Most folks who read the education blogs know that today was Ed in 08’s big education blogger’s summit. The crowd seemed to be an interesting mix of both bloggers and ed policy folks (particularly those with education orgs that either deal with the tech issue or have a strong online presence). At first blush, the cynic in me says the primary focus of the summit was to get Ed in 08’s name in a significant number of blogs all at the same time. But after a few hours of reflection, I can also see some real benefits.
What has stuck most with Eduflack is the opening speech by Ed in 08 head Roy Romer. Forget debate questions or campaign commercials or grassroots organizing or even a movie about two million minutes. The most intriguing — and most valuable — contribution that Ed in 08 is now making is Romer’s continued push for national standards. This is the third time I’ve heard Romer touting the Ed in 08 line. Each time, after delivering the stump speech, he focuses on the long-term value of national standards and his dream of locking up a dozen or so well-meaning governors, have them identify standards that tie to international assessments, and then send us on our way to better performance. I thought it was a good idea when I first heard him lay it out last fall at Jobs for the Future’s conference. And it is even a better idea today.
So why does the issue of national standards fail to gain the attention it deserves? It should be a campaign issue, it’s not. It should be a national policy discussion, it’s not. It should be a primary goal of the education blob and those in the blob’s shadow, it’s not.
It’s as if we seem to think our traditional of local education control means we can’t have national standards. Such thinking is just lazy. Groups like NGA and CCSSO have had the courage to talk about a common set of U.S. learning standards. More need to follow that lead.
If it is the only thing that Romer and company do from this point forward with Gates’ and Broad’s money, it will be well worth it. National standards deserve a national debate. We should all be for high expectations, global competition, and improved skills. A national dialogue provides us the rhetoric to discuss such goals. And Eduflack is ready to sign up as a town crier on the issue today.
What else came out of the blogger summit? I personally loved Romer’s stat that the average American student is a year or a year and a half behind their international peers in math instruction. We hate to hear it, but we know it is true. And I am still scratching my head on having Newt Gingrich as the keynoter for an ed event focused on national policies. It was only a decade ago that Gingrich and his team was calling for the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education.
Alexander Russo tried to push his panel on the issue of merit pay, but few wanted to bite. It was good to hear the AFT say that merit pay is a local issue, to be embraced in local CBAs. Let’s just hope the locals know that.
The hot issues seem to be preK and assessments (high-stakes, differentiated, multiples, take your pick and political line). No buzz at all for high school reform, despite the ducats coming from Gates. And with all our lip service to the P-16 education continuum, higher ed is still the gawky girl at the ed dance, with no one paying her much attention either.
And big surprise, few seem to see a future for NCLB. Some, like Ed Trust’s Amy Wilkins, want to see the law strengthened and more strongly enforced. But the majority seemed to lean toward “improving” by weakening and adding Elasticman-level flexibility.
More later this week on the notion of changing the structure of the school day. It is an intriguing issue that could have some legs.
Gates Foundation
The Future of Teacher Incentives?
If teachers go above and beyond the call of duty, and their students’ achievement benefits from it, should those teachers be rewarded? What if teachers seek out additional training to improve their craft? What if teachers commit to increasing curricular rigor … and their students demonstrate improvement? Is there ever a time when superstar teachers should be rewarded? Does it matter if the incentive comes from the school district’s annual budget or third-party grant funding?
These are questions that school districts have been grappling with for years. And the issue of teacher incentive pay is only going to grow more and more heated. Programs like Denver’s ProComp have figured out how to make it work. Incentive programs in Minnesota, though, decided to simply reward every teacher in the school. And we’re still waiting to see the impact of the U.S. Department of Education’s Teacher Incentive Fund.
But recent developments in Seattle have Eduflack scratching his head. The National Math & Science Initiative provided schools in Washington more than $13 million to boost AP math and science courses. As part of the grant, teachers would be paid for time they spent in training and could be financially rewarded for how well their students performed on AP exams.
The grant has been scuttled. Pay for Washington State teachers can only be determined in negotiations between the union and the school district. NMSI wanted to pay the teachers directly (representing less than a quarter of the full grant). Since that violates the state CBO, these AP math and science incentives are now history. The full story is here, with kudos to Fordham’s Flypaper for drawing attention to it — http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2004394554_grants06m.html.
Rules are rules, I get that. And the unions should play a role in determining how some of this money is used, particularly in terms of professional development and training. But by denying groups like NMSI an opportunity like this only hurts the teachers and the students they teach.
The Washington Education Association says they can’t allow outside groups to reward teachers. Why not? If I own the largest company in the state, and I depend on a steady workforce pool with science and math skills, why can’t I reward those teachers or those schools that are helping to fill my jobs? If I find out a specific physics or algebra teacher is responsible for my top performers, why can’t I reward her, and even pay her to train other teachers to do it her way?
We continually hear that teachers are underpaid. We seek out ways to get businesses and outside interests to assume a role, usually financially, in the process. Is it really so far out of the realm of possibility to provide a teacher incentives outside of the school district budget? Shouldn’t we be looking for more ideas like this to reward teachers and honor achievement? Shouldn’t we be looking for innovations to get more good teachers in the classroom and keep them there? Shouldn’t we be doing more, rather than putting up barriers to protect the status quo?
AT&T Makes the Call
Late last week, telecommunications giant AT&T announced it was investing $100 million into solutions to our nation’s high school dropout problem. The funding is to be directed into four key areas — school grants, job shadowing programs, research, and dropout-prevention summits. Education Week has the full story at http://www.edweek.org/ew/2008/04/17/34att.h27.html.
Of course, AT&T isn’t the first to dial into this conference call. The Gates Foundation (through Microsoft money) first placed the call years ago. Since then, it has been joined by groups such as the Dell Foundation, State Farm Insurance, and Boeing. All have signaled the importance of a rigorous and relevant high school experience. All have put their money in to solve the problem, as they see it, and offer improvements to a long-neglected secondary education system.
What AT&T is proposing to fund isn’t breaking new ground. Gates has become the king of school grants. Local company after local company have long offered shadowing programs in partnership with their local high schools. States like Arkansas and Indiana have conducted successful dropout-prevention summits over the last year. And anyone who is anyone is funding “research.”
But this announcement is indeed significant. Why? It is all about the end game and all about the outcomes. Some folks don’t like to hear it, but today’s high schools are necessary prep zones for tomorrow’s workforce. We hear Gates and others talk about relevant and rigorous curriculum. What does that mean? It means high school courses relate to student interests and future career paths. It means that high schools are equipping students with the skills –critical thinking, reading, computational, teamwork, etc. — to succeed in the postsecondary environment of their choice and in a meaningful career.
At the end of the day, this is all about the workforce. Does anyone truly think you can get a good job without a high school diploma? In an industry like telecommunications, can AT&T put a high school dropout to work without having to significantly invest in worker training and education?
Like many employers, AT&T is looking down the road, anticipating what happens as Baby Boomers prepare for retirement over the next decade. At the same time, they’ve watched their industry evolve, with even blue-collar jobs requiring more knowledge, more know-how, and more skills. They know the sorts of employees they need in the coming years. And they know that high school dropouts can’t fill the need.
Let Eduflack be clear, this is not a criticism. In fact, I wish more companies would think and act with the same interest that AT&T does. Over the years, we have seen significant movement happen in K-12 education, and much of it is driven when the business community joins forces with K-12. Public-private partnerships have been invaluable. And the recent philanthropic investment from corporate charities provide resources that simply cannot be offered from other entities.
Business knows what it needs from our future workforce. They know the costs of recruitment and training. They know the skills they are seeking. And they see that they just aren’t getting what they know they need.
In most circles, we talk about the need of corporate America to adapt. They adapt to the global economy. The adapt to the eco-economy. They adapt to population shifts and increased regulations and higher costs and greater competition. They adapt because they need to. It is the only way to succeed … or just to survive.
Those lessons of adaptation can also be adopted by our high schools. In most communities, our high schools still operate under the model that worked 50 or even 100 years ago. Then, a third of students dropped out and found a job or joined the military. A third graduated high school and moved into the workforce. And a third graduated and pursued a postsecondary education.
Today, we now those numbers can’t hold. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 90 percent of new jobs will require postsecondary education. That means a high school diploma. And that means a high school experience that is both relevant and interesting to all students, not just those looking to go to college.
So kudos to AT&T and those who have come before it for investing in their futures by investing in our high schools. They clearly are putting their money where their mouths are. Now it is up to our school districts and high schools (particularly those now tagged as dropout factories) to answer that phone call and take meaningful action. And don’t worry, AT&T is picking up the charges.
Dropping Out in the Windy City
Just how bad is the drop-out problem in the United States? For years, we have heard the Manhattan Institute talk about urban drop-out rates of 30 percent, 40 percent, and even 50 percent. At the same time, many superintendents would counter with rates a fraction of that, citing circumstances that Manhattan wasn’t accounting for. Last week, Eduflack heard a tale (still to be verified) that until very recently one state was calculating their graduation rate based on the number of 12th graders who managed to graduate that year. As to be expected, they had a pretty good grad rate.
Today, the CPS Graduation Pathways Strategy is to be released in Chicago. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the report cites recent Chicago drop-out rates of nearly 50 percent. The most recent data shows a dropout rate of 44 percent. The full story is here in today’s Chicago Tribune — http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-dropout_25feb25,0,1248671.story. Thanks to www.educationnews.org for flagging it.
Why is this study so important? We all know our large, urban school districts have long had a drop-out problem. Heck, it was only a few months ago that many of their schools were dubbed drop-out factories. While such rates are indeed alarming, they have long been part of the drumbeat of the need for reform. We know kids aren’t graduating from high school, and we’ve known it for decades.
No, the important issue here is that Chicago is standing behind some very ugly numbers. They recognize that the first step to improvement is strong data collection and strong data analysis. Working with BMGF, they now know the true scope and size of the problem. They aren’t trying to hide the numbers. They aren’t trying to develop an alternative approach to convert that 44 percent to 32 percent or 26 percent. They are laying out the cold hard facts, using them as a launching pad for substantive, meaningful reforms.
It isn’t often that we see a large school district go naked like that by choice. Data is often a closely held secret, and one might need dual degrees in statistics and computer science to dig out meaningful information from a district website or state education database. This study, though, seems to lay out a frank and open discussion of seven years worth of graduation data for the Windy City. And it serves as a model for other urban districts who recognize the drop-out crisis is a major education and economic issue.
As communication goes, CPS deserves a gold star here. If the goal is school improvement, one needs to generate a genuine demand for change. You need to demonstrate that is a significant problem, we know what that problem is, and we have the people and resources to fix it. And that’s just what Chicago is doing this week (and hopefully well beyond). They’ve identified the problem, and a 44 percent drop-out rate is definitely a problem, and acknowledge the softer spots such as male drop-outs and a high school population that is older than the norm. They’ve assembled a team of educators, representing the central office and the high schools, to get to work. They’ve partnered with BMGF to both study the issue and implement solutions. Now they just need to convince parents, teachers, and the community at large to back their proposed course of action.
It seems straightforward and common sense. But we don’t always see that in education reform communications, do we? Yes, we have a while to go before we know if CPS’ approach is effective. From the cheap seats, it definitely seems like their thoughts, words, and actions are pointed in the right direction.
Renovate or Tear Down?
How do we effectively fix the American high school? We all talk about how our high schools are built on an antiquated notion of school. We’re delivering 21st century education in a little red school house setting. Multi-media learning in rows of one-piece desks. Innovating in a 19th century construct.
We all know of the enormous investment the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has made in trying to fix that high school model. Small schools. Early college high schools. Career-based, relevant curriculum. More rigorous classes. Multiple pathways to postsecondary education. A plethora of new instructional approaches to renovate a nagging problem.
And some of these approaches have had real effect. We’ve seen the value of early college high schools. Career academies have helped boost graduation rates in many urban districts. We still have a while to go, though, until we see the long-term impact of these renovations. Are any of them scalable solutions to fix our high schools, particularly those in our urban centers? Have we found a true fix?
Believe it or not, it is a question that Eduflack has been thinking on for quite some time now. Sure, I usually leave my musings to talking about effective communication or effective policy. But if I’m going to preach innovation to educators, sometimes I need to practice a little myself. And with Bill Gates taking over the management of his Foundation, I have to believe that investment in U.S. education is soon going to come with an even greater emphasis on results and return on investment. That means scalability.
In yesterday’s USA Today, columnist Patrick Walsh details the positive impact the construction of a new building had on the motivation, behaviors, and learning at T.C. Williams High School. (http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/02/bricks-mortar-a.html#more) Walsh’s observations only further encouraged my thinking.
Instead of renovating our existing high schools, what if Gates were to build an entirely new model? Over the past five years, Gates has learned a great deal about how, and how not, to run an effective high school. They understand the curriculum and the need for multiple academic pathways. They understand school structure. They are starting to get into the HR game, focusing on the teachers that are needed to lead such classrooms. They are quickly assembling all of the pieces. Now we move to that bold and audacious act.
What if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were to take its money and build new high schools in our top 25 urban districts? State-of-the-art buildings. Technology. Rigorous and relevant curriculum. Public-private partnerships. Relevant professional development for the teachers. Common educational standards measured across all Gates schools. Open enrollment for all those seeking a better high school experience. And the power of the Gates Foundation behind it.
And let’s get even bolder. A system of public high schools managed by the Gates Foundation. All in major cities across the nation. All with high standards for its teachers. All working from a common school design, a common curriculum, and common assessment that, over time, could be replicated in district after district across the nation.
Yes, many high schools — those recently dubbed drop-out factories — would see this as direct competition. Others would see the possible establishment of these schools under charter school provisions as a threat to public education. And others would wring their hands over such schools poaching the “good” teachers from our existing public schools, potentially weakening our current infrastructure. But with up to 50 percent of students at these urban schools dropping out before earning a high school diploma, isn’t the payoff worth the risk?
Competition can be a good thing. Gates high schools could identify a clear model for both building new schools and renovating existing ones. It could force current schools to truly improve their practice. And it could lead all of us to expect more from our schools, while helping us actually get there.
How do we do it? For one, we can take a look at what Microsoft has done with the creation of its high school in Philadelphia. Sure, Microsoft and Gates are different organizations. But they share a common DNA and a common synergy. Can’t we take that construction approach, coupled with the lessons learned from Gates’ high school redesign investments, to build that better mousetrap?
Maybe I’m just a dreamer, but this may be just what we need. Instead of trying to renovate a problematic system, making adjustments that will never make us fully happy or get us all the way to our goals, why not just build new? Avoid the restrictions and the drawbacks of the past, and build institutions on our current needs, current understanding, and hopes for the future.
It is no easy task. And the Gates Foundation may be the only organization out there with the resources, vision, and knowledgebase to even undertake it. A huge risk, no doubt. But imagine the payoff if it works.
Eduflack By Patrick R. Riccards 