STEM

Going Where the Education Action Is

Eduflack AP, AYP, early childhood education, ELL, Gates Foundation, national standards, NCLB, NGA, STEM

If you spend enough time reading about education reform — particularly over the past few years — you get the sense that Washington, DC is the unwavering center and base for all that is new, all that is relevant, and all that is necessary to school improvement.  NCLB.  The U.S. Department of Education.  The Institute of Education Sciences.  The blob of representative education organizations.  All, it seems, serve as the epicenter for real change in our educational system.

But when you really get down to it, the real action of education reform is not at the national level.  In reality, the U.S. Department of Education and the federal government account for less than eight cents of every dollar spent on public K-12 education in the United States.  Despite the tales coming from the status quoer bogeymen, there are few educators who are taking their marching orders directly from NCLB or from the data captured by IES or NAGB.  And although some would like to believe it, superintendents and principals are not waiting for detailed instructions from the EdSec before they take action on instructional improvement.
Don’t get me wrong.  The federal hand is a great influencer in what is happening in education reform.  It provides an enormous carrot, usually in the form of federal dollars, to get new and valuable programs — such as Reading First or the American Competitiveness Initiative — from research to policy to practice.  It also provides a more ominous stick, providing punishment for those who fail to meet AYP, misuse federal funds, or generally choose not to follow the mission and guidelines put forward by the federal government (particularly as it relates to important laws such as Title I).
In a perfect world, the federal education lever is one of a velvet hammer.  It provides us the opportunity to feel good about what we are doing, while knowing that swift and meaningful judgment can come down on those who ignore, flaunt, or seek to reverse the laws of the land.  Be it gender equity, special education, teacher training, or even reading or math instruction, there is little doubt that the educational velvet hammer rests in the hands of ED and the EdSec.
Many know I spend most of my working days helping organizations, companies, and agencies determine the best ways to advocate for education issues, particularly improvements to the current K-12 system.  Much of these discussions tend to focus on the federal, for the reasons detailed above.  We all want to meet with folks on the seventh floor of ED, hoping to convince them we’ve built a better mousetrap or offer a solution unmatched by those that have come previously.  As a good counselor and advisor, I try to respect the wishes of my clients, and identify ways they can be a part of the federal discussion of education reform.
Eduflack finds himself spending more and more time these days, though, redirecting these good intentions to where the education action really is.  For those looking to make a difference, for those looking to enact meaningful change, for those looking to truly boost student achievement and improve instruction, for those looking to identify and develop an education solution that can be implemented at scale, the real action is happening at the state level.
Real reform has the greatest opportunity to succeed when introduced at the state level.  First, it can serve as a lever of influence on federal decisionmakers, demonstrating the results we need to see that a particular program or intervention works.  Second, it has the power to implement those changes in a large number of school districts simultaneously, using the state’s own carrot/stick powers to implement reforms directly in school districts that need the help the most.  The feds have levels of bureaucracy to go through before they can reach the school district. The state gets there with a phone call and a well-constructed relationship.
In the education policy world, we’re all looking to the future to see what the next version of No Child Left Behind will hold.  But we don’t need to wait for the NCLB lever to enact real, meaningful reforms.  The Gates Foundation recognized this long ago, and has invested significant money in statewide education reforms designed to model innovations.  The National Governors Association has focused tremendous effort and incredible intellectual capital on issues such as high school reform, AP, science/math education, national standards, and data collection — each path offering statewide solutions and demonstrating statewide results.  The National Conference of State Legislatures has all but ignored NCLB, focusing on its own issues.  And membership groups such as the Council of Chief State School Officers, Education Commission of the States, and even the Southern Regional Education Board have taken courageous policy stands to enact real reforms that improve the quality and results of education across the states.
What’s the lesson to be learned here?  Those seeking to enact real, meaningful education reforms must include statewide engagement strategies as part of their efforts.  They must recognize that each state is different, and each state must be handled and approached differently.  They must know that most state departments of education are vastly understaffed and overworked, and thus have little time to hear about the great ideas.  They must know that results are king, whether you be a principal, a state education chief, or the EdSec herself.  And they must know that states watch what other states do, they model after the successful ones, and they try to ensure their “competitors” don’t get too far ahead of them when it comes to policy or education results.
The success of integrated communications advocacy comes when you reach multiple stakeholders at multiple levels.  We all know that.  And preaching state education officials as a key stakeholder is hardly a new idea to slap anyone upside the head.  But we all must remember where the real action is.  We all must remember where real change and improvement can occur.  And we all must remember who can make a real difference.
High school reform.  Graduation rates.  National standards.  General accountability provisions.  STEM education.  Early childhood ed.  ELL and ESL.  RTI.  Closing the achievement gap.  Reading, math, and science instruction.  Professional development.  Teacher recruitment.  Online education.  Charter schools.  True success for these and other issues lies in our states,working in partnership with bellweather school districts.  To paraphrase from politics, as Ohio (and Pennsylvania and Georgia and Florida and Arizona and Minnesota) goes, so goes the nation.  True in politics.  Definitely true in education reform.
UPDATE: Great minds think alike.  Over at Fordham Foundation’s Flypaper, check out a similar post on the power of the states in education policy this year — www.edexcellence.net/flypaper/index.php/2008/10/education-really-is-a-state-issue-at-least-this-year/  

The Disconnect Between the Policy World and the Real World

Eduflack AYP, charter schools, national standards, STEM

Sometimes, we forget that is done and said in Washington simply stays in Washington.  We expect that Main Street USA understands what we do, why we do it, and who we do it for.  It’s almost like we buy into the notion that, “we’re from Washington, and we’re here to help you.”

Eduflack was reminded (like I really needed a reminder) of the disconnect between the education policy world and the real world yesterday at a forum sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for a Competitive Workforce and Talkers Magazine on our nation’s future education agenda.  The headline — lots of interesting comments, some that were greatly reassuring we were on the right track, education reform-wise, and some that were downright disturbing.
First for the best of times.  The forum was framed by two important voices in this debate — the Chamber’s Arthur Rothkopf and Education Trust’s Kati Haycock.  There are few better voices in DC to help identify the problems in public education AND identify the real solutions we can adopt to improve instruction and better prepare our students for the rigors of tomorrow.
Kicking off by stating “the business community is dissatisfied with the quality of what it receives” from the staid and traditional K-12 system, Rothkopf laid out a clear six-point plan for education reform:
* NCLB (or whatever we choose to call it) must be reauthorized, strengthened, and improved
* Better teachers, with performance measured and better, merit-based pay going to the educators who deserve it
* Better management of the system, with more accountability
* Better data (along with better application of the data)
* Higher standards (though no mention of a single national standard)
* More innovation, with an emphasis on investments in charters and online education
By this time, Eduflack was ready to jump to his feet, crying out an “amen.”  But he waited, knowing the true voice of all that is right and effective in education reform — EdTrust’s Haycock — was about to take hold of the microphone.  She didn’t disappoint.  Haycock clearly laid out the problem, “the deeper you dig, the more worried you become” when it comes to K-12 instruction.  She reminded the audience this isn’t just an issue of poor kids or an issue of kids of color, and that even our nation’s highest achievers simply can’t measure up compared to the highest achievers of other industrialized nations.  Ultimately, the problem flows from the choices we make in education — choices like what to expect from our students and what to teach our students.
Haycock’s remarks were not all doom and gloom.  She reminded us (as Eduflack has been saying for years) that there are placed that are doing it right, schools and districts where we’re boosting achievement and closing the achievement gap.  Places where we are simply doing what works.  She rattled off schools in Georgia, Delaware, Kansas, and New York, for instance, that can serve as beacons for teaching at high levels and achieving at even higher levels.
And then the worst of times, the moment when I was slapped upside the head with a reality stick.  The program moved from Rothkopf and Haycock to four local radio talk show hosts — selected by sponsor Talkers magazine — to represent Main Street USA and what is being heard on the airwaves throughout the United States.  Here in policyworld, we frame education reform around issues such as accountability, quality, results, and research.  We talk about processes and outcomes.  We look to separate the status quo from the innovation.  Oh what a sheltered world we live in.
From listening to our esteemed talk show hosts, the ed policy community may as well be living on Mars.  They focused on issues such as student discipline, asking why today’s students don’t fear their teachers the way we did decades ago.  They talked about the failures or parents (who bear some responsibility, don’t get me wrong, but are more a part of the solution, not a major part of the problem).  That their former great high schools are now low-income high schools.  They talked about students being down because all their potential jobs have gone to India (how 2005/World is Flat).  And they even said that vo-tech high school students enrolled in cosmetology courses are getting the higher-level math skills they need to succeed, so we shouldn’t worry at all.
It wasn’t all bad.  Talker Joe Madison declared that “Education is the new currency of the 21st century.”  For the most part, the talkers tried to personalize the story.  Communication-wise, such an approach is a good thing.  It makes it easier for stakeholders to relate and understand the issues at hand.  Unfortunately, here they were personalizing the trivial.  The word accountability didn’t come out of the talkers’ mouths until the very end.  The issue of national standards never came up.  To the contrary, we had one talker actually saying it was unfair to expect a state like Mississippi to perform as a state like Massachusetts does?
Unfair?  I would say not.  If we are truly worried about jobs going away and kids being unmotivated because they don’t see employment opportunities, we need to raise standards.  More importantly, we need to show a potential employer that a high school graduate in Mississippi has the same math and problem-solving skills as a graduate in Massachusetts, Arizona, or North Dakota.  We need to show all our schools are making the grade, not just a select few in a select few states.
Fortunately, Rothkopf and Haycock were able to bring us back to reality.  With Rothkopf, it was the realization that the math, science, and problem-solving skills needed to succeed in college are the same skills one needs to succeed in the workforce (a statement that high school reform and STEM advocates, including Eduflack), have long trumpeted.
Before departing, Haycock left the audience with the sobering fact that the greatest obstacle facing school improvement is one of complacency.  Yes, improvement comes from innovation and new ideas focused on achievement and success.  But those improvements require the rocking of boats, the upsetting of apple carts, and the changing of minds — just the sort of things the status quoers fight against.  
What lessons are to be learned here?  More than anything, we need more people calling in to radio talk shows to discuss issues such as student achievement, school accountability, and research-based decisionmaking.  When we talk of such issues in DC, they tend to drop like a stone, with a thud to the bottom.  Discuss them in public forums like talk radio, and they have the possibility of skipping across the pond, causing ripples that can be unmeasurable.

“The 21st Century Begins Now?”

Eduflack Bloomberg, Gates Foundation, national standards, PR, STEM

We are a nation of lists.  We love lists.  To do lists.  In lists.  Out lists.  Check offs.  Top 25s.  Up and comers.  Give us a list, and it is something that we can embrace.

This month, Esquire magazine (yes, thank you Chris Whittle for saving this pub a few decades ago) is running a cover story on the 75th anniversary of the magazine, focusing on “The 21st Century Begins Now.”  The magazine’s publishers lay out the 75 most influential people of the 21st century.  The selections are more photo than caption (typical for the magazine), and many of them are quite interesting.
What is most startling, though, is how small a role education seems to play in the 21st century (at least in Esquire’s eyes).  When Time magazine did a similar list last year, we saw names like Bill Gates, Wendy Kopp, and others.  Real names that have been involved in real education reforms — and, more importantly, improvements — over the past decade.  Since then, we’ve seen continued investment from Ed in 08 to draw attention to education issues, we’ve heard the phoenix story of New Orleans public schools, and we’ve seen new superintendents take over new districts with a zeal that hasn’t been felt in quite some time.  Now we have events like Aspen’s National Education Summit tomorrow, designed to harness the power, enthusiasm, and sense of urgency that has been brought to modern day education reform.
Esquire seems to turn a blind eye to the influence of educators, though.  We have actors and musicians, futurists and techies.  But it seems educators struggle to make the top 75 list.  Perhaps they’ve forgotten that education has the potential to be the great equalizer, or that it serves as one of the most significant civil rights issues of our time.  Maybe they’ve failed to recognize that better education today results in better jobs and a stronger economy tomorrow.  Whatever the reason, education got little respect from Esquire.
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg makes the cut, but it is all about organizational reform and environmentalism.  Michael Milken is one it, but for his work with FasterCures healthcare reform, and not his previous education efforts.   Recent TED honoree Dave Eggers is on the list, and he nobly talks about the importance of reading, even in the 21st century society.  Bill Gates, of course is there, with a chart of his July charitable giving — only a fraction of it went to education causes, though, showing the diversification of his efforts (health, poverty, microfinance, policy, and education).
That would be the full list.  Maybe we can add actor Will Smith to the educators list because of his recent good work with charter schools.  But at the end of the day, we have one person on the list — an author — who is full-time involved in education.  Two on the list with education experience, though you can find it on their bios.  And one who’s impact on education has been quite measurable, even if it is a small part of the overall philanthropic impact.
I’ll say it.  That simply isn’t enough.  If we are looking at the 75 most influential people of the 21st century, we need to be looking at those who are influencing the actual leaders of the 21st century.  Actors and musicians and politicians may be trendy choices, but are they affecting real influence?  And can we really project the influencers of the century, when most organizations lack the foresight to thoroughly develop a 10-year strategic plan?
That’s why Eduflack is going to assemble a list of the nine individuals with the potential to influence education reform over the next decade.  If nine is good enough for a baseball team, it is good enough for me.  Maybe we’ll add a bench and some role players, but for now, the focus is our starting nine.  And I’m looking for some nominations for my draft.
Who is going assume the HR lead in getting hundreds of thousands of teachers hired following mass retirements over the next five years?  Who is going to harness disparate interests and move us to national education standards?  Who is going to redefine science and research in the classroom?  Who will lead the change evolve the role of principal into instructional and institutional leader?  Who has the approach to close the achievement gap?  Who’s got the inside track to end drop-out crisis?  Who moves STEM from the fringe to a central movement?
Our all-star team is not intended to be a list of well-known urban superintendents or organizational CEOs.  We’re looking for thinkers and voices.  We seek innovators and defenders.  We want the known and those who need to and should be discovered.  Eduflack has had a lot of fun playing parlor games regarding who will become the next EdSec.  But at the end of the day, I know that real reform and real improvement comes from those on the front lines.  EdSecs can provide vision and leadership, and they may even be able to coach the ed reform team, but they will never be the one to win the game.  We’re looking for true game changers and game winners.
Perhaps the Aspen Institute summit will spotlight on some individuals and some ideas that deserve consideration.  Perhaps the lists from Edutopia and others will help educate.  Regardless, the hunt is on.  Who wants to join the search?

“An Urgent Call”

Eduflack AFT, Chancellor Klein, Gates Foundation, Michelle Rhee, national standards, NCLB, STEM

It is rare for Eduflack to get generally excited about a particular event.  Those who know me know I am the supreme by nature.  As I’ve said before, I’m not a glass half full/half empty sort of guy.  I just want to know who broke my damned glass.

But every so often, I even surprise myself with real and genuine enthusiasm.  And that enthusiasm is kicking in as we lead into the Aspen Institute’s National Education Summit on Monday.  Under the banner of “An Urgent Call,” Aspen is bringing together an unmatched who’s who on education reform, education policy, and corporate support.
I recognize that some may ask, why the enthusiasm?  After all, these sorts of meetings and forums have been a dime a dozen in recent years.  But there just seems to be something a little different about Aspen’s Summit.  And it is those difference that make all the difference:
* The major players will be in attendance … and will be participating.  EdSec Margaret Spellings, Supes Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee, reformers like Jon Schnur and John Chubb, policy influencers and leaders like Gates’ Vicki Phillips and Ed in 08’s Roy Romer.  
* The summit is speaking with multiple voices.  Too often, these events come with a specific point of view and a myopic intent.  Here, we have AFT’s Randi Weingarten and EdTrust’s Kati Haycock.  We have urban superintendents and the corporate leaders who are pushing them to change.  And we have an A-list of media members to connect all the voices and provide a clear voice for the future.
* It is about more than diagnosing the problems.  Yes, there will be some focus on how public education in the United States has gotten where it is.  Yes, they will assess the current problems, while providing clear understanding on why the problems need to be fixed.  More importantly, though, the summit is pledging to help “sustain a national will for effective reform.”
As I’ve worked with education organizations and corporations across the country, I’ve always tried to talk about communications and public engagement in the simplest of terms.  Ultimately, one often wants to lower public expectations, and then greatly exceed those expectations.  Why?  We all love a winner.  Those who set goals, and then far exceed those goals, are perceived as winners.  Those who set high public expectations, and then struggle to achieve them, are seen as failing — even if that 80% success rate means a lasting impact on the field (and has far more of an effect than those who easily achieve lower expectations).
Without question, the Aspen Institute has set higher than high expectations with this summit.  More importantly, they are bringing together the right people to actually achieve these goals.  This isn’t just a room of talking heads, brought together to discuss the issues and wring their hands about all that is wrong with our public schools.  On Monday, Aspen is bringing together 300 of the top people best positioned to bring real change and real improvement to our education system.
Sustaining a national will for effective reform is not easy.  Sure, it’s easy to diagnose the problems or to share information about what is wrong and why it is important.  One of the hardest things to do, at least in the communications field, is to move beyond information sharing and move into changing public behavior.  Aspen is seeking to change public behavior, and Monday’s summit serves as their flag in the sand.
The Aspen Institute has demonstrated, through its work with the NCLB Commission, that it is committed to education improvement and to provided the time, support, and leadership to see the issue through.  In my humble eyes, the NCLB Commission’s report — released a year and a half ago — still serves as one of the better blueprints for improving the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.  If this summit can serve the same purpose, we may really have something here.
That’s why I am enthusiastic about Monday.  As always, Eduflack will be looking and listening for those issues he knows are essential to improving our schools — national standards, data collection and application, school choice, and STEM among them.  Here’s hoping I leave Monday with the same enthusiasm I’m holding this afternoon.

“Those Who Do Not Learn from the Past …”

Eduflack Gates Foundation, higher ed, NAEP, PR, STEM

We’ve all heard George Santayana’s famous quote (often attributed to others), that “those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.”  It is a poignant statement on the importance of understanding what has happened in the past, so we can learn and grow from it.

Personally, Eduflack prefers the words of baseball philosopher king Yogi Berra, who eloquently said that if we don’t know where we are going, we will never know if we get there.  Both are applicable to life, and both are certainly applicable to education reform.  In an our current era of “change,” we are all looking to do something different with the schools.  But for those who have been around the block a time or two, they are seeing reforms that are simply retreads of ideas past.  We put a new wrapping on them or give them a new name, but they are the same failed ideas, with no indication that we have learned from their participation in that first rodeo.
What does it all mean?  For the most part, it demonstrates that we have little sense for our current standing or what it has taken to get us there.  We still believe we have the best higher education system in the world, even though our college graduation rate has slipped from first place to 15th in 10 years.  We still believe our K-12 system has no match, even as schools in India and China manage to turn out more and more students to take our jobs.  And we still embrace an educational model that was developed nearly a century ago, a model built on the notion that 1/3 in college, 1/3 high school grad, and 1/3 dropout is acceptable, and the three Rs remain the king.
Put simply, we are getting by on our reputations, not on our current actions.  We often hear carbuyers talk about their desire to buy a Volvo because of its unmatched safety record.  Let’s forget, for a moment, that the safety record in question is now a few decades old and not applicable to the current models.  In education, we sell our superiority based on an outdated model and outdated comparisons, believing that tinkering around the edges today will make us stronger, and that no one can match what we really have to offer, because they couldn’t three decades ago.
Exams like NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA obviously tell us otherwise.  The growing national push for STEM (science-technology-engineering-math) tells us otherwise too.  But how do we really learn from our educational past, in a way that lets us strengthen our educational future?
On Monday, PBS will debut its “Where We Stand: America’s Schools in the 21st Century” program.  Hosted by The NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff, this program was developed to provide “an historic assessment of U.S. Schools in where we stand.”  Premiering at 10 p.m. on Monday, September 15, the program will tell the stories of a number of individuals and communities affected by the current state of public education, focusing on issues such as teaching foreign languages (like Mandarin classes in Ohio), addressing high-poverty, low-performance issues, and using STEM education programs to lift all boats and empower all students.
The program will address the issues in urban, suburban, and rural schools, recognizing our successes and our challenges are not limited to a sliver of our demographic.  More importantly, producers promise a “frank” discusses of public education’s strengths and weaknesses, an adjective that rarely finds its way into media coverage of education and education reform these days.  The show will focus on Ohio, as it is the microcosm of our nation, both politically and educationally.  
Kudos to PBS for taking up such a challenge and producing such a piece (and it isn’t even a John Merrow piece!).  And kudos to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for funding this effort, lending its resources to educating and teaching us, in addition to empowering us to change the classrooms.  Hopefully, “Where We Stand” will provide some important lessons for the reformers, the status quoers, and all those in between to learn from and model as we move forward.
Every GPS out there requires you to enter you start point in order to track your path.  Maybe, just maybe, “Where We Stand” can provide those many educators and policymakers lost out there in the wilderness with a reliable start point on which to plot a new course. 

Campaigning on Education

Eduflack John McCain, national standards, Obama, STEM, Teacher Education

We are just about at the end of our political conventions, so how has education fared?  At last week’s Democratic convention, we had little mention of K-12 education, with the majority of it coming during Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, and more still coming from former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and current Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.  

So far, the GOP convention has been about the same.  Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee spoke of education last evening.  VP nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made specific mention of special education (and more importantly, made a play for the sped community, perhaps the best-organized grassroots community in the nation).  But on the whole, despite all of the money and attention heaped on the issue by Ed in ’08 and others, public education was barely an also ran in this lead-up to the general election.

Over the past two weeks, Eduwonk (www.eduwonk.com) had done a good job of bringing us education commentary from campaign advisors.  Last week, we heard from the Republicans (including former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift, who, in the name of full disclosure, Eduflack helped defeat in a congressional race in 1996).  Swift and company offered some terrific insights into the education whispers being directed into John McCain’s ear, providing us more information in a week than the campaign had provided over the past year.
And this week, we are getting similar insight from Obama advisors Mike Johnston and John Schnur, who have given us both a 10-point plan and a real call to action (at least a call to action for policy wonks).
Yesterday, Greg Toppo reported in USA Today on the Democratic Party platform and how its education planks differ from years past and are seen as crossing the teachers’ unions.  Why?  Because the Party is supporting the idea of merit pay, one of the few education issues put forward by Obama during the primary campaign.
It all has Eduflack thinking.  Why is the issue of accountability seen as a Republican idea?  Don’t Democrats believe in measuring student achievement and knowing how our schools and kids are performing?  Why is the issue of supporting teachers seen as a Democratic idea?  Don’t Republicans care about making sure our teachers are well-trained, well-supported, and well-respected?  
We can go down the list.  School choice.  Charters.  Special education.  STEM.  High school reforms.  Principal preparation.  Alternative certification.  All are now seen as political issues, embraced by one side or condemned by the other.  It is no wonder that true, meaningful education reform is so difficult to come by these days.
I don’t mean to be Pollyanna-ish about this.  I get the ideology behind many of the policy issues.  I understand that it wasn’t so long ago that the national Republican Party was calling for the abolition of the U.S. Department of Education.  I know the teachers unions have been myopic in their view of political candidates to support and limited as to their ability to embrace change.  But I also know we should demand more from our education community.
Earlier this year, I made recommendations on how Senators Obama and McCain can and should be talking about K-12 education during this campaign.  But I know that other than a possible question or two during the domestic policy debate, education will unlikely be a subject of presidential discussion.  But I would urge both campaigns to consider a few points, both as they message their campaign and as they prepare for their possible administration:
* Education is not an island unto itself.  A strong educational system leads to a strong economy.  It offers better jobs and better opportunities.  It improves the health and welfare of the community.  It is truly a tide that lifts all boats.  Education is the common denominator that links all of our domestic policy needs.
* We must teach to the 21st century.  These past two weeks, we’ve heard a lot about innovation and alternative energies.  If we are serious about this, we need to be serious about STEM education.  Reducing independence on foreign oil comes, in large part, from U.S. citizens with the skills and abilities to think, explore, and discover differently.  STEM is at the root of all of that, as well as countless other issues that will make us stronger as a nation.
* Education is about people.  We can develop the best curriculum or write an unmatched text, but if we don’t have a qualified, enthusiastic, and successful educators at the helm of the classroom and the school, we won’t see the results.  We need to invest in good teaching and good school leadership.  It starts in teacher training programs, and it continues through professional development for decades.
* Data is king.  We can’t improve if we don’t know where we stand today.  We identify best practices by seeing where our teachers and students are succeeding.  Likewise, we learn where we need to deploy resources and improve offerings based on the information.  School improvement requires high-quality, comparable data at the state, district, school, and student level.
* We need national standards.  We are not a union of independent states with different needs and different expectations.  There should be one national standard, a standard that brings us together and ensures that all students are receiving the high-quality education they deserve (and have been promised).  We can look to the governors to help us define what those standards should be, but a fourth grade education or a high school diploma should mean the same thing, regardless of state, social standing, or political party.
Education may not be THE defining issue of this campaign, but as we are discussing the middle class and small towns and the economy and the future, the one common thread is education.  Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, we all should agree that every child should have a high-quality education and every child should have the opportunity to succeed.  I know the campaign advisors agree with this, now we just have to get the nominees to say it out loud and in public.

Lookin’ for Edu-R&D Sugardaddies

Eduflack Gates Foundation, IES, SBRR, STEM

For years now, we have heard IES Director Russ Whitehurst lament the dirth of funding for education research and development.  Compare the U.S. Department of Education’s research budget with that of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it is embarrassing (even if you do it as a percentage of the total agency budget).

The good folks over at Knowledge Alliance (formerly NEKIA) have waved a similar banner.  If we expect a scientifically based educational experience, we need to invest in scientifically based research.  If we are going to do what works, we need to investigate it.  And if we are going to drive the squishy research from the K-12 kingdom, we need to make meaningful investments in the strong, scientific, longitudinal research we are seeking.

Yet education R&D still seems to be feeding from the scraps of practice.  We have few industry leaders that are funding R&D the way we see it in the health industry.  And that view becomes even more acute today, when the Howard Hughes Medical Institute announces a $600 million grant to fund the research of 56 top medical researchers.  The Washington Post has the full story here — http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/27/AR2008052701014.html?hpid=topnews.

It has all got Eduflack thinking of the impact such an investment could have on education. Just imagine if a philanthropy offered up $200 or $100 or even $50 million to education’s top researchers to develop major findings in how to improve public education.  Science and math instruction.  ELL.  Teacher training.  Effects of technology.  Charters.  The list of possible topics is limitless.  In reading alone, you can take a look at the list of potential research subjects offered by the National Reading Panel in 2000.  Today, most of those still haven’t been pursued.

But we all recognize that such sugardaddies are few and far between in education reform.  We put our money on educational practice.  We fund practitioners.  R&D is an add-on, often used just to test the ROI for funders, be they philanthropic or corporate.

Yes, we have significant education investment from groups like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They have made a significant contribution to funding education reforms, particularly in our urban areas.  But the focus is not on R&D, it is on classroom practice.  Valuable indeed, but it doesn’t mean we don’t need a similar investment on the research side.  In fact, such R&D investment can ensure Gates’ money is being wisely spent.

Without question, the money available in the education industry is at levels never imagined in generations past.  Somewhere among those growing pots, there must be a potential sugardaddy (or a collection of sugarbabies) who can do for education what the Hughes Institute is doing for medicine.  

As we struggle with the definitions of SBRR and the findings of the WWC, just imagine the impact we can have with a nine-figure investment in education R&D, particularly if it is led through a public-private partnership.  

Today, education reform is kinda like filling a lake with teaspoon.  We’re adding some drops here or there, but we can’t necessarily see the impact.  With stronger R&D, we have the option of at least adding water by the barrel full, if not more.  And that’s the only way to raise the opportunity boats of the kids who need it most.
 

“Fortune and Glory …”

Eduflack Science, STEM

Over the years, we have heard of the effects of pop culture on higher education pursuits.  In the 1980s, the data shows a spike in law school enrollments, credited to the “L.A. Law” effect.  Young legal minds seeking to be the next Arnie Becker or Victor Sifuentez.  In the 1990s, it was the ‘ER” effect, with increases in law school admissions as young doctors-to-be sought to gain a residency slot at County General.  And in recent years, it has been the “CSI” effect, as aspiring criminologists sought to collect prints in Vegas or Miami

This weekend, Eduflack had one of those rare instances where he was able to slip out to a movie.  (Having a two-year-old in the house means this was the first newly released moving in six months I and Eduwife have been able to see.)  Without giving it a second thought, we jumped in the Edumobile and headed out to an early morning show of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

Two hours later, I was certain I needed to quit all of this ed reform stuff, go back to school, and become an archaeologist.  If it weren’t for my inability to gain competency in any foreign languages (Indy seems to speak dozens, including the dead-for-a-thousand-year-ones), I’d be fitting myself for a fedora, mastering the bullwhip, and heading out to the jungles, deserts, and mountains when antiquities, fortune, and glory can be found.  I wouldn’t even mind teaching those quaint little undergraduate classes on the civilizations and legends of the past.

Of course, I know this isn’t what archeology is really like.  But it is enough to get the juices and the mind flowing, while inspiring us to pursue new ideas.  We also knew that going to law school didn’t mean a high-powered barrister life in the City of Angels, nor did the forensic sciences afford us a life of glamour, power, and intrigue.  But these pop culture moments inspire others to pursue education.  They see something on TV or at the movies, and have an “a ha” moment.  A career possibility to be explored.  An academic pursuit recently discovered. Doors of knowledge opening for the first time.

Areas like archeology and ancient history are in need of such “a ha” moments.  College majors where many don’t see true fortune and glory are passed over for business or pre-law or economics.  But much value can be found in these subjects and others like them.  Sure, none of us are going to become the next Indiana Jones, but that doesn’t mean we use these moments to educate and to inspire.  To teach and learn.  It is a similar philosophy that has us putting a lense of relevance, interest, and passion around the STEM subjects.

But sometimes we have cold water thrown on our dreams of leather jackets, arks, and temples.  Just check out the piece in today’s Washington Post from Neil Asher Silberman.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/23/AR2008052302453.html  He paints the job much differently, of excavating by centimeters and analyzing plant remains.  With the stroke of a pen, he took all of the excitement and passion out of a career path that needs passionate and committed scholars.  Unintentionally, Silberman took away a great teaching moment to inspire students to study history, science, and the humanities all rolled into one.

Oh well, I guess that archaeologist-adventurer job will have to be left to my dreams.  Back to ed reform.

What Would Darwin Think of These Teachers?

Eduflack Science, STEM

In many education circles, we like to use the teaching of creationism in science classes as a punchline.  We thought all of this was solved at the Scopes Monkey Trial.  We’ve seen Inherit the Wind, and thought Clarence Darrow had William Jennings Bryan dead to rights.  Darwin won.  And fish with feet now adorn many a good liberal’s Saab or Volvo.

But then we see reports like that released by ABC News.  Researchers from Penn State surveyed 2,000 high school science teachers last year.  Nearly 1,000 teachers responded.  And they found 12.5 percent of them taught creationism as a “valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species.”  Sixteen percent believe that human beings were created by God within the past 10,000 years.  And teachers who “subscribed” to creationism spent 35 percent fewer hours teaching evolution than their non-creationist colleagues.  Check out the article here — http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4895114&page=1.

We’d all like to believe that teachers leave their personal opinions and points of view at the classroom door, particularly when it comes to supposedly fact-based courses such as science.  In fact, when we hear about the problems of teacher points of view, we usually think of social studies classes and teaching about wars and social policy issues.  We think of courses on cultural issues and current events and such subjective ones, not biology and the earth sciences.  We’d think wrong.

In an era where students are on the lookout for biased textbooks and teachers with an agenda, it is fascinating that 12.5 percent of teachers are so open with their beliefs and their teaching of creationism.  It is even more interesting that we don’t hear the complaints.  Creationism stories seem to be anecdotal at best.  If we are truly getting creationism lectured in one out of every eight high school science classes, where is the ACLU?  Where are the separation of church and staters?  Where is the liberal conspiracy?

Eduflack was raised in a strong Catholic household.  I spent eight years in CCD.  I learned how God created the heavens and the earth in six days.  But I never heard it in my K-12 experience.  Not in biology, not in chemistry, not in physics (and not even in those social studies classes).  Maybe I was attending one of those seven in eight classes.  Maybe my teachers realized that the science behind evolution was uncontroverted.  Maybe they just followed the texts, and the texts were all Darwin, all the time.  Or maybe, just maybe, we are looking for conspiracies, personal agendas, and things that go bump in the night in places where they just don’t exist. 

Do we really believe their is a national spike in creationism instruction?  Or is this yet another example of individuals telling pollsters what they want to hear (or what they believe and refuse to act on)?  Anyone have data on teachers and creationism from 20 years ago?  Or even 10?  Anyone?

The Future of Teacher Incentives?

Eduflack AP, Gates Foundation, NEA, STEM

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?