SBRR

Reform is More Than a Four-Letter Word

Eduflack AP, higher ed, NCLB, PR, SBRR, STEM

OK, I’ll go first.  My name is Eduflack, and I’m an NCLB-aholic.  That was never my intention.  It just seems that every time I look for information on education reform and how we can improve the schools, I’m sucked in by the flashing lights and attractive packaging of NCLB stories.  Even when I try to get away from it, someone is offering me a taste of NCLB.  Some HQT here, some accountability there, and a whole lot of SBRR just about everywhere.  I admit it, I’m hooked.  And I like it.

And as much as I am an unapologetic supporter of the law and its goals, I also realize there is far more to education reform than NCLB.  Some of those topics — like high school reform and STEM — are already being discussed as additions to NCLB 2.0.  But there has to be more to school improvement than our federal elementary and secondary education act.

Leave it to Checker Finn and Diane Ravitch to remind us of what else is out there.  In a Wall Street Journal commentary yesterday (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118653759532491305.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries), the two focus on their desire to protect liberal arts education in the K-12 curriculum.  Their goal: to ensure we continue to teach history, civics, literature, and such subjects alongside our math and science requirements.

During a time when we are so focused on our “world is flat” economy and competition with India, China, and other nations around the globe, Ravitch and Finn’s piece makes one take pause.  They argue that to truly be competitive, students not only need technical skills, but they need to understand people, need to be thoughtful, and need to be equipped to question authority and ask, “why?” 

Ultimately, they raise the issue of whether it needs to be all or nothing.  Successful schools can focus on STEM and core subject assessments.  But they can also teach the Great Books and Western Civ.

For two individuals who are best known for their research, they deserve credit for personalizing their cause.  Citing the “academic” paths that made Steve Jobs, Alan Greenspan, and Warren Buffett successes helps most doubters see that it is not the academic major on the diploma, but what one does with their knowledge that really matters.  And their turn of the phrase, calling for “leaves and flowers” to be added to STEM, definitely leaves it mark. 

The great rhetorical challenge now is how one keeps focus on the NCLB building blocks necessary to provide the path to high-quality liberal arts education.  Or more simply, how do you say we are spending too much time and money and effort on NCLB, when the reading skills NCLB provides under Reading First are essential to any student understanding Shakespeare or the great philosophers? 

Regardless, with their think piece, Finn and Ravitch have definitely thrown the opening pitch in what could be a very interesting ed reform ballgame.  If they can continue to talk about it, outside of the context of NCLB, it could also be one that fills the stands. 

Putting Our Time Where Our Priorities Are

Eduflack Marketing, NCLB, PR, Reading First, SBRR

Prioritization.  In today’s educational day and age, it’s all about prioritization.  We prioritize funding.  We prioritize teacher hiring.  We prioritize curriculum adoption.  We prioritize how we assess our students and how we measure our classrooms.  We decide what is most important to us, and make that the focus of our efforts. 

Without question, as a nation, we’ve prioritized the need to prepare all students for the rigors of both school and career.  That is the goal of public education in 2007.  We want rigorous instruction.  We want students graduating from high school.  We want students seeking (and demonstrating proficiency for) postsecondary education.  And we want students to qualify for well-paying jobs (while keeping such jobs in the United States).

How do we get there?  How do we meet such high expectations?  For the past five years, we’ve marketed school improvement on our success in both reading and math.  These skills are non-negotiable building blocks to academic and life success.  And they are needed in order to succeed in science, social studies, and other subjects beyond the elementary school years.  That’s why NCLB is focused on reading and math (with science soon turning the duo into a trio).  Put simply, reading and math skills are now king in terms of school improvement.

Earlier this week, CEP released its report on how elementary schools are spending their instructional time.  The findings?  Our schools are spending more time on math and reading since the passage of NCLB.  Obviously, then, other subjects are finding their time cut.

