Teacher Education

Meeting the Education Needs of the Hispanic Community

Eduflack AYP, ELL, Students, Teacher Education

When we discuss education reform, the issue of urban education is usually one of the top discussion points.  But in most corners, urban education translates into the education of the African-American community.  We look at the achievement gap, and it is usually how black students measure up against white students.  Even recent efforts to boost high school graduation rates and college-going rates that focus on underserved populations seem to focus first on the African-American community.

Anyone who has followed politics over the last year, however, knows that much of the political and community action is now happening in the Hispanic community.  The fastest growing demographic in the United States, Hispanic Americans are a growing force in the education reform movement, but in general terms and with regard to issues specific to their community.
Just this week, Eduflack had two interesting announcements cross his desk.  The first was from the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE).  The alternative certification group announced a new partnership with the Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to recruit and certify more teachers of color for high-need Florida schools.  The real challenge — how do we get more qualified, successful Hispanic teachers at the front of Hispanic-dominant classes?
Through scholarships and incentives, ABCTE will work across a number of Florida counties to build a better program.  To date, they claim 150 individuals, both career changers and recent graduates, have taken up the cause and made the commitment.
Today, the U.S. Department of Education announced a three-quarter-of-a-million-dollar grant to the National Academy of Sciences to study how best to distribute Title III English Language Acquisition state grant funds.  The goal here?  Ensuring that federal ELL funding is actually getting to the communities that need it the most, those with the highest concentrations of English language proficiency.  For those keeping track, the feds are spending about $700 million on such state grants, so delivering them to the right addresses is a pretty good priority.
So why does all of this have my antenna up?  Education reform isn’t just a black-and-white issue.  These two announcements serve as a clear reminder of the need to focus on the Hispanic community in education reform.  And for education communicators, we also need to realize that means more than just ELL/ESL issues.  Accountability and standards are just as important.  Research and proven effectiveness are just as important.  Reading, math, and STEM education are just as important.  PreK and afterschool programs are just as important.  School choice and online education are just as important.  Qualified, effective teachers and equipped, supported schools are just as important.
As the population continues to shift, those who figure out how to effectively engage the Hispanic community in overall education reform issues will be in a position to make a real difference.  To get there, we need to set aside urban legends like Hispanic families don’t have home computers or such families don’t want to get engaged in the educational process.
ABCTE and NAS can help us expand the debate.  But there is a national dialogue on this issue that is just itching to happen.

The Obama Education Platform

Eduflack AP, early childhood education, ELL, High School, NCLB, Obama, Teacher Education

As many of us have known for much of the past two years, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama is all about change.  His approach to education reform is no different.  It is a diverse strategy, like his base of supporters, and reflects a message of change from some of the traditional Democratic education planks.  

