Teacher Education

Chapter 9 in Detroit

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, High School, Teacher Education, teachers

What happens when a school district files for bankruptcy?  We have heard of LEAs on the brink before, but we’ve never witnessed a district actually enter bankruptcy court, as they are usually saved at the 11th hour by the city or state.  But the latest talk and action coming out of the Motor City points to a new first for K-12 public education in the United States — a school district seeking bankruptcy protection from the courts.  The Wall Street Journal has the full story here.

We’ve obviously heard a great deal about corporate bankruptcies, what with General Motors and Chrysler (Detroit Public School neighbors) already seeking help from the courts.  In a previous life, Eduflack worked with a wide range of companies on bankruptcy communications issues, helping consumer goods manufacturers, healthcare companies, and microprocessor producers navigate the Chapter 11 process.
On the corporate side, there are often a great number of misperceptions regarding Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings.  Despite popular belief, it is not usually the first step to liquidation or closing one’s doors forever (that’s left the Chapter 13).  It does not mean that salaries won’t be paid or pensions and benefits have been lost.  It does not mean that vendors will never be paid.  And it certainly does not mean that core business operations will not continue.
Bankruptcy is a chance to reorganize.  Typically, an organization has lost its way and has strayed from its core business.  Expenses have gotten out of hand, debts and obligations have risen, and what has worked in the past simply won’t work again.  As circumstances and conditions change, these organizations need a fresh start.  They need a second chance, an opportunity to break from bad deals and bad situations.  And they need a chance to shed the status quo and refocus on what works and where the future is taking them.  We’ve witnessed companies such as Macy’s, 7-11, and others used bankruptcy reorganization to help them strengthen their business, improve their brand, and better serve their customers.
So when Detroit’s Public Schools talk about filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy (a distinction under the federal code for public entities like school districts), it does not mean Detroit is giving up.  It certainly doesn’t mean we are shuttering public schools in the Motor City and telling all of the area’s students that they need to move on to Catholic schools or similar competitors.  It means Detroit is looking to take control of its own destiny, seeking the flexibility to restructure so it can focus on its core business of educating students and deal with the realities of shrinking student numbers and local tax pools.
Earlier this year, EdSec Arne Duncan referred to Detroit’s schools as a “national disgrace.”  The term drop-out factories may very well have been created to reflect the state of secondary school instruction in Detroit.  While the nation may have been focused on leaving no child behind, Detroit failed to get the memo.  Despite statewide efforts in Michigan to improve public education, boost the high school graduation rate, and better prepare Michiganders with the skills and knowledge they need for the 21st century Michigan workplace, Detroit was a reality we tried to forget, or at least chose to write off.  It stands as the worst-case scenario for the modern-day school district, used as the butt of jokes and an example of what other struggling districts want to avoid. 
All of that makes it very easy for Detroit leaders to simply throw up their hands, say nothing can be done, and simply accept the status quo as the way things need to be in Detroit.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.  DPS Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb should be commended for charting the course toward Chapter 9 bankruptcy …. as long as he intends to use it effectively.  

Detroit cannot, should not, and must not simply use bankruptcy to clear the books and go back to operating in the same old way.  Enrollment has dropped nearly 50 percent in less than a decade.  Schools have been closed.  Teachers have been laid off.  These are major changes for a school district.  Such changes mean that one cannot simply go back to the administration and operations of old, content that old debts are behind you.  Doing so simply allows Detroit to run up new debts and likely find themselves in this same situation not too far down the road.
If Bobb and his team take the final step and file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, they need to use the opportunity to change the administration, culture, expectations, and results of Detroit Public Schools.  The courts will provide Detroit the time to reorganize.  They need to take that time to build a better system.  Let’s be honest here.  Students have left DPS in droves for private and charter schools because of quality and outcomes.  Parents want to see their kids succeed.  They want them to be safe.  They want them to learn.  They want them to graduate.  They want them to gain the skills and knowledge necessary for success.  Too many parents haven’t seen those qualities in Detroit Public Schools, so those with the ability — even in this tough economy — have turned to alternatives to ensure their kids are getting the education they need.
Bobb has already taken major steps to clean up Detroit’s administrative issues.  He’s scrubbing the books, rooting out fraud, and providing a clearer view of what, exactly, Detroit is spending its school money on.  Bankruptcy protection provides him additional time and additional power to continue these efforts and build a better operational infrastructure for the schools.  But he must also take the opportunity to focus on the product — ensuring that Detroit is taking the steps to improve the delivery, quality, and results of a Detroit Public Schools education.
How?  Eduflack has three ideas for Mr. Bobb and his team:
* Teacher quality — Simply staffing Detroit’s public school classrooms with whatever warm bodies are coming out of local ed schools isn’t getting the job done.  Detroit needs to demand higher-quality teachers.  They need to require a more rigorous teacher education program from local colleges and universities, one that demands a more rigorous curriculum, a strong clinical experience, and the content and pedagogy that moves classroom educators from “qualified” to “effective.”  Detroit needs to invest in rigorous, content-based professional development for all its teachers, striving for constant improvement.  It needs to reward effective teaching.  And it needs to recognize that not everyone with a teaching degree is cut out to successfully handle the rigors of teaching in Detroit.  Challenging times require the best teachers.  Detroit needs to invest in getting those teachers, and not simply setting for those willing to be part of a failing system.
* Innovative programs — Two weeks ago, Bobb announced plans to bring in partner organizations to help turn around Detroit’s high schools.  This was a master move, and it needs to be followed through (the school board seems to be balking since the announcement).  Bankruptcy be damned, Detroit needs to invest in innovation and new approaches.  it also needs to focus on return on investment.  Elementary school investments make people feel nice, as we help little kids, but their impact isn’t felt for a decade.  Bobb’s plans for the high schools can yield immediate return.  If implemented with fidelity, these partners can boost high school test scores and graduation rates.  They can better prepare today’s high school students for tomorrow’s jobs.  They can be the first step in bringing Detroit’s schools into the 21st century.  We need more thinking and action like this, and fewer roadblocks from those that fear c
hange or embrace the status quo.  These contracts need to be honored and these programs need to be up and running by the start of the new school year this fall.
* Customer focus — Companies that file for bankruptcy often do because they strayed from their core business and invested in products and efforts that didn’t fit their mission.  Detroit Public Schools should have one focus — dramatically improving student achievement.  Every decision coming from the central office should be proceeded by the question, how does this impact student performance?  The hiring of teachers and principals.  The adoption of textbooks.  The selection of instructional programs.  The introduction of technologies and supplemental education.  School build repairs.  Scheduling.  Course offerings.  Professional development.  Every aspect of school operations should focus on the customer (the student) and how to deliver a better product (an education) to that customer.  If an expenditure or a decision is not going to improve the quality or effectiveness of learning, it is likely not needed.
The citizens of Detroit need to see this as an opportunity.  Those voices across the nation calling for school reform and innovation need to see this as an opportunity.  The teachers and students of DPS need to see this as an opportunity.  Bankruptcy filings mean you are not bound by what has happened in the past.  You get a new start, an opportunity to do things differently and take the right steps forward.  It is a chance to succeed when success had been out of grasp for so long.  While many will try to steer Detroit back into its past ways, Bobb needs to keep his eyes on the prize and focus on the end game.  Forget what has been done and focus on what Detroit’s students need to succeed.  We are approaching a new era for Detroit Public Schools.  Here’s hoping it is an era of the new and the innovative, and not a retrospective visit to an era that has failed far too many Detroit students.