CEP’s findings has sent a ripple through the education community.  But why?  Don’t we expect our actions to match our rhetoric?  If we are prioritizing math and reading in elementary school, if we are assessing our schools based on student reading and math ability, isn’t that where we should focus our attention?

Of course it is.  We need to put our instructional time where our instructional priorities lie.  Instead of grousing about lost minutes in art or music or phys-ed instruction, shouldn’t we be asking if those 37 additional math/reading instructional minutes have resulted in measurable student improvement?  After all, isn’t that our goal?   

If a Tree Falls in The Ed Forest …

Eduflack Marketing, NCLB, Obama, PR, Presidential campaign, SBRR

If a press release is issued — one that is pithy and interesting and chock full of new ideas and meaningful policies — but is not reported on by the media, was it ever really released?  Does such an announcement make its way into the public space if its intended audience (the media) choose to ignore it?

Over at www.eduwonk.com, Mike Goldstein asks the question, reflecting on the relatively lackluster announcements that have come from the Democratic candidates for president, both at the NEA Convention and in general.

Anyone who expected real news to come out of an NEA Convention clearly has never attended one.  Between all of the “brother this” and “sister thats,” there is rarely a moment to talk about true reforms and improvement.  The Democratic candidates who paid homage before the House of Reg did so with one main object in mind — do no harm.  They went in and threw red meat to the lions — teachers deserve more pay, testing is unfair, etc., etc.  Hardly the action items deserving coverage in a weekly reader, yet alone a national newspaper. 

The rare exceptions — Obama and Huckabee.  Obama followed a pattern he has adopted in previous union visits, speaking truth to power and discussing issues that don’t make the top five approved texts with the membership.  At NEA, he spoke of equity pay, a topic NEA has fought for decades, and a topic that virtually every parent, community leader, and taxpayer believes in.  The same sort of merit pay systems that almost every other white collar job is governed by.  Obama got the headlines because he spoke on a taboo topic (or taboo for the audience) and he did so with strength and passion.  The challenge will be what he does with it next.  Was it rhetoric for the day, or was it policy?

As for Huckabee, he get the “A” just for showing up.  No one expects Republicans to come to the House of Reg.  After all, the NEA always endorses Democrats.  They lend all of their organizational might, fundraising, phonebanks, GOTV activities, et al to the Democratic candidate.  But that didn’t deter Huckabee for attending, and for speaking his mind.  In doing so, he established that education is an important issue for him, and he is willing to work with all parties to bring real reform forward.  Republican or Democrat, every governor works with teachers unions.  Huckabee reminded the NEA of that, and reminded them that he was fair to them all those years in Arkansas.

But back to Eduwonk’s question at hand — when do press releases get the play they deserve?  Goldstein hypothesizes they must be edgy and quotable.  Let me tell you, Eduflack has written thousands of press releases over the years.  Most have made their way into the news coverage; some have fallen flat.  And of those that have fallen flat, most have been quotable.  And some have even been edgy (or as edgy as the topic may allow).  So what was the missing ingredient?

If our presidential candidates, our education organizations, our influencers, and just about anyone else hoping to find a voice in the education reform forest wants to be heard via press release, they need to remember a few things:
* Keep it short.  Nothing that can be said in a page is any better in three or four pages.
* Keep it timely.  Relate it to news of the day or issues that you know the media is reporting on.
* Know your target.  Be sure you are sending it to the right person, and you understand the issues and topics that reporter has written or broadcast on in the past.
* Grab attention.  A great quote, a new statistic, or even a new spin on an old issue is likely to gain a second look from the recipient.
* Follow up.  Simply hitting send on the email program does not result in effective dissemination.  You need to follow up with the reporters you are hoping to entice with the story.
* Say something.  Press releases are not the vehicles for “me too.”  If you want a reporter to take the time to skim your announcement, you better be saying something original and interesting.
* Don’t waste time.  Reporters are getting hundreds of releases a day.  Most end up in the deleted bins of their emails.  If you aren’t saying something important, don’t say it.  You don’t want a reputation for sending non-news or for wasting the time of reporters by recycling the same releases, again and again, with a new headline.  Your issue may be important to you, but if you don’t entice the reporter with the new meal, do you really expect them to get excited with leftovers?
* Know your end game.  Is the purpose coverage in the local media?  Are you softening the ground for a harder announcement in a few weeks?  Sending a trial balloon on a controversial issue?  Or just reminding the media you exist?  Any release needs to help you reach the ultimate policy or political goal.