The Bumper Sticker
We have a real problem with public education in the United States.  We are underfunding No Child Left Behind, or “No Child Left Behind Left the Money Behind.”  It is harder and harder to keep new teachers in the classroom.  And college is too expensive for the average Joe (even if he isn’t from Scranton, PA).
The Plan
Obama-Biden’s education platform operates under four key areas — early childhood education, K-12, teachers, and higher education.
Early Childhood Education
Obama’s early ed efforts are programmatically focused, in an effort to reach as many preschoolers as possible:
* Zero to Five Plan, focusing on early care and infant education; would offer Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state efforts and help move to state-led universal preschool
* Expanded Early Head Start and Head Start, calling for a 4X funding increase in Early Head Start and improving the quality of both programs
* Affordable, high-quality child care
K-12
Obama’s K-12 plan is a relative top eight list of the top buzz issues in education reform today:
* Reform No Child Left Behind, through increased funding and improving assessment and accountability
* Support high-quality schools and close low-performing charter schools, doubling the funding for the Federal Charter School Program and improving general accountability for charters
* Make math and science education a national priority, by recruiting and supporting strong math and science teachers
* Address the dropout crisis, through federal funding for middle school intervention strategies
* Expand high-quality afterschool opportunities, by doubling funding for the 21st Century Learning Centers program
* Support college outreach programs, lending support to GEAR UP, TRIO, and Upward Bound
* Support college credit initiatives, creating a “Make College a Reality” initiative to increase AP-going by 50% by 2016
* Support English language learners, through transitional bilingual education and general school accountability
Recruit, Prepare, Retain, and Reward America’s Teachers
With Obama-Biden, the classroom teacher is clearly the center of the movement.  (And don’t forget it is Biden’s wife’s career of choice):
* Recruit teachers, by creating a new Teacher Service Scholarship program to pay for four years of undergrad or two years of grad school in teacher education
* Prepare teachers, requiring all ed schools to be accredited and to create a voluntary national performance assessment of teacher training
* Retain teachers, expanding mentoring programs that pair vets with newbie teachers
* Reward teachers, allowing teachers a seat at the table in developing incentive programs and providing better pay for those in underserved location and those with a consistent record of success (read: merit pay)
Higher Education
Obama touched on higher ed in K-12, as he looked at college prep issues such college outreach and dual credit, but his platform also includes the following:
* Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit, ensuring the first $4,000 of a college education is “completely free for most Americans”
* Simplify the application process for financial aid, streamlining the process and authorizing the feds to use tax returns automatically as part of the system
The Takeaway
There you have it.  The full Obama-Biden education platform as presented on the official Obama-Biden campaign website.  Available now to lay side-by-side with McCain-Palin to compare, contrast, and critique.  Three pages of total text on the site, along with three downloadable plans (PreK-12 Plan, College Affordability Plan, and Education Reform Plan) and two speeches (one on PreK to 12 education, one on college affordability).  And before I hear it from readers, I know there are many more issues Obama and his surrogates have been talking about. Remember, folks, this is intended to look at the official plans, as offered up by the official websites of the candidates.
So what’s Eduflack’s takeaway?
* A clear understanding of the issues and concerns of the education community, particularly those seen by teachers and school leaders.  This is the ed community hotlist, particularly in K-12
* A stronger-than-strong emphasis on programs, both support of the old and calls for many, many new
* A significant increase in federal funding for education issues
* A focus on the processes that make education systems go
* Emphasis on the student and the school level
* An attempt to improve NCLB, particularly when it comes to funding
What’s missing?  There is little talk, other than some rhetorical mentions, to the need for standards and accountability in the schools.  It seems to be process over results.  And Obama’s previously strong stance on merit pay for teachers is weakly positioned in this policy.  Discussions of issues such as reading instruction, education research, vouchers, parental involvement, alternative certification, elementary schools, and online learning can’t be found.  Again, we can guess where an Obama administration would stand on these issues, based on his personal bio and the good work of his education team, but it isn’t spelled out.
So there you have it, the Obama-Biden education platform, in an equally handy format.  Tomorrow, we put our agitator hat back on and take a close look at how the two campaigns stack up against each other, educa
tion wise, and what are remaining unanswered questions may be.

The McCain Education Platform

Eduflack charter schools, early childhood education, high-stakes testing, John McCain, national standards, NCLB, Online Education, Presidential campaign, Teacher Education, vouchers

My friends (sorry, can’t resist), despite popular opinion, U.S. Sen. John McCain does indeed have a comprehensive education platform, and it is a plan that clearly reflects the collective experiences and perspectives of the senior staffers advising the McCain-Palin campaign on education policy.