Throwin’ Down on Teachers and School Models

Eduflack AFT, EdNews, Gates Foundation, High School, NEA, Teacher Education, teachers

Two interesting news items this morning, showing that what was once old may be new again.  The first the debate over traditional versus alternative teachers, the second on the role of small schools.

Issue One: Up in Boston, the Boston Teachers Union has firmly planted its flag in the sand, hoping to block an influx of new Teach for America educators this fall.  Citing planned cutbacks in the Boston Public Schools and a “surplus” of existing “good” teachers, the BTU is taking its fight to the streets, hoping to keep 20 new TFAers from arriving in Beantown this fall.  The full story is here, in the Boston Globe.
What’s interesting is that TFA seems to be taking the position that it is a public service organization, much along the lines of the Peace Corps or Americorps (something that Bostonians know a thing or two about).  Eduflack doesn’t doubt that many TFAers enroll in the program because they believe they are giving back to the community and performing a public service by going to into urban or rural schools that are having a dickens of a time staffing their classrooms.  But the BTU has a point here.  Is it really public service and volunteerism at its best when a TFA teacher in Boston is making the same starting salary as a beginning teacher in the district (about $46K)?  If Boston were paying TFAers the hourly wage that Americorps members are getting, we are having a different rhetorical fight.  But we are putting each pool of educators on equal footing, at least financially.
Seems to me that if Boston does indeed have this surplus of hundreds of good teachers without current jobs (not something I would be bragging about, but that’s just me) the focus then should be on quality and effectiveness.  Why bring in a TFAer for two years when you can tap the best of the current surplus pool, teachers who may already have a track record of delivering student achievement results in Boston and teachers who are prepared to make a commitment for more than two years?  Do we want surplus teachers or do we want proven-effective teachers who are prepared to make a long-term commitment to closing the achievement gap and boosting student performance?  When caged that way, the answer seems simple (particularly since we are waging this rhetorical war over 20 TFAers).  Part of TFA’s mission is staffing those hard-to-serve schools.  If we have qualified teachers lined up around Fenway Park to serve from Southie to the North End, seems they warrant an equal chance for those 20 available slots.
Issue Two: Back in America’s heartland, Chad Wick, the CEO of KnowledgeWorks Foundation, makes a strong case for the notion that small schools work.  His commentary can be found here at Education News.  This is a bold statement to make, particularly since so many people believe that the Gates Foundation disowned the notion of small schools this past fall.  But if you look at what Bill Gates said back in November, and you look at what Wick says today, they are marching in lockstep.  Those who think we are going to improve the schools simply by changing the structure and implementing a small school model are fooling themselves.  But changing the structure is an important first step to school improvement, particularly if you use the new model to create new learning opportunities for students, offer better supports and PD for teachers, and generally refuse to toe the status quo line.
Having worked with Wick and the good folks at KnowledgeWorks, they seem to know what they are talking about.  They can point to their efforts with the Ohio High School Transformation Initiative and Early College High Schools as examples where the small school structure opened the door to improvement.  They used the new structure to close the achievement gap and improve high school graduation rates.  Seems a model example of using the process (school structure) to actually generate some measurable results.  Isn’t that a novel concept, particularly in this era of innovation.

Improving Teacher Training Efforts Inside or Outside the Norm?

Eduflack Achievement gap, higher ed, HQT, PD, Teacher Education

A few weeks ago on Twitter (eduflack, for those looking to follow), I posed what I thought was an interesting question.  Does reform and improvement of our teacher preparation programs need to be led inside or outside the norm?  Or in simpler terms, can we look to our schools of education to make the necessary changes, or does it require new thinking from alternative certification programs and innovation-minded groups or individuals to lead the sort of sea change we need to boost the quality and outcomes of all teachers in the classroom?