That being said, what can today’s presidential candidates say to gain attention from the media?  Clearly, they haven’t figured out what that is yet.  Other than an early ed policy here from Hillary, and a phys-ed policy there from Richardson, a number of “me toos” on the need for more student loans, the current chattering on presidential education reform has been weighed and measured, and, quite frankly, it has been found lacking.

If Eduflack were writing for one of these presidential candidates, he would follow the Obama mantra of being bold and audacious and really take the time to leave a rhetorical mark in the education forest.  How?

Go into the NEA conference and applaud NCLB for leveling the playing field, boosting student achievement, and finally giving every student the opportunity to succeed.  Sure, more must be done to strengthen the law.  But the law is good, and the law works.  Worried about getting attacked?  Senator Kennedy’s got your back.

Call on ACE to ensure that college credits are universally transferable, and that a postsecondary credit earned at an accredited community college should be taken at value at an state or private institution.  Need some help articulating?  Just take a look at the policy Ohio has been working on.

Acknowledge that public education has changed a great deal in recent decades, and that a system that incorporates traditional public schools, charter schools, and vouchers can work, and work well, when it has the full support of the community and the school system.  The goal is a high-quality education for all students.  It shouldn’t matter who is delivering the education, as long as all of our children are getting it.  Only then will it be taxpayer money well spent.

Listen to the NCLB Commission and demand that HQT provisions be changed to include a measure of effectiveness.  A good teacher gets her students learning and prepares them for success, both in school and in life.  HQET need to recognize that.

Speak out on the need for instructionally based preK, where students learn more than just social adjustment skills.  Recognize that ELL education is a necessary component of any urban education program, and if incorporated effectively, can boost student achievement.  Demand that SES funds be used on proven methods that directly correlate to increased performance. 

And finally, plant a big ole sloppy wet kiss right on Reading First.  We know it works.  Its been proven effective.  Even RF opponents are calling for full funding of the program.  Demand that Congress stop playing politics, restore full funding for RF, and work with Congress and ED to ensure that the money is being effectively spent and that any classroom receiving even one RF dollar is implementing SBRR with fidelity.&n
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While Eduflack is unlikely to get out of a Democratic primary with an education platform like that, it is one that works, it is one that will resonate with the media and with the public, and, most importantly, it is one that will make a real difference in terms of improving student achievement.  For those 17 individuals still mixing it up for their parties’ nominations, please feel free to crib even one of these policy planks for your campaign.  I guarantee you, if positioned the right way, it can be rhetorical gold.  And it may even improve the quality of public education in the process.

Yes, Virginia, Reading First is a Success

Eduflack Marketing, NCLB, PR, Reading First, SBRR

Reading First works.  I don’t know how many times I can say it, or how many different ways to say it.  You’ve heard it from Eduflack over and over again.  When implemented effectively and with fidelity, scientifically based reading boosts reading skills in virtually every student.  It prepares them to succeed throughout their academic careers.  And it empowers students for the rest of their lives.

For the past year, virtually all talk about Reading First has veered away from that basic, but critical, fact.  Flaws in RF implementation, coupled with the growing jockeying for the RF dollar, created a hornet’s nest in public education.  As a result, Congress is talking about slashing the funding for Reading First.  Forget the evidence.  Forget the proofs.  Forget the real-life impact it has had on classrooms and kids across the country.  The program is controversial, so some are looking to dump it — despite the very real fact that RF works.  At a time when we so desperately need to improve reading skills and student performance in our schools, should we really be abandoning a program that has no equal when it comes to effectiveness and impact?