The Bumper Sticker
McCain-Palin’s education platform operates under a simple mission — “Excellence, Choice, and Competition in American Education.”  It pledges to four key educational points:
* American education must be worthy of the promise we make to our children and ourselves
* We are a nation committed to equal opportunity, and there is no equal opportunity without equal access to excellent education
* We must fight for the ability of all students to have access to all schools of demonstrated excellence, including their own homes
* We must place parents and children at the center of the educational process, empowering parents to greatly expanding their ability to choose a school for their children.
The Plan
The McCain-Palin campaign breaks its education platform into three key areas — early childhood education, strengthening America’s schools, and higher education policy.  The latter two were actually offered as media releases during the summer (though I don’t remember reading much, if any, about either of them).
Early Childhood Education
The early childhood component is focused on the notion that we must “make certain students are ready to learn.”  With an emphasis on a range of high-quality programs that focus on educational foundations in reading, math, social, and emotional skills.  The further highlights:
* Centers for Excellence in Head Start — Ensuring that all Head Start centers have quality instructors, are accountable to parents, and focus on outcomes instead of just processes.  The federal director of Head Start would choose at least one Center in each state, and the state’s governor would nominate potential choices.  Such centers would be expected to expand their services to reach more students, doing so with an extra $200,000 in funding from the feds.  For these centers, the name of the game is results, with a demand for clear goals, clear objectives, and even clearer effective practice.
* Measurable Standards — Every federally funded early childhood program should be held to measurable standards, quality measures that “should be centered on the child and outcome-based.”
* Quality Instruction — Early childhood education is about preparing students for K-12 instruction.  Every early ed instruction should have strong preparation with “an emphasis on performance and outcomes as measured by student development.”  All federally funded preK programs would be required to offer a “comprehensive approach to learning that covers all significant areas of school readiness, notably literacy/language development, as well as math readiness and key motor and social skills.”
* Healthy Children — Advocating partnership grants for early screening programs for hearing, vision, and immunization needs of preschoolers.
* Parental Education and Involvement — McCain-Palin would ensure federal programs focus on educating parents how to prepare their kids for a “productive educational experience.”  Parents would be schooled in reading and numbers skills, nutrition, and general health issues.
Strengthening America’s Schools
Focusing on opportunities and a quality education for all students, the McCain-Palin plan focuses on empowering parents, teachers, and leaders while taking a swipe at the traditional educational bureaucracy.
McCain’s K-12 policy is comprised of four key principles:
* Enact meaningful reform to education
* Provide for equality of choice
* Empower parents
* Empower teachers
More specifics then come in the dozen or so specific policies McCain offers to support these principles:
* Build on the lessons of NCLB, continuing the national emphasis on standards and accountability
* Provide effective education leadership, particularly rewarding achievement
* Ensure children have quality teachers, accomplished by:

– Encouraging alternative certification methods that open the door for highly motivated teachers to enter the field
– Providing bonuses for teachers who locate in underperforming schools and demonstrate strong leadership as measured by student improvement
– Providing funding for needed professional teacher development

* Empowering school principals with greater control over spending, focusing principal decisions on doing what is necessary to raise student achievement
* Making real the promise of NCLB by giving parents greater choice, choice over how school money is being spent
* Expanding the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, better known as DC’s voucher system
* Ensuring children struggling to meet state standards will have immediate access to high-quality tutoring programs, made available from the LEAs, the feds, or private providers
* Expanding virtual learning by reforming the “Enhancing Education Through Technology Program,” providing $500 million to develop virtual K-12 schools
* Allocating $250 million through a competitive grant program to support states that commit to expanding online education opportunities, offering a path for states to establish virtual math and science academies
* Offering $250 million for Digital Passport Scholarships to help students pay for online tutors to enroll in virtual schools, offering competitive funds to provide low-income students greater access to a range of courses and programs needed to maximize opportunity
Higher Education Policy
Focusing on innovation, the reduction of regulatory barriers, and a shared need that our economic strength depends on strong postsecondary education, the McCain-Palin team calls for the following in higher education policy:
* Improve information for parents, particularly institutional i
nformation on postsecondary choices
* Simplify higher education tax benefits, connecting a lower tax burden to greater pursuit of higher education
* Simplify federal financial aid, consolidating the financial aid process
* Improve research by eliminating earmarks, tying the campaign’s signature anti-pork barrel spending to boosting the funds available for federally funded research programs
* Fix the student lending programs, expanding capacity and demanding high levels of lender activity.
The Takeaway
There you have it.  The full McCain-Palin education platform, as presented on the official McCain-Palin campaign website.  Six total pages of text.  So what’s Eduflack’s takeaway?
* A strong focus on accountability and standards
* Emphasis on core instructional approaches and needs
* Recognition that improvement comes with parents, kids, and teachers working together
* Significant focus on innovations, specifically virtual education, alternative certification, and school choice
* An effort to place results over process
* An attempt to learn from and move beyond NCLB, not fix the federal law
What’s missing?  Discussions of issues such as ELL/ESL, student testing, national standards, STEM education, high school dropout rates, and teacher education.  But we can surmise from the policy ideas above where the McCain administration would stand on some, if not all of these issues.
So there you have it, the McCain-Palin education platform, in a handy email/pocket-sized guide.  Senator Obama, you’re up tomorrow. 