The question led to my call for a Flexner-style Commission to study the current state of teacher education.  blog.eduflack.com/2009/03/09/the-future-of-teacher-ed.aspx  The premise is simple.  We need someone to go in and evaluate the good, the bad, and the downright ugly when it comes to teacher preparation.  What are best practices?  How is what’s proven effective making its way into the classroom?  Who is doing it right?  Who is doing it wrong?  What voices will lead the transformation moving forward, and what calls will try to defend a status quo that is clearly broken.
That latter point is one that bears repeating.  There are real problems in the across-the-board quality of teacher preparation in the United States.  Some alternative routes are mom-and-pop shops that do a quick dash and dump into the school districts with nary a concern for the coursework or clinical training necessary to prepare a student for the challenges of leading a classroom.  Some online programs seek to simply offer quick and cheap degrees to meet district staffing needs, with little concern for the quality of the instruction or the real-life preparedness of the students they only meet virtually and through their bank accounts.  Too many traditional teacher ed programs have watered down their programs to serve the lowest common denominator, seeking to simply provide warm bodies to hard-to-staff schools that have lost sight of much the pedagogical training and ongoing support aspiring and new teachers need to adjust to life in a classroom.  And programs on both sides of the fence simply are putting underprepared educators in the most challenging of classrooms, figuring any teacher, no matter how poorly prepared, is better than no teacher at all.
Clearly, the current model is broken, or at least in need of some serious triage.  At the same time, we have a growing body of evidence regarding the instruction, training, support, and ongoing professional development that teacher educators should impart on the next generation of the molders of student minds.
Recently, Mathematica completed an evaluation on alternative teacher pathways for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).  The study found that new teachers from alternative routes were essentially no worse that teachers from traditional routes, at least in those schools they studied (a finding that the alt cert community, and likely IES, was hoping for).  The study itself went over like a lead balloon, with few noticing it or reporting on it.  Rightfully so.  It should not be news that Eduflack has some major issues with the methodology Mathematica used to reach its conclusions and with the narrow eye with which they looked at the results.  
A recent research critique completed by NYU’s Sean Corcoran and Columbia’s Jennifer Jennings pulls back the curtain on all that was wrong with the Mathematica approach, methodology, and interpretation of the results.  Their full tome can be found at EPIC (University of Colorado, Boulder) and EPRU’s (Arizona State University) joint website at: epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-evaluation-of-teachers.  
Corcoran and Jennings’ work echoes similar critiques that have already been posted by a range of folks, including the Center for Teacher Quality’s Barnett Berry on his blog — teachingquality.typepad.com.  
What did they find?
* None of the teacher studied had the teacher prep generally required of new teachers nationally (because Mathematica only looked at a handful of hard-to-staff schools that would gladly take any warm or lukewarm body willing to sit at the big desk.
* There is a clear difference in the impact of a teacher from a high-coursework prep program and a low-coursework prep program.  Even among alt cert providers themselves, the high courseworkers were most able to do the job.
* Teachers coming from low-coursework alternative programs actually decreased study achievement.  Yes, the data showed that kids in the classroom of ill-trained, ill-prepared teachers actually saw their student performance decline, while teachers from traditional routes either held the line or posted some very, very, very modest gains.
So what do we do with all of this information?  How do we use it to build a better teacher education mousetrap?  Some of the answers can be found with Stanford’s Linda Darling-Hammond, who looked at both the Mathematica research and data on effective teacher prep in places like North Carolina and New York City to help identify the necessary qualities of effective teacher training programs.  Her research can be found here: edpolicy.stanford.edu/pages/pubs/pub_docs/mathematica_policy_brief.pdf.  
Darling-Hammond’s work offers the clearest view on how the confluence of research on teacher preparation can be moved into policy that aligns with current federal priorities to more effectively train, support, demand, and reward good teaching in the schools.  It reminds us of the checklist that should go into evaluating teacher prep programs.  Among her toplines:
* Prospective teachers must learn specific practices and apply them in clinical experiences;
* Prospects need sufficient coursework in content areas (such as math and reading) and the methods of teaching them (so both the content and the pedagogy); and
* Teachers-in-training need to be well-aware of the local district curriculum and how their pre-service education prepares them to meet expectations and achieve expected outcomes;
We also know that those prospects most like to succeed in the classroom are certified in the specific areas they teach, have higher-than-average scores on the teacher licensing test, and graduate from a competitive college.
(Full disclosure, Eduflack works with the good folks at EPIC, including on the announcement of the Corcoran/Jennings piece and has counseled Darling-Hammond, off and on, for a decade now.  Yes, fans, you’ve heard that right, this champion of evidence base and the need for reform has worked with LDH since her days as head of NCTAF.  And despite the urban legend, she is far more of the reformer and innovator than most in the field and that virtually anyone gives her credit for, if you can stand my brief editorial.)
None of this is rocket science.  But delivering it seems to be the challenge, particularly in our urban centers where we are hungry for anyone, and I mean just about anyone, to lead a classroom in an underperforming, hard-to-staff classroom.
What do we do with all of this?  First, the Highly Qualified Teacher provisions in NCLB are correct.  Teachers should be trained in the content matter they are to teach and need to be certified in that subject matter.  There is no replacement for several years of rich, content-based coursework in the subject matter itself.  Those advocates for including Effective in the HQT provisions (including Eduflack) are right as well.  We need
to measure a teacher, in part, by how effective they are.  And the straightest path to measuring that effectiveness is student performance (even the Mathematica study tells us that).  And then there is that which we know instinctually — effective teachers require clinical training and time in the classroom before they are tossed in the deep end.  They need mentors and in-school supports that can help them work through the problems and apply their training to real classrooms.  And they need ongoing, content-based, embedded professional development for the rest of their careers, so they are continually improving an constantly adapting to the changing challenges and opportunities of the modern day classroom and student.
It is just pure common sense.  But as we know from far too many life experiences, some folks just don’t have (or use) the common sense they are born with.  Do our ed schools, in the collective sense, need improvement?  You betcha.  Are alternative pathways the solution for struggling schools?  No, there is no data to make that leap.  Do we know what it takes to train an effective teacher?  Of course we do.  Are we applying it universally in our teacher preparation programs, traditional or alternative?  Not even close.
At some point, the war between traditional and alt cert needs to come to an end.  There will always be a need and a demand for niche programs that can fill specific needs in certain schools or communities.  That’s where good alt cert programs can play their part.  But if we are going to truly reform and improve the quality and results of public education in the United States, change, at scale, can only begin with our schools of education.  We need to do this across the board, ensuring that the new teachers going into our urban centers and so-called dropout factories receive the same level of high-quality content and pedagogical learning and training as those entering our well-funded suburban K-12 schools.  Good teacher training is good teacher training.  Period.  We shouldn’t have different levels, particularly when it comes to those poor and minority students with whom we are trying to close the achievement gap.  
“Good enough for …” should never be a phrase uttered when identifying and hiring teachers in hard-to-staff schools.  Every student deserves the best prepared, the best trained, and the best equipped teachers.  The last thing they need is to settle for a teacher deemed “good enough” for their struggling school or declining community.  That sort of bigotry has gotten us into the achievement problems we still can’t pull out of.
    

The Future of Teacher Ed?

Eduflack AYP, early childhood education, higher ed, Teacher Education

What does it take to train a better, more effective teacher?  If you listen to the experts, a great deal.  It requires significant knowledge in the subject matter.  Strong training in effective teaching methods.  Clinical training, including that as student teacher working under a strong, veteran teacher.  Ongoing mentoring and support, both during pre-service training and once one enters the classroom for the first time.  Teaching is not for the timid or the feint of heart.  Success is the classroom requires a great deal of preparation — prep in the content, the pedagogy, the research, and how to use it all effectively.  And then, of course, there is how one successfully relates with and leads the students in the classroom and continuous, content-based professional development.