We often lose sight of what works because of the rhetorical and political clouds that swirl.  And RF is the perfect example of this.  Kudos, then to the Weekly Standard for Charlotte Allen’s piece on the impact of SBRR in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=13850&R=1143716CE7

Yes, Eduflack is unapologetic in his support for, belief in, and defense of SBRR.  And sometimes that passion gets in the way of effective communication.  For the life of me, I just can’t understand why anyone would oppose a program that ensures that only effective, proven instruction be used in our classrooms.  If we expect all students to succeed, we need to provide all students with proven-effective programs.  We need to give all students instruction that works.  Plain and simple.

Allen’s piece is a great example of successful communication, and shows how to talk about SBRR in a way that would touch virtually any audience.  First, she is able to personalize the issue.  Reading research is a tough subject to wrap one’s hands around.  Allen is able to take this complex story, and break it down to the simplest of terms — how SBRR has impacted a real school and real students that many had already written off.  Second, she confronted the opposition.  By including some of RF’s strongest critics, and refuting their criticism, she demonstrates that RF can stand up to both scrutiny and attack.

In doing so, Allen has provided the U.S. Department of Education with a terrific example of how RF needs to be sold to gain reauthorization.  Examples like Ginter Park Elementary School can be found in the districts of virtually every congressman and in the states of every senator.  Tell, those stories, and let our elected officials explain why they won’t continue to support those schools, those teachers, and those kids.

Hopefully Spellings and her crew will see that Allen gave NCLB and RF the bumper sticker it has been looking for.  Reading First: The Most Successful Federal Education Program in History. 

Or for you Simpsons fans, “RF: Best Education Program Ever.”
  

Getting to Know You …

Eduflack Marketing, NCLB, PR, Reading First, SBRR

Eduflack has been holding off on commenting on the ETS survey first reported by EdWeek last week (http://www.educationweek.org/ew/articles/2007/06/20/42polls.h26.html).  The reason for the delay was simple.  While the data has a lot to say, we wanted to see how it is framed in the media.

Surprisingly, ETS’ public opinion poll on No Child Left Behind did not get the coverage it deserved.  Over the past several years, NCLB has gotten pummeled in the media.  Unfunded mandates.  State lawsuits.  Multi-million-dollar political campaign waged by NEA.  And the ongoing drumbeats of concern about management, implementation, funding, accountability, and just about any other educational buzzword that can be thrown around.

With such publicity, its a wonder that NCLB hasn’t just been left for dead.  That’s what makes ETS’ findings so remarkable.  What ETS found was that the more people learned about NCLB — its intentions, its goals, and its successes — the more they liked it.  

Funny that.  When people hear about NCLB’s attributes, they like it.  They like focusing on student achievement.  They like holding our schools and decisionmakers accountable.  They like implementing strategies that are proven effective.  They like knowing that our schools are working.

What does this tell us, as Secretary Spellings continues to prepare for NCLB reauthorization?  It reiterates what Eduflack has said for years.  NCLB is in desperate need of a heavy duty PR campaign extolling the virtues of NCLB and the positive impact it is having on students, teachers, and communities across the nation.  It needs a pure marketing campaign that sells what Americans really, really want — school improvement.

ETS provides ED the mission statement for moving NCLB forward.  This is a pure public engagement campaign, requiring a single message, delivered to multiple audiences through multiple mediums.

The message — NCLB works, and we need more of it.

The audiences — parents, teachers, school administrators, community leaders, the business community, and policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels.

The mediums — print media, radio, television, the Internet, outreach to community groups, information dissemination through membership organizations, town hall meetings, conference presentations, and virtually any other way to spread information at the grassroots.  (Kudos, by the way, to Congressman Buck McKeon, who used the ETS numbers to educate his House colleagues on why NCLB needs to be reauthorized.  He took the message directly to a  key audience, not waiting for the media to do so.)

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again.  NCLB reauthorization depends on changing the debate and focusing on the benefits of NCLB and the positive impact it has had on real classrooms and real kids.  Few seem to understand that.  But that is the simple truth here.  We want our schools to be better.  We want our kids to do better.  And NCLB is the path to both. 

David Hoff at EdWeek summed it up best — “The more Americans learn about the No Child Left Behind Act, they more they like it.”  It’s a shame that all of those media outlets who have ravaged NCLB for years have yet to give the ETS study its due.
   

How to Get Kids Reading

Eduflack Marketing, NCLB, PR, Reading First, SBRR

Successful communications requires an integrated approach.  There’s research, messaging, media relations, community relations, etc., etc., etc.  There is no magic bullet, one-easy-step solution when it comes to communicating education reform.  You need multiple approaches, firing at multiple times, hitting multiple audiences with multiple messages.  When executed properly, that reform engine can really hum.

No where is that more true than in improving reading skills in our schools.  We know what to do.  We’ve done the research.  We’ve assessed effectiveness.  And we’ve seen it work in states, districts, schools, and classrooms across the nation.  Yes, scientifically based reading research, or SBRR, works.  No ifs, ands, or buts.

Eduflack is often asked if it is even possible to take meaningful, proven research and put it to use in the real world.  Heck, this week’s Education Week has an opinion column on the general failings of moving education research into practice.  The battle to get SBRR into our schools shows it is not only possible, it can be successful.  We know it works.  We know how to successfully move it into practice.  And we know how to communicate what to do, how to do it, and what to expect if you do it right to those audiences who need it the most.

Don’t believe me?  Check out the book “Why Kids Can’t Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education” and its companion website, www.whykidscantread.com.  Full disclosure, Eduflack is a contributing author to the book.  But even if you don’t want to read my chapter on successfully working with the media, it is still chock full of personal stories and real-life experiences on diagnosing the problem, finding the right allies and advocates, and effectively communicating for change until the system is improved.

Reform is hard.  Finding a blueprint that helps build understanding for the key levers for education reform and school improvement makes it just a little easier.

Putting Our Money on Achievement

Eduflack NCLB, PR, Reading First, SBRR, Spellings

For years, discussions about the successes and failures of NCLB have focused on what is happening behind the schoolhouse doors during school hours.  This is the way it should be.  The goal of true education reform is to improve the quality of instruction, measured by improved student achievement for all.  Simple.  To the point.  Reform = improvement.

But what about those kids who are still left behind, those in failing schools that, for one reason or another, have been unable to improve their instruction and their student achievement?  For those students, we have supplemental education services.

USA Today has a good he said-she said on the issue (assuming the he is Richard Whitmire and knowing the she is Margaret Spellings).  http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/06/our_view_on_no_.html#more


Eduflack often preaches the virtues of finding areas of common ground.  It is the easiest way to build support for an issue and to mitigate the power of the dedicated opposition.  Articulate the points where you agree, and the attacks against you seem more like paper cuts than death blows.

We agree that a half-million students are taking advantage of NCLB’s tutoring provisions.  We agree that five times that many students are eligible.  And we agree that such services are necessary to ensure that all students — regardless of AYP status of their neighborhood schools — have access to the learning tools necessary to achieve.

Where do we go from this island of agreement?  USA Today offers two key requirements for moving forward.  We need to hold tutoring programs accountable and we need to make sure they are proven effective.  And that’s where the nation’s newspaper wins the rhetorical day.

For the past six years, we have caged NCLB discussions around two key tenets — accountability and research base.  Adopt programs that work.  Show they work.  Measure they effectiveness.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  Anyone in the NCLB trenches knows that accountability and proven effective are the keys to success.  And it has been  promoted — rightfully so — in virtually every speech, brochure, website, and piece of paper to come out of ED since 2002.

USA Today reminds us of that, keeping it simple and to the point.  NCLB’s SES program works, but there are too many ineffective programs, too many fly-by-night operators that are trying to take advantage of the NCLB trough.  Just as we expect classroom curriculum to proven to work and assessed, so too should we expect it of federally funded after-school providers.  And those are basic principles — and core messaging — that Spellings and all at ED have and should embrace. 

Unfortunately, Spellings missed a golden opportunity to promote those foundations of NCLB and remind us all of the lasting positive impact of the law.  Instead, she couldn’t let go of the premise that many of our tutoring dollars are currently spent on programs that just don’t work.  She couldn’t ignore the criticism and stay on message.  USA Today served up an easy pitch, and simply fouled it off.    

USA Today’s point was crystal clear — “If a program can’t be proven effective, it should lose the money.”  Eduflack can’t say it any better.  Doesn’t matter if it is tutoring, reading instruction, teacher training, high school improvement, or any of a myriad of education reforms out there.  Success is king.  Prove it works, and you have an effective message.

Now It’s Personal

Eduflack NCLB, PR, Reading First, SBRR, Spellings

Over the last few months, Eduflack has been hard on Margaret Spellings.  For the past year, the U.S. Department of Education has been a communications fetal position on most reforms.  Given the opportunity to be out in front, defining measures of success with regard to NCLB, Reading First, teacher proficiency, and accountability, ED has generally retreated, leaving it to critics to set the terms and measures of success, and leaving advocates and supporters in the field desperate and hungry for any form of communications support and PR blocking as they work to successfully implement changes that ultimately will improve student performance.

Perhaps Spellings has heard the growing calls for communications support in the field.  Perhaps ED has finally determined that the old plan of putting your head down on the desk until the NCLB criticisms stop just wasn’t going to work.  At a time when folks are wondering if there is the muscle to push NCLB reauthorization through, or if it will be left to another Secretary and another Administration in 2009, Spellings has shown the moxie and communications savoir faire she demonstrated when she first took the helm of the U.S. Department of Education.

If you’ll recall, a few weeks ago the House of Representatives sent a shot across the bow with regard to RF.  (Playing Politics with Reading First)  A bold communications tactic, House appropriators moved to slash $600 million from Reading First to send a message to Spellings on student lending, IG investigations, and concerns of conflicts of interest.  The message was heard around the reading world, with the likes of IRA, SFA, and others joining with Spellings to defend a program that is proven effective in teaching our children to read and provides virtually every student the skills necessary to achieve in school.  We waited with baited breath for Spellings’ response.

Spellings responded, and responded rhetorically strong.  She has finally gotten personal.  And it is just the communications approach she needed in such a situation.  When you make the story relevant to the listener, and relate it in direct terms that they understand and that they know affects them or the people they know, you communicate more effectively than just throwing out facts and figures.  Yes, we know that RF works.  We know SBRR works.  We know that more children know how to read today because of NCLB.  But how do you get Chairman Obey to see that through all of the rhetoric, hyperbole, and vitriol.

Answer — make it personal.  Spellings retort to Obey was a simple one.  If the mis-directed cuts to RF become law, Obey’s home state of Wisconsin loses $8.5 million in RF grants.  That’s less money for books.  Less money for teacher training.  Less money for professional development.  Less money for interventions.  And it is less money for the schools, the classrooms, and the teachers in his state who need it most.

Finally, Spellings has shifted the debate.  The threat isn’t about hurting her or the RF office.  Obey is threatening to take hundreds of millions of dollars from elementary school classrooms, teachers, and kids throughout the nation. 

I’m all for political gamesmanship.  Its a necessary piece of education reform.  But no one should lose sight of the end game — improving education quality and opportunity for all.  Spellings remembered that.  And she reminded Obey of it in the most personal of communications ways, by pasting the cuts smack in the center of his Wisconsin district.

Playing Politics with Reading First

Eduflack NCLB, PR, President Bush, Reading First, SBRR, Spellings

For years, Eduflack worked for members of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees.  Having seen the annual appropriations process unfold year after year, I had come to the belief that, for the most part, politics had to sit outside the Appropriations Committee’s door.

That is, until this afternoon.  David Hoff has a good synopsis on educationweek.org (http://www.educationweek.org/ew/articles/2007/06/08/41budget.h26.html).  The root of Eduflack’s ire.  The U.S. House of Representatives is calling for a 60% cut in Reading First funding for FY2008.

We won’t get into the politics of all this, other than to say that one should be careful with the political symbolism they seek to use, as it may actually become reality.  But the spending games raise an important communication issue — the need to be proactive and define the game.

You’ve heard it here before.  For years now, critics have defined Reading First.  At first, they attacked the personalities behind the law and preached fear about introducing proven instructional approaches to our classrooms.  Over the last year, they have attacked (and rightfully so) the problems with RF implementation, implying that such issues demonstrate that the law doesn’t work.

To the contrary, we have begun seeing significant evidence that Reading First and scientifically based reading research work, and works well.  You can see it in the data released by Spellings before her visit to Capitol Hill.  you can see it in this week’s CEP report.  And you can see it in countless school districts across the nation that have implemented the program with fidelity and have reaped the benefit in terms of student performance.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the message getting out there.  And that’s a cryin’ shame.  To all but the die-hard true believers, RF is a program of conflicts of interest, decrees from on high, and IG reports.  Those exceptions to good work have now become the rule.

Don’t believe it?  Just look at how House Appropriations Chairman David Obey couches the massive cut to a program that works — “This [Reading First] cut will not be restored until we have a full appreciation of the shenanigans that have been going on.”

Doesn’t matter if the program works.  Doesn’t matter if we see student achievement gains, improved teaching, enthusiastic learners, and kids who are reading.  RF is now defined by “shenanigans,” and that’s about as far off message as one can get.

So what can Spellings and her crew do about it?  I refer you back to a previous posting.  Let’s make it positive.  Let’s make it results-based.  Let’s make it personal.  http://blog.eduflack.com/2007/04/11/talking-research.aspx

As an aside, the one positive result, though, of today’s Hill hearing may be its ability to bring parties who have previously been at war with each other together for a common good.  We’ve long talked about the need to build a team of advocates, names that will resonate with key audiences and expand support and enthusiasm for the message and the desired action.  And the larger the tent of advocates, the more effective the communication and the reform.

Those advocates speaking out against the proposed RF cuts demonstrate the program (and scientifically based education in general) has to be working.  In just a few short hours, we have seen individuals who ordinarily wouldn’t share an elevator sharing a common desire to protect RF.  Margaret Spellings (through a spokesperson).  The International Reading Association.  Bob Slavin.  They may have different goals, different views, and different intentions, but they share the view that you don’t cancel the game because you’ve had problems with the turnstiles.  “Shenanigans” around the fringes simply isn’t a reason to deny millions of American students the resources and funding they need to learn to read and to succeed. 

While SFA and IRA and ED and everyone in between may be coming from different perspectives, they all seem to share in the goal that research-proven reading is necessary if our students and schools are to succeed.

I may have just seen a razorback fly by my window, but if RF is able to be bring those disparate, yet passionate, education advocates together, it must be doing something right.

Great Test-pectations

Eduflack Marketing, NCLB, PR, Reading First, SBRR, Spellings, Students

Much of this week’s education attention has been focused on the CEP’s findings that No Child Left Behind is indeed effective.  Though many have gone out of their way to mitigate the findings, offer up alternative explanations, discount the impact, or generally change the fact, one thing is certain.  NCLB does work.  In those states where CEP found student achievement gains, there is only one common denominator — all of those states have made NCLB-based reforms.  NCLB may not be the only reason for the successes, but it is undoubtedly a major driver behind the improvement.

More interesting, though, was Ledge King’s piece (with an assist from Greg Toppo) in USA Today, looking at the broad discrepancies of testing benchmarks across the states.  http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-06-06-schools-main_N.htm 

At the very heart of NCLB was the commitment that every American student deserved the opportunity to succeed.  That was how the law was marketed.  Regardless of race or income or neighborhood, every student is afforded the opportunity to learn, to achieve, and to succeed, both in and beyond their K-12 experience.

But in the Gannett analysis, King finds that such an opportunity is still a goal, and not necessarily a reality.  The beauty of federal education reform is that measures of achievement and success are expected to be uniform.  Instead, as King reports, we see that reading achievement in Mississippi versus achievement in Massachusetts couldn’t be more different.  And those differences are going to be even more acute when it matters — in postsecondary education and in the workplace.

Perhaps that’s part of the problem.  Even for those in the know, NCLB is perceived as an elementary school law.  With its focus on elementary school reading and middle school assessments, it is seen as far more Click, Clack, Moo than The Sun Also Rises.  An unfair focus, sure, but public perception is the new reality.

The thousand-dollar question is how do we take what we know from CEP and others and use it to address the problems that King has identified.  The answer is an easy one.  It may not be one that Secretary Spellings is particularly fond of, but the single greatest way to truly level the playing field and fulfill NCLB’s mission of providing all students an opportunity for success is found in two simple words — national standards.

At the end of the day, student proficiency is student proficiency.  Achievement should not have a geographic accent.  It shouldn’t be mitigated by per-pupil spending ratios.  It shouldn’t be defined by the lowest common denominator.  And it surely shouldn’t be disaggregated away.  Achievement is achievement.  Success is success.  It doesn’t matter if it the MCAS, the SOL, NAEP, or any other single assessment tool.  Student proficiency needs to be a common, universal measure.  It is the only way we can ensure every American student is reading at a proficient level in the fourth grade, prepared for the rigors of our changing high schools, and ready for the opportunities available in either postsecondary education or career.  If education is the great equalizer, its measures of that education need to be equal.

That’s how one effectively sells national standards to the teachers and parents who are skeptical of the federal government’s ability to effectively implement and manage meaningful education reforms.  We don’t want to hear about statistical analyses, variations, and experimental models.  We want to know that if our kid is deemed proficient in reading, that means he is able to read at the same level as an average fourth grader in Oregon, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Mississippi.  When she gets a B in Algebra II, we expect that a B in our school equals a B in LAUSD, Chicago, Dallas ISD, or DC Public Schools.  We might not say it, but we assume our children meet a common standard when their academic abilities are assessed.  And we depend on it, believing those assessments mean our children are able to keep up with any student in college or compete with any graduate for a job.

So how do we talk about it?  At the end of the day, national standards are borne out of national policy.  NCLB is that policy.  Thanks to CEP, EdTrust, and a number of other education organizations, we have our messaging.  It works.  NCLB works.  National education reform works.  Reading First works.  Scientifically based education works.  Results-based teacher training and instruction works. 

It works because it is effective.  It works because it generates results.  It works because it established a national standard for teaching and learning.  And we can now see it working in states, districts, schools, and classrooms just like those in our neighborhood.  No getting around it — NCLB works.

And that’s the marketing slogan.  That’s the soundbite.  That’s the bumper sticker.  NCLB works.  Data proves it.  Teachers and administrators and parents and students have embraced it.  Curriculum and professional development has been built around it.  Critics have tried to tear it down for five years, to little avail.  And you know what, NCLB still works.

The general communications mantra is to keep it simple, and it just doesn’t get any simpler than that.  The law is effective, and there is the data and the emotional connection in classrooms around the country to prove it.  Now ED just needs an effective messenger to deliver it.  How hard can that be?