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.

God Bless the Texas Higher Ed Board

Eduflack higher ed, STEM, Teacher Education

Many in higher education bemoan the role of regional and state regulatory bodies.  Years ago, Eduflack worked with a start-up higher ed company seeking regional accreditation for new graduate programs.  We wanted accreditation fast, and we wanted it a week ago.  Each, week, we seemed to lament the latest hoop to jump, report to write, and visit to prepare for.

We must remember such processes are there for a reason.  Regional accreditors and state higher education boards are there to protect the quality and value of higher education.  Not everyone can run a college out of their basement or a warehouse.  Someone needs to go in and evaluate the quality of the program, the faculty, the facilities, and the school.  Think of these accreditors as the IAB of the higher ed system.  No one wants a visit from internal affairs, but all need to pay attention.

We remember this when we see articles like that recently published in the Dallas Morning News.  It seems the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board rejected a proposal from the Institute for Creation Sciences to establish a “creation sciences” degree for teachers looking to teach an alternative to evolution.  No doubt, legal action is sure to ensue.  Check out the full article here — http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/042408dntexcreationscience2.917bf873.html.

I’ll leave the problem of teaching creationism in the public schools aside.  At some point, we need to respect the authorizing process and recognize these state and regional boards know exactly what they are doing.  Opposing this degree in a religiously charged environment like Texas is a hard thing to do.  Someone out there owes the Texas board a word of thanks for standing tall on such a controversial issue.

When I was in higher ed, many liked to say the regulators were simply defending the status quo and protecting the establishing institutions from true innovation.  Maybe that is partly true.  But they also preserve the integrity of our institutions and ensure that a licensed and accredited institution of higher education is held to high standards and is expected to teach proven facts.

Don’t mis-hear me, there is a place for creationism in classroom debate and intellectual discussion.  But what proven scientific texts is one using in a creation sciences?  Who has peer-reviewed the Bible?  And how do you play Devil’s advocate in a discussion on the fourth day of creation?

“America’s Worst Teachers”

Eduflack AFT, HQT, NEA, Teacher Education

The job of public school teacher is one of the hardest out there.  Low pay.  Abuse (mostly verbal, but at times physical) from students and parents.  Lack of autonomy.  Proscriptive instructional approaches.  Regular turnover.  And we know it is only going to get worse in the coming years, as more than half of the current teaching workforce gets ready to retire after committing their adult lives to education.

Yes, the job is hard.  Yes, it takes a very special person who is able to go into the classroom, day in and day out, for decades and do whatever is necessary to inspire kids to learn.  Not everyone can be a teacher, despite what many of us would like to think.  It is still a calling for most, and on that just isn’t understood or appreciated, particularly in today’s environment.

That is why is was so disheartening to see the very worst of our “reality TV” culture hit the teaching profession this morning.  If you’ve missed it, in several leading national newspapers (I saw it in this morning’s USA Today) the Center for Union Facts is running a national contest to “Vote for the Worst Unionized Teachers in America.”  The anti-union group intends to pay 10 teachers $10,000 each to quit their teaching jobs.

The ad provides a strong image of a rotting apple, complete with worm.  And the ad copy is short, but none to sweet.  “Old union rules keep incompetent teachers in the classroom.  It often costs over $100,000 in legal fees to replace a teacher.  Help our kids get the education they need — let’s replace the bad apples.”

Of course, a good teacher would teach you that it should be “more than $100,000” since over signifies a spacial relationship.  But I’m not an English teacher, and this isn’t a grammar lesson.  This is a lesson on the impact of our communications activities.

The Center for Union Facts definitely knows how to grab attention.  These ads will undoubtedly result in a number of news articles about the issue.  (USA Today is running the ad, and has a story about it in the paper).  And the Center is committing big bucks to this.  Such full-page ads don’t come cheap, and there is the $100,000 bounty as well.

But this seems to be more of a “gotcha” experience than a real quest to improve the schools.  The 10 worst teachers all have to agree to allow the Center to publicize their exit from the profession.  How many teachers out there are willing to be publicly humiliated, even for $10,000?  How many of any of us would be willing to admit or accept that we are one of the 10 worst in our chosen profession?

In this time of highly qualified and highly effective teachers, we all want to see successful educators in our classrooms.  We all want to know our kids have good teachers.  We want to know they are doing what works, and that our kids and our schools are better for it.

How, then, does the Center — or anyone for that matter — determine who they worst teachers are?  If we base it on test scores alone, don’t we need to factor in the resources we made available to the teachers?  Do kids and their parents vote, allowing them to go after the “hard” teachers or those who won’t cut them a break or let them slide?  At what point do we have to look at the kids and appreciate what a teacher has to work with?  Is there a test they take, sort of an NBCT-lite test?  Are there computer rankings, like those we’ll see this week for the NCAA basketball tournament?  How, exactly, do we measure “worst?”

Clearly, the Center is targeting the NEA and the AFT.  If not, this wouldn’t be about “unionized” teachers.  Clearly, a charter school teacher or a private school teacher should be able to qualify as on of the nation’s worst teachers, no?  That’s only fair and equitable.  We all should have the chance to be the very best … or the very worst at what we do.

Yes, there are likely some teachers in our public schools today who probably shouldn’t be there.  And those teachers know it.  They know they don’t feel the passion.  They know they feel the frustration.  They know they aren’t having an impact.  But they tend to be the exceptions, not the rule.

If the Center for Union Facts has issue with the NEA and AFT, they should go after the unions and go after them hard.  There are areas where unions can be called to task for failing to meet the needs or follow the intentions of their membership.  But don’t go after the individual teachers.  Their job is hard enough.  These ads only make it harder. 

Want to deal with the worst teachers?  Spend that $250,000 or so on PD for struggling teachers.  Think of it as supplemental ed support for those teachers.  That will help kids get the education they need.

Every Teacher a Reader?

Eduflack High School, HQT, NCLB, Teacher Education

In fights over teacher quality, we often ask what makes a good teacher.  NCLB’s HQT provisions called on teachers to have a degree in the subject and be certified. Leaders such as the NCLB Commission have sought to strengthen the provision, adding a measure of teacher effectiveness to the requirements.  Has anyone thought that a classroom teacher should be functionally literate?  Does a teacher need basic reading and writing skills to teach?

If we look at the story out of 10 News in San Diego, apparently not.  They tell the tell of John Corcoran, a now-retired teacher who earned a teaching degree from an accredited four-year college and then went on to teach high school for 17 years.  He did it all while being completely illiterate.  Cheated his way through school.  Taught without ever writing a word on the chalk board.  Now he is an education advocate who runs a foundation and an SES provider out in California.  Check out the full story here — http://www.10news.com/news/15274005/detail.html.

It is an entertaining tale, and just the sort of urban legend we hear now and again.  While most will be moved by the story of a man who finally learned to read at 48 and committed the second stage of his life to literacy advocacy, what message does it say that an illiterate high school teacher led a classroom for almost two decades, and no one ever found out.

I appreciate that he used his classroom to build a learning environment based on the visual and oral.  As you’ve heard Eduflack say again and again, it is important that we use multiple mediums and multiple approaches to reach all students.  But could any of his students really have gained an effective education from an illiterate teacher?  Did students go a full academic year with ever writing a five-paragraph essay or researching and writing a report or even taking a non-multiple choice exam?

I’ll set aside the notion that he had two or three teacher’s assistants helping in his classroom.  That must be some school district.  The bigger question here is what should we expect from our teachers? 

We assume that Mr. Corcoran didn’t have students who complained about his methods or inquired as to why their teacher never seemed to read from the book or write on the board.  And we might even assume that his students did well, using a different learning environment to develop new skills and improve their learning ability for other classes.  He may have been a regular Mr. Holland, who inspired a generation of future teachers, creators, and innovators.

But his revelations speak poorly of the teaching profession as a whole.  We all know that teaching — particularly in a secondary school environment — is one of the toughest jobs out there.  It requires knowledge, skill, patience, and ability.  Not everyone is cut out to be a teacher, and some find that out the hard way.  It is an underappreciated profession, and one where virtually everyone assumes they could do the job if they wanted to. 

And it is that fantasy that Corcoran helps contribute to.  Anyone, even those who can’t read or write a lick, can lead a classroom if they want to.  That’s a dangerous message to send to students, particularly those who are thinking about dropping out because they don’t see the relevance of school.  After all, why learn to read at grade level if your teacher doesn’t have to?

I realize that Corcoran is of an anomaly, and his story is meant to inspire adults who think it is too late to learn to read.  And that would be fine if he were an entrepreneur or a banker or a sales manager or an elected official.  But he was a teacher.  And, like it or not, we expect more from teachers.  They need to be smarter.  They need to be more patient.  They need to be more successful than just about any other profession.

Yes, we want teachers who are highly qualified and effective.  Basic literacy skills should be a non-negotiable.  John Corcoran may be an inspiration to some, but he owes a big apology to the thousands of teachers who take pride in their profession and who lead by example in their classrooms. 

Taking Responsibility for School Reform

Eduflack HQT, PR, Teacher Education

We all know that our schools do not operate in vacuums.  They are a part of our local community.  They serve as meeting places and as learning places.  They feed our students, house after-school programs, and often host adult education efforts.  They serve as a focal point for all in the community, whether they be teacher, student, parent, or none of the above.  As such, we all play a role in their success … or their failure.

That is why Eduflack has advocated for a big tent when it comes to school reform.  It is unfair that teachers take most of the blame for the failure of our schools.  Likewise, it is unreasonable to expect teachers to take sole responsibility for improving our schools and boosting student achievement.  We all benefit from stronger schools.  We all have a responsibility to get there.  Teachers and school administrators.  Parents and students.  Business and community leaders.  Colleges, universities, and trade schools.  Federal, state, and local policymakers.  Coaches and the clergy.  School reform is hard work.  We aren’t in a position to turn anyone away from participating in the improvement.

Over the weekend, though, Eduflack engaged in an electronic give-and-take with a reader who saw things differently.  The reader suggested that the only stakeholder who should be involved in K-12 reform is the teacher, with the intent being only those who have taught (and taught for more than a year or two) are knowledgeable and qualified enough to opine and decide on what is taught, how it is taught, and how it is measured.

I would like to believe that we all can agree that our K-12 institutions are in need of improvement.  We can agree that we all are affected when our schools fail.  We all can play a role in improving them.  And the current state of public education in the United States doesn’t allow us to turn away those who want to help or should help.  So how do we rectify this with the beliefs of some that only those who have taught should talk about teaching (or more importantly, improving teaching)?

If we buy into the status quo logic, we have a lot of people in education who need to get out.  By the reader’s logic, Ted Kennedy has no business overseeing education policy in the Senate.  Wendy Kopp had no right to start Teach for America after graduating Princeton.  Most school boards, populated by business and community leaders, should cease meeting immediately.  And Bill Gates clearly has no business telling school districts how to redesign their high schools.  After all, he is a college dropout!

We can even say that many teacher educators, those who train our classroom teachers, need to stay out of the discussion, as they moved from their doctoral programs to the faculty senate at the local teacher’s college, without putting in the prerequisite years of K-12 classroom instruction.  All, of course, absurd suggestions.

Ultimately, improving our schools means reforming our educational system.  And reform only comes from change and overcoming the status quo.  That comes from multiple audiences, with multiple perspectives and interests, all calling for similar reform.  Policymakers and the business community pushing top down.  Teachers and parents and community leaders pushing bottom up.  All ultimately squeezing out real, meaningful reform.

Don’t get me wrong.  Experienced, effective practitioners are an essential voice in the reform process.  They can help other stakeholders understand what is possible and what is not.  They have walked the walk, and know what we need to get us to our intended destination.  But they can’t do it alone, and we shouldn’t expect them to.  They need policy and financial support from their school district and elected officials.  They need the investment and interest of the business community.  They need the involvement of parents and families.  It takes a village to raise a child, and it surely takes a community to educate one.

If we don’t see this, then the failure is not an instructional one, it is a communications one.  If we cannot see the value and necessity of a broad coalition of stakeholders when it comes to education reform, then we have not communicated the urgency successfully enough.  Whether you are watching from the home, the community center, the state capitol, or the ivory tower, it should be clear that our schools need help.  The status quo isn’t cutting it.  And none of us should be saddling our teachers with the sole responsibility of fixing it all.

Let’s empower our good teachers to teach.  It’s up to the rest of us to provide them the policies, the funding, and the support they need to teach effectively and boost student achievement and enthusiasm for learning.
 

“Just Walk Away, Renee …”

Eduflack HQT, NCLB, Teacher Education

What’s the measure of a “good” teacher?  It’s an age-old question whose answer has varied and changed over the years.  For the past five years — under the No Child Left Behind era — we’ve answered it with the formula developed by Congressman George Miller and his colleagues as part of their HQT provisions.  A highly qualified teacher was one who has a degree in the subject matter and who is certified. 

Yesterday, a group of California parents took issue with how the U.S. Department of Education was interpreting the HQT provision, specifically how it approved the Golden State’s effort to categorize alternative cert teachers and emergency hires as HQTs.  The case — Renee v. Spellings — is expected to have national implications on alternative teaching programs.  (Or at least that’s what Stephen Sawchuck and Education Daily tell us.)

Eduflack doesn’t take issue with the intent of Renee and parents across the country who want to ensure that their children get the very best instructors, the very best curriculum, and the very best of opportunities.  And I agree that, ideally, our best teachers should be in our most challenging teaching environments, working with the kids who need their experience, expertise, and knowledge the most.

But after five years, it is time to revise our definition of a good teacher.  The language is stale.  Highly qualified is fine … to an extent.  But is a teacher with a bona fide diploma from a teachers college guaranteed to be a good teacher, while another from Teach for America or Troops to Teachers is not?  Of course not.  The pedagogy one gets from a TC only takes you so far.  Success depends largely on the passion of the teacher, the pursuit of continued learning, the push to continue to improve practice, and one’s commitment to the classroom and the student.  And many would say alternative routes engender those qualities far more frequently than traditional routes.

Regardless, we need a new benchmark for a “good” teacher. And that benchmark is based on one simple word — effectiveness.  Our goal should be to have an effective teacher in every classroom.  A teacher committed to boosting student achievement.  A teacher that can be measured based on year-on-year gains in her classroom.  A teacher who leaves his students better off at the end of the year than they were when they showed up the previous September.  Good teachers should be effective teachers.  And that effectiveness can be measured, studied, and replicated in other classes and schools.

The words we choose to define “good” teaching are telling of our objectives.  “Highly qualified” measures the inputs.  “Effectiveness” measures the outputs.  And at the end of the day, we should be defining our teachers, our schools, and our kids on the outputs.  All the qualifications in the world can’t guarantee success.  Our focus is results.  The end game is achievement.
   
Slowly, this concept is making its way into our discussions on NCLB and HQT.  It was first offered by the Aspen Institute’s NCLB Commission, and was championed by its co-chair, Gov. Roy Barnes.  We’ve now seen it mentioned in a number of NCLB reauthorization bills on Capitol Hill.  But we have a long way to go.

Maybe the lawyers with Public Advocates can offer a settlement … all California teachers must demonstrate effectiveness in the classroom.  Now that would be a practice worth modeling in all 50 states.

Multiple Pathways for Students … and Teachers

Eduflack AYP, HQT, NCLB, NEA, PR, Teacher Education

We all like to believe that we’re all entitled to one week in the sun.  No one can dispute that last week was just such a week for Teach For America.  Bookended by articles in The New York Times magazine and the Economist, TFA has been the “it” program of the week.  No small feat, what with continued discussions of NCLB, merit pay, and a host of national policy shifts.

Without doubt, TFA has a growing cadre of supporters throughout the nation.  As it has expanded the cities and communities in which it serves, the organization has had a demonstrable impact on the school culture, on student and teacher motivation, and, yes, on student performance.  Don’t believe Eduflack?  Check out the comprehensive research study Mathematica has done on the effectiveness of TFA.

Unfortunately, such attention and growth also gives birth to a healthy opposition.  I’ve long told reform clients that if you don’t have such critics, you aren’t doing your job.  Changing the status quo, calling on stakeholders to work harder or think smarter or do better invariably always brings forward that opposition.  And TFA is no exception.

For years, those critics have been led by Stanford University professor Linda Darling-Hammond, perhaps the greatest defender of the status quo pedagogy of teacher education.  Yes, she is a name to be reckoned with.  Yes, she brings a distinguished history of good work and a commitment to public education.  But sometimes, even the best take a wrong turn.

The status quoers have tried to protect teacher education for decades.  The result?  Our students’ test scores have been relatively flat for most of Eduflack’s lifetime.  We may claim that our schools of education are churning out the best educators ever to face a classroom, but the results don’t reflect that.  For too long, we’ve allowed pedagogy to substitute for results.  Sure, the inputs may be great, but what out the final outcomes?  To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, are our students better of now than they were two decades ago?

The simple answer is, of course not.  Today, we are asking far more of our students than ever before.  Success in 2007 requires a high school diploma and a postsecondary degree or certificate.  The time when only a third of high school students went to college is over.  Instead, we are demanding multiple educational pathways for our students, pathways that provide every student with a way to postsecondary education and a guide to life success. 

Which takes us back to Teach For America.  If we are expected to build multiple instructional pathways for our students, it only goes to reason that we are to build multiple instructional pathways for our teachers as well.  There is no one way to train a teacher.  If there was, we’d build that factory and have a non-stop supply of highly qualified, effective teachers for every classroom, including those in low-performing areas.

No, the challenges of our schools requires multiple ways of thinking.  From looking at those schools where programs like Teach For America or Troops to Teachers reside, we know that pedagogy is the least of these classrooms’ problems.  Here, many students have all but given up hope.  They’ve lost faith in the school, or in the teacher, or in learning itself.  For them, it isn’t about instructional approaches.  It is about repairing the school culture.  Returning hope.  Connecting the student with the teacher and the school.

And that’s where programs like TFA excel.  Success is not measured by an individual teacher or a specific cadre of corps members.  Success, in the long run, comes from knowing there will always been a TFA teacher in front of that classroom, a teacher who connects with the student, inspires the student, and reconnects the student’s passion for learning.

Accomplish that, and the student achievement will come.  And scientific research can prove it.  If anything, Darling-Hammond and her defenders of the status quo should be seeking out more opportunities and efforts like TFA.  More programs that bring hope to inner-city schools.  More programs that instill a culture of learning.  More programs that provide our schools with enthusiastic, driven instructors eager to lead a classroom that has long been neglected.  More programs that build a future generation of leadership on the notion that no issue is more important to the success of our nation and our community than a high-quality, effective education for ALL students.

Some critics, including those at dear ole Stanford, would point to the lifespan of a TFA teacher, questioning whether two years in the classroom really makes a difference.  But how different is the two-year commitment of a TFA teacher from the short lifespan of today’s traditional new teacher?  TFA’s mission was never to focus on teacher retention issues — it was to provide an ongoing stream of qualified, enthusiastic, committed educators in the communities that need them the most.  TFA plays that specific role extremely well, so much so that it is continually embraced by superintendents, principals, and teachers across the nation.  And in reality, the studies of TFA alumni show many of them stay in the classroom, go into school administration, or assume other roles that support education and growth in the community.  And isn’t that a measure of an effective educator?

In a nation looking for K-12 solutions, we need multiple answers.  One just won’t do.  And Teach For America is definitely one of the answers.  Ask a “traditional” teacher who works with a TFAer, and they’ll tell you the same thing.  Ask a family whose child is in a TFA classroom, and they’ll concur.  Ask Mathematica and other researchers, and they’ll give you the proof points.

Teacher For America and its leaders should enjoy their week in the sun.  The hard work begins today.  Across the nation, districts and schools know TFA and programs like it work.  So as the critics circle, TFA, its leadership, and its corps members need to ensure the highest quality implementation, instruction, and effect.  Success is the best defense of the critics and the status quoers.  And TFA is on its way.