No one ever said that teaching, or teacher preparation, is easy.  There is a lot involved in effective teacher training.  There should be, when we recognize just how much is at stake.  After all, it is just the future of our nation hanging in the balance.
We also recognize that most school districts get their teachers trained close to home.  They typically come from local, in-state teachers colleges and public universities.  All too frequently, we hear that those drawn into undergraduate education programs are some of our lower-performing students.  And we unfortunately know that those traditional teacher education programs that serve some of our lowest-performing, hard-to-staff schools are among our weakest, requiring less coursework, no clinical training, and lower expectations than those programs that may be serving better-performing school districts in the suburbs?
This is the way it was, and the way it is.  And many figure it is the way it will always be.  That’s what makes the University of the District of Columbia (our nation’s capital’s public IHE) all the more interesting.  In this morning’s Washington Post, UDC announces plans to shutter its undergraduate education program.  Why?  Too low graduation rates.  Too few prospective teachers passing their praxis,  Too little impact.  The full story can be found here — www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/08/AR2009030801641.html?hpid=moreheadlines.  
The statistics at UDC require a close look.  Only 7 to 8 percent of those students enrolled in the program graduate within six years of starting it.  The early childhood education major — with 150 students — yields only four to six graduates a year.  Enrollment is down overall.  Some years, the special education major yields no graduates at all.  
UDC hopes to fix the problem by focusing on graduate education programs, providing current and aspiring teachers master’s and doctoral programs that build on their undergraduate educations.  Current undergraduate advocates blame the problems on a praxis process that tests math proficiency after one’s sophomore year (“we’re not math educators”) and on a culturally biased system that favors white students pursuing public education careers, among other excuses.
But the UDC discussion in WaPo fails to ask a few important questions.  How many UDC graduates are taking teaching jobs in DC Public Schools?  And once those graduates begin teaching careers, how are they doing?  How are their students performing?  How are they leading their classrooms?  Are they moving the needle?  But we know all too well that such results-based questions are frowned on by some in education. 
Unfortunately, the situation at UDC is not an isolated incident.  There are teacher training programs across the nation that are not providing our prospective teachers the knowledgebase and skills they need to succeed.  There are programs, particularly those that serve as pipelines into our inner-city schools, that fail to provide the content knowledge, pedagogy, and clinical training teacher need to succeed.  There are those that mean well, but just are unable to hit the mark when it comes to expectations, needs, and demands of the 21st century classroom.
For quite some time now, Eduflack has believed that the teacher education community is in dire need of a Flexner-style study of our teacher training programs.  For those unaware, back at the start of the 20th century, the Carnegie Foundation launched the Flexner Commission to study the quality and impact of our nation’s medical training programs.  Flexner’s findings were startling — so many of those programs training our future medical doctors were a disaster, with no core curricular tenets and no quality or research behind them.  The findings revolutionized medical education.  A vast majority of medical colleges across the nation had their doors closed for good.  Those that remained bolstered their quality, turning out a better doctor to meet the growing medical needs of our industrialized nation.
Isn’t it time for such an approach in teacher education?  Don’t we need a comprehensive study of our teacher training programs, one that focuses on how we crosswalk the latest in teacher educator research with current curricula, ensure that teacher training programs are empowering our teachers with research-based instructional strategies, require clinical hours, build mentoring and support networks, use data in both instruction and intervention, and ensure graduates align with both the content and skill needs of the communities and states they are serving?  Of course we do.  
There is much debate these days between how alternative teacher training programs stack up to the traditional teaching pathways.  This discussion has picked up steam because of far too many traditional programs that simply are not up to par.  It’s not that traditional teacher ed doesn’t work, its that too many institutions are not providing the strongest program possible.  And important step to remedying this is to improve our schools and departments of education.  By improving quality — both of instruction and student — we improve our schools.  And when we improve our schools, we boost our children’s chance to succeed.
There is no doubt the teacher is the heart and soul of a school.  Getting a good teacher should not be a game of educational roulette, depending on the location of the table and how much money is in your pocket.  We should never have situations like we did a decade ago in Massachusetts, where upwards of half the students graduating from some of the state’s public teachers colleges were failing the praxis after graduating from college.  if a prospective teacher graduates from an accredited institution of higher education, we should have no doubt that they are equipped with the knowledgebase, skills, and ability to succeed in virtually any classroom with virtually any kids.
A sea change is coming in teacher education.  We are investing too much in teacher supports, pipeline creation, instructional development, and effective modeling of best practices necessary to improve teacher practice.  The stakes are just too high for us to fail.  We need to ensure that every product of a traditional teacher education program is equipped to lead the classroom, knows what she is getting into, and has the support and encourage to succeed, particularly in the early years.  A Flexner Commission for Teacher Education may be just what is needed if we are to move from a collection of UDC situations to the establishment of centers of teacher training excellence throughout the nation.
    

“Happy Birthday to Eduflack!”

Eduflack national standards, SBRR, STEM, Teacher Education

It is hard to believe, but Eduflack is now two years old.  When I started this little endeavor, I never quite expected it to last this long (or to have the readership base that it has today).  Honestly, this was started as a cathartic exercise, an opportunity for me to think through a range of education improvement issues and get a better look at what is working and what is not.

From the beginning, I had sought to frame education through a communications lens, looking at how effective (or ineffective) we are in talking about school improvements and reforms.  The words we choose.  The rhetoric we use.  The channels we speak through.  The audiences we identify and reach.  The measurements by which we dub reform, and the communication of it, successful.
Along the way, we’ve taken many twists and turns.  The most significant is I seem to talk just as much about pure education policy as I do about its communication.  That is to be expected.  Eduflack is not your garden-variety flack.  In my professional life, I actually spend the majority of my time working on leading education policy issues, including reading instruction, high school improvement, STEM education, early childhood education, ELL, and other such topics.  My company, Exemplar Strategic Communications (www.exemplarpr.com) is more of a policy and strategy shop than a communications shop.  I spend a great deal of time with research and data, trying to figure out what the numbers tell us about what works and what doesn’t.  And I tend to focus on overall strategy, looking at how a new idea, a new organization, or a particular intervention fits into the overall education framework and how to best position that idea for maximum receptivity and impact.  So it is only natural that my personal writings would be an offshoot of the deep policy discussions I am engaging in on a daily basis.
Since its launch in March 2007, Eduflack has posted 370 entries.  That’s more than three a week.  I recognize that this is not your typical blog.  Loyal readers know I tend to write really long (most posts are at least 1,000 words).  I don’t do drive-by postings or throw up the latest gossip of the day.  I try to ground each post in recent news coverage or data release.  And there are a few topics (reading, STEM, and national standards) that I just can’t let go of, like a dog with well-chewed bone.  That’s just who I am, and that’s not going to change.
What will year three look like?  More of the same, I’m afraid.  I still refuse to admit that reading instruction is not a national priority, and I will continue to use Eduflack to advocate for evidence-based reading instruction and to spotlight those states and districts that are doing it right, those SEAs and LEAs that provide a real blueprint for how to build a better federal reading program.  I will continue to focus on STEM education, knowing it is the clearest path to linking education and the economy and ensuring that the United States has the strongest, best skilled pool of 21st century workers.  I will continue to press for national standards, believing they are a necessary pathway to real school improvement.
And in the coming year, we’ll see a few additional priorities.  I want to write more about ELL and ESL issues, particularly as states grapple with how to get our Spanish-speaking populations up to par academically.  I will spend more time on the general issue of teaching and teacher development, with a focus on the sorts of content-based, job-embedded PD we know teachers need to do their jobs well.  We’ll talk more about data-based decisionmaking, from the top all the way down to the classroom.  And issues like early childhood education and charters will be more prominent in these entries as we see the impact they have on really improving our K-12 offerings.
Of course, the self-indulgent posts updating the developmental progress of my son, Miggy, and my daughter, Anna, will continue as proudly as ever before.
I just wanted to take a moment to that everyone for their support of Eduflack, their comments, their guidance, and their interest.  I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to hear that people read this blog, share its content, and appreciate its insights.  I am particularly grateful for those who continue to send me research, positive stories, and “ideas” for posts.  Those are incredibly helpful to me and give me great optimism when it comes to the future of education improvement.  So please keep those ideas and suggestions flowing.  Just send them to eduflack@eduflack.com.  And I’m always up to an off-line dialogue or debate, if that’s what you are seeking.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.  It’s been a terrific two years for Eduflack, and I look forward to many more.  At this point, this blog is my middle child.  It requires constant care and attention.  And I’m proud of all of those who have and will contribute to its development.

A “Develop”ing Interest in Teachers

Eduflack Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, AYP, ELL, NCLB, PD, Teacher Education

“We must do more with the talent we have,” said NSDC Executive Director Stephanie Hirsh.  “Nothing is more important than teacher quality,” EdSec Arne Duncan said.  “We must close the yawning achieving gap in this country,” said Stanford Professor Linda Darling-Hammond.  With the statements of all three, we were off to the races on the issue of teacher quality and professional development this morning.

The setting was a briefing hosted by the National Staff Development Council, unveiling their most recent research (led by Darling-Hammond and her School Redesign Network) on the state of teacher development.  The takeaway was simple.  The current state of teacher professional development is severely lacking, particularly as federal and state requirements and expectations continue to grow.  Earth-shattering, no.  But the findings serve as a strong insight into what may be coming down the pike.
If anything, the past era in federal education policy has been one about research.  The need for data.  The definition of good data (and of bad).  And the most stringent of means by which to go about collecting it.  The new era seems to be one of successfully applying that research so it gets to the rank-and-file policymaker and practitioner.  What do we do with data once we have it?  How do we use it to effectively close the achievement gap?  How do we use it to improve student and teacher performance?  How do we use it to grow, to improve, and to generally do better?
Yes, the research data was mostly qualitative.  Yes, we still have a lot of unanswered questions about the correlations between strong teacher PD and student achievement.  But NSDC provided some interesting points to get this new discussion on teacher development started, and they were points heard by the EdSec, by CCSSO chief Gene Wilhoit, and by the many who are looking for details into how to train, retain, and support good teachers in every classroom.
The full report can be found at www.nsdc.org/stateproflearning.cfm.  The highlights, at least according to Eduflack, include:
* “Drive-by” or “dump-and-run” professional development doesn’t cut it, at least not in this time of accountability.  Meaningful PD must be ongoing, content-based, and embedded as part of the learning day.
* According to the data we do have, the right PD can improve student achievement.  
* That said, we need to improve the linkages between teaching and student learning.
* We need experimental research into teacher professional development, particularly in subjects other than math and science.
* Our students are slipping in international measures, in part, because of our professional development opportunities.  Our competitors — particularly those in Southeast Asia — are just investing more time, effort, money, and thought into high-quality PD that has a direct impact on student learning and performance.  They are taking advantage of our water-treading for the past decade.
* We need to increase both the quantity and the quality of PD offered to teachers, particularly those who are entering the profession.
* At the end of the day, improved professional development (particularly in-service) is key to achieving our educational goals.
Information is nice, using it effectively is even better.  As CCSSO’s Wilhoit pointed out, the challenge we face is how do we move from good ideas to better practice?  Particularly as it relates to state policy, how do we take these data points and build a better teacher development and support network, a network offering the ongoing PD, measuring its effectiveness, and ensuring that all teachers are getting the support and professional learning opportunities they need to do their jobs well?
Some good ideas were offered by the experts this morning, including:
* We need to create levers and investments in Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education act to support the features of effective professional development
* We need to invest in rigorous studies of professional learning in relation to student achievement.
* We need to participate in OECD studies of teaching, teacher development, and student learning.
As always, Eduflack has a few other ideas to add to the mix:
* When it comes to PD, all means all.  All teachers (and principals for that matter) need ongoing, content-based, job-embedded professional learning opportunities.  No exceptions.
* We need to align learning goals (as measured by state assessments) with teaching goals.  Every teacher should not only know what is expected of their classes on the state tests, but they should be given the tools and training to deliver.
* Every teacher in the United States should receive specific, content-based PD in reading instruction.  Reading is an issue that affects every teacher, whether you are ELA, math, social studies, or science.  With more than a third of fourth graders still reading below grade level, every teacher needs the knowledgebase to provide the interventions needed to get students reading and engage them in the written word outside of English class.
* We need to incentivize best teaching, through general performance pay provisions and federal efforts such as the Teacher Incentive Fund.  As part of such efforts, we need to document, share, and learn from best practice.  Those schools that are exceeding AYP expectations (particularly those rewarded for it) should be mentoring those schools that are struggling at it.  Such a learning loop should be required as part of any incentive program.
*  And while we are collaborating, we need to use what we know about social networking and online communities to build virtual networks for teachers to share and learn.  How do rural teachers gain best practices from other rural teachers?  What can urban teachers in Detroit learn from their brethren in Atlanta or Los Angeles?  How do we capture best practices so that we can literally see it (via video) happen in classes like ours with kids like ours?  As the teaching profession grows younger and more technologically savvy, such online communities are going to be core to professional learning and development.  Such social networking is the only way we can deliver high-quality, impactful PD at scale to all teachers, urban, suburban, and rural (particularly with our incoming federal investment in school technology).
* We need to focus high-quality PD on those who need it most, particularly schools in urban areas and teachers of ELLs and special education students.  They are the teachers who have fallen through the cracks the most severely, and they are the ones who can most benefit from it today.
* Such PD activities are a shared responsibility.  The feds set the priorities and lay out some of the funding to make it happen.  The states take those priorities and develop specific programs that align with federal expectations yet specifically meet state standards.  Then the districts become the implementers supreme, delivering the right programs to the all teachers, while feeding content and outcomes back to other districts, the state, and the feds to create an ongoing feedback and improvement loop for PD.
No, this isn’t rocket science.  We all know that a well-trained, well-supported, empowered teacher will be more effective than a have not.  We know that ongoing, content-based PD can have a direct impact on teacher quality and student achievement.  We know teaching can’t improve through a drive-by workshop at the start of the school year or a half-day seminar offered twice a year following a half day of teaching.  We know we can do it, we know some are doing it, we just need to figure out how to package it and deliver it to all.  
When it comes to PD, so much time is focused on the pre-service side of the coin, ensuring that every teacher entering the classroom is highly qualified and certified to teach the subject matter.  Two important traits, yes.  But the hard word begins after the certificate is awarded and the classrooms are assigned.  NCLB talked about and offered funding for PD (heck, up to 25% of the billions spent on Reading First was intended for content-based professional development), but little was done to ensure the funds were spent right, the programs delivered correctly, and the outcomes documented effectively.  High marks for intent, low marks for follow through.
EdSec Duncan, along with his colleagues on Maryland Avenue and the crew down on Pennsylvania Avenue, has made it crystal clear that teachers are the gateway to school improvement (and to our general economic and social strength).  “We must dramatically increase our investment in teachers, and do it systemically,” Duncan said today.  Amen.  We also must make sure that investment is delivering real return on investment.  That means doing the scientific research to demonstrate the real linkages between PD and student achievement.  That means content-based PD that is delivered in the appropriate context to meet the needs of today’s teachers.  And that means empowering teachers so they are leading in their classroom.
A new era is here indeed.  We just need to ensure we maximize the opportunities, transform good ideas into great policies, and ensure we are having a real, measurable impact.
   

Become a Teacher in Six Easy Lessons?

Eduflack AFT, NEA, Teacher Education

Most of us don’t bother to read the countless spam emails that enter our inboxes.  We view them like we do commercials, hoping to avoid as many as possible on our way to the content we want.  Not Eduflack.  I like commercials because they provide me insight into what key audiences and the public at large are thinking.  And I will check out some of the bulk emails I receive (I’m not foolish enough to click on any of the links, but I’ll look at the email content) to get a sense for where the industry, particularly the education industry, thinks money can be made.

My attention was really captured this weekend by an email with a compelling subject line — “Want More Vacation Days?  Become a School Teacher.”  The subject matter was what you would expect, a company called Eclipse Media Online looking to hook me up with the ideal online degree program to get me in the classroom quickly and racking up those vacation days.  I was promised I could “Get [my] Teaching Degree Online!  In My Spare Time From Home!”
Such claims are nothing new.  We’ve heard them from online institutions and diploma mills on daytime and overnight television for decades now.  What was so disturbing, though, was how the job of K-12 classroom teacher in 2009 was described.  A summary can’t do it justice.  Let me give you the full text:

Teachers play an important role in fostering the intellectual and social development of children during their formative years. The education that teachers impart plays a key role in determining the future prospects of their students. Whether in preschools or high schools or in private or public schools, teachers provide the tools and the environment for their students to develop into responsible adults.

Teachers act as facilitators or coaches, using classroom presentations or individual instruction to help students learn and apply concepts in subjects such as science, mathematics, or English. They plan, evaluate, and assign lessons; prepare, administer, and grade tests; listen to oral presentations; and maintain classroom discipline. Teachers observe and evaluate a student’s performance and potential and increasingly are asked to use new assessment methods. For example, teachers may examine a portfolio of a student’s artwork or writing in order to judge the student’s overall progress. They then can provide additional assistance in areas in which a student needs help. Teachers also grade papers, prepare report cards, and meet with parents and school staff to discuss a student’s academic progress or personal problems.

Many teachers use a “hands-on” approach that uses “props” or “manipulatives”to help children understand abstract concepts, solve problems, and develop critical thought processes. For example, they teach the concepts of numbers or of addition and subtraction by playing board games. As the children get older, teachers use more sophisticated materials, such as science apparatus, cameras, or computers. They also encourage collaboration in solving problems by having students work in groups to discuss and solve problems together. To be prepared for success later in life, students must be able to interact with others, adapt to new technology, and think through problems logically.

Honestly, I don’t know what part of this email I should find most offensive.  Teaching as a gateway to increased vacation days?  Teaching responsibilities defined as playing board games and reviewing artwork portfolios?  Instructional materials described as “props” or “manipulatives,” like teaching is no different than selling a time share to young people?  Or the fact that some people are going to get this email, click through, write their tuition checks, and believe they are on the path to becoming high-paid, highly vacationed, effective teachers, all from the privacy of their bedrooms and the comfort of their well-worn bunny slippers.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  There is are few jobs as difficult as teaching, particularly in today’s high-stakes, high-expectation, high-criticism environment.  As the son of two educators (my mother a retired high school English teacher, my father a political scientist by trade and college president by path), I like to believe there is a little more to the profession than these sorts of emails put forward.  I see nothing about the countless hours my mother put in at night, on weekends, and during the summer grading, preparing, and planning.  I see nothing about the supplies she purchased or the emotional, intellectual, and sometimes financial support she provided her students.  I see nothing about breaking up fights or having to deal with parents who couldn’t accept that their kids simply failed to do the work.  I see nothing about the constantly changing PD expectations, the certification procedures, and the graduate degree requirements.  I see nothing about the notion that you are expected to work for 200 straight days, with no vacation or sick time intended to be taken during the school year.  And I see nothing about the second jobs and seasonal employment so many of my mother’s colleagues had to take to pay the bills or to actually use a few of those well-earned vacation days.
I know, I know, I shouldn’t get so worked up about a spam email that was never really intended for me in the first place.  But I know that teachers — and their training, recruitment, and retention — is a major issue for states and school districts today, and is going to be a major policy concern for the federal government and the U.S. Department of Education in the coming years.  Having worked for an online college of education, I know it isn’t as simple as the marketing campaign makes it seem (no matter what those institutions on the other end of the email want to believe).  And I know if we are really going to focus on student achievement and school improvement, it is all about putting good, well-trained effective educators in front of a classroom, and not merely a warm body who responded to an email campaign at the right time.
Teaching is hard.  Effective teaching is both an art and a science.  It requires the right person, the right motivation, the right training, and the right ongoing development and support.  The AFT and NEA have invested a great deal of intellectual and financial capital into promoting teacher professionalism, the nobility of the profession, the real challenges of good teaching, and the believe that not everyone is cut out to lead a classroom.  If we have individuals choosing teaching as a profession to increase their vacation time, we have far more important issues in public education that we recognize.  What’s truly scary is that folks are getting rich marketing “teaching” as a career path anyone with a computer and an interest in board games can and should pursue.  

Reform Vs. Improvement, 2009 Edition

Eduflack AFT, charter schools, Green Dot, HQT, Obama, PD, Teacher Education

For the past few weeks, the crystal ball gazers waiting to see who is tapped for EdSec have been all a twitter about how the choice will serve as the white smoke as to whether the Obama Administration is the status quo or a reformer when it comes to education.  Will reformers (whether they be Democrats for Education Reform or advocates for new ideas such as Teach for America or New Leaders for New Schools) be given the keys to Maryland Avenue?  Or will the old guard (be it the teachers unions or old-school researchers and academics) be given the power to lead?

It is no secret that Eduflack is no fan of the status quo.  Those that are unable or unwilling to change bear ultimate responsibility for 40 percent of today’s fourth graders being unable to read at grade level, they bear responsibility for two thirds of today’s ninth graders failing to earn a college degree.  And they bear responsibility for too few effective teachers in far too many classrooms, particularly the urban and low-income classrooms that needs good teachers the most.
In recent years, though, we have used the term reform as a form a shorthand to describe a few key issues.  Reform is charter schools.  Reform is vouchers.  Reform is school choice.  Reform is alternative certification.  In essence, reform is a particular education intervention, designed to improve access, opportunity, reach, and quality of public education.  Reforms are important, yes.  And I haven’t been shy to advocate for key reforms, particularly charter schools, virtual education, and the like.  But at the end of the day, reform is but a process.  It is an input.  Important, yes, but not as important as the ultimate output.
Instead of talking about reforms and inputs, shouldn’t our focus be on improvement?  Shouldn’t the discussion about the next EdSec and the next list of marching orders for ED be a debate between the status quo and real school improvement?  Shouldn’t it be about whether we continue down to same path, or whether we identify and pursue a better path?
I realize this may be a matter of semantics, and that many of those who talk about education reform are meaning to talk about school improvement.  But from the discussions over the past few years, it is high time for us to drop the term “reform” from our educational vocabularies.  It is overused and has lost most meaning.  (That’s why many have already shifted from reform to innovation.)  We should be talking about improvements — improvements for the schools, improvements for the teachers, and improvements for the students.  Reform gives the impression we are acting for acting’s sake.  Improvement is about results and ROI.
So what does this all mean?  First and foremost, I would say we don’t need any additional reforms, we need real improvements.  When we look at the policy positions of the President-elect and the rhetoric coming out of the Senate HELP Committee Chairman’s office, we know that such improvement starts with the teacher.  We know that the best instructional ideas fall flat without an effective educator leading the classroom.  We have clear and uncontroverted evidence of what good teaching is and of effective pre-service and in-service teacher education.  You invest in the teacher — providing them the training, instructional materials and ongoing supports they need to do their job effectively — you see the results in terms of student achievement.
When we talk about current reform efforts — be it TFA, NLNS, KIPP, Green Dot, or others — they all hold similar characteristics.  They all start with the importance of caring educators and quality teaching.  They pledge a commitment to ongoing, job-embedded PD opportunities.  They provide educators the materials and technology they need to do the job.  They empower educators by giving them data and teaching them how to effectively use data to deliver needed interventions for kids.  And they are focused on more than just education reform, they are all committed to improvement, as measured by student achievement and school success.
A recent New Yorker article highlighted the research of Stanford/Hoover researcher Rick Hanushek on effective teaching.  The data is simple, yet illuminating.  Quality teaching trumps all.  Kids have a better chance of success with great teachers in lousy schools than they do with mediocre or bad teachers in great schools.  (Sorry for oversimplifying your research, Rick, but that’s this layman’s interpretation.)
From his work at Hoover and Koret, and his training as an economist, Hanushek is seen as a leading researcher for the “reform” side of the education debate.  But how different is his bottom line of the importance of high-quality, effective teachers than the decades of work developed by fellow Stanford-ite Linda Darling-Hammond?  They may come at it from different angles, they may define effective teaching differently, but they both recognize that school improvement begins and ends with highly qualified, effective, supported teachers.
Our schools need improvement, and improvement begins with the teacher.  The status quoers are those who say that today’s teachers are better than any generation of teachers before them.  The status quoers are those who say that schools of education and in-service PD is the best it can be.  The status quoers are those who say the current outputs of our K-12 teachers (whether it be measured by “high-stakes tests or other quantitative or qualitative measures) are sufficient, and don’t require improvement.  The status quoers are those who don’t see the need for President-elect Obama’s call for major investment in the recruitment, retention, and support of the 21st century teacher.
Yes, there are ideological differences on how we can build and support a better teacher, including the pedagogical needs of new and veteran teachers, the ongoing, embedded PD teachers needs throughout the year, and the better understanding and implementation of data in the classroom.   But improving teaching is improving education.  Clear and simple.
We should be talking about how we are going to improve teaching and improve education, not whether we will or not.  Perhaps the selection of an EdSec redirects the debate for the positive.  Regardless, we need to be focusing on improvements, and not on personalities and personal agendas.  Has it really been almost two years since the NCLB Commission called for a greater focus on “effective” teachers?  Has it really been a year since a bi-partisan group of U.S. Senators called for adding “effective” to the HQT provisions?  How much longer does it have to be before we really invest in quality, effective teaching, aligning federal policy and Title II with outcomes and ROI?  That should be the reformers’ dream come true.
    

Improving Schools By Improving Leadership

Eduflack HQT, PD, Teacher Education

Amid all of the Washington talk on who is going to move into what ED job and whether the reformers or the status quoers were going to be in a position of authority over on Maryland Avenue (I’m assuming the little red school houses will come down, regardless), there are actually some discussions of substance and purpose.  Case in point — the Education Trust conference happening this week across the river from our nation’s capital.

One of the more interesting strands of discussion was that of educational leadership.  More importantly, it was about leadership at the school and the district level.  At a session sponsored by the Wallace Foundation and facilitated by Wallace President Christine DeVita, nearly 1,000 activists and practitioners from around the country heard about the need for leadership development in our principal ranks and a glimpse at what has been working to transform the principal from building manager to instructional leader.
Coming off a Wallace Foundation study on the subject, Stanford University Professor Linda Darling-Hammond offered some of the more interesting tidbits of the afternoon.  Why are current school leadership programs failing?  Because they focus on the wrong things.  According to Darling-Hammond, too many educational leadership programs take whoever wants to enroll (versus identifying and recruiting future leaders), offer courses focused on school administration (teaching only about schools as they are, instead of schools as they could be), and prepare future leaders for generic schools (instead of prepping them for the real challenges of both urban and poor rural schools in need of real leadership).  
What should these programs be doing?  First, they need to recognize they are educating the next generation of teachers and leaders.  Second, the need to focus on core issues such as instructional leadership, organizational development, and change processes.  They need to position their lessons around real school reforms in real districts.  And they need to focus the next generation of leaders to commit to moving schools to the next level.  
For Darling-Hammond, that means principals and school leaders developing instruction, and not just administering it.  It means holding all kids to high standards.  It means helping teachers develop the skills needed to achieve school goals.  It means recognizing we have to change, and knowing the constituencies we need to work with (and how to work with them) to get that change to happen.
When we talk about professional development, we usually think of it in terms of the classroom teacher.  Few really focus on PD for the leadership.  We assume that you give a teacher a graduate degree, offer five or seven years of instructional PD as part of the in-service program, and BOOM, they are qualified to lead the building as a principal.  We assume that good teachers make good principals.  We assume great teachers can make great principals.  And in doing so, we often pull the best teachers out of the classroom.
From today’s Ed Trust presentations to research study after research study to missives such as NAESP’s Leading Learning Communities, we know that good principals are those that are both effective building managers and strong instructional leaders.  Those skills comes from a focused and sustained effort in leadership development.  It comes from recognizing that we need to change principal training to to reflect the changing challenges of the job.
What does all this mean?  First and foremost, we need to think of the job of school principal differently.  Second, we need to better understand the connections between school leadership and student achievement.  And third, PD is for all those in the education continuum, not just for those newbie teachers in search of a better understanding of pedagogy.
Leave it to Ed Trust to open up conversations that too few are engaging in.  Maybe as a new Congress and a new Administration begin to look at the issue of PD under Title II, they will look at it for the teacher, the principal, and the superintendent.  Now if only we could find a way to offer educational PD for the parent, then we’d have the perfect storm for school improvement.

Re-Prioritizing the U.S. Department of Education

Eduflack charter schools, early childhood education, ELL, High School, IES, Math, national standards, Obama, Online Education, STEM, Teacher Education

As President-Elect Obama and his Administration-in-waiting begin working through the transition, they have a terrific opportunity to shape the direction of future policy and future successes.  With each new administration, particularly with a change in party leadership, there is the opportunity to reorganize Cabinet departments, the chance to emphasize new priorities and to turn back the efforts of previous administrations.  While Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution cautions against overhauls and reorganizations at the start of an Administration, now is definitely the time to look at a new organization for the U.S. Department of Education.

In the coming weeks, the Obama transition team will begin reading through the ED transition notebooks, interview staff (particularly the career staff), and quickly making staffing decisions, from EdSec down to a slew of congressionally-approved assistant secretaries.  This is a lot of work, and it will be happening simultaneously in all agencies.  But the amount of work should not keep us from thinking about education — and education improvement — a little differently.
For the most part, the Bush Administration took on the structure that Clinton EdSec Richard Riley left behind.  But if recent years and new thinking are any indication, an Obama Administration may need a very different framework to focus on the issues emphasized on the stump, in policy platforms, and by its strongest advocates.
So how do we do it?  Never shy about such things, Eduflack has a few ideas for the new Obama Administration:
The New Approaches
* Office of Early Childhood Education — Obama has really driven home the importance of early childhood education and its ability to prepare all students — particularly those from at risk families — for the instructional, social, and emotional challenges of elementary school.  The creation of this office systematizes that commitment.  And if you really want to be bold, move Head Start over from HHS and put it under ED, and this new office’s, purview.  While early childhood has long been the official territory of HHS, ED has always had a chip in the game, and Obama’s priorities could settle the issue once and for all whether early childhood ed is just Head Start or a broader academic preparedness scope.
* Office of Elementary Education — For quite some time, we have had an Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.  It is time to separate the two.  The Office of Elementary Education would focus on the foundations of education success, particularly reading and math.  With a K-8 focus, this office would emphasize the early building blocks of successful learning (reflecting much of the research we now know), while providing some new-found emphasis on the middle grades.  We at least need someone who will continue to promote the National Math Panel findings, particularly if we expect STEM to drive secondary ed policy.
* Office of Secondary Education and 21st Century Skills — Nationally, we have made a major investment in improving high schools, making them more rigorous, and providing all students the pathways to educational and life successes.  This office would focus on high school improvement, early colleges, and the transition from secondary to postsecondary.  Bolder still would be a deputy assistant secretary for STEM education, to ensure science-tech-engineering-math instruction is embedded in all our secondary school improvements.
* