much of the nation with his rhetoric of “Yes, we can.”  Now we need to move that into a “yes, we can educate all” mentality.

What’s Next for Federal Reading?

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

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

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

Coming Together for School Improvement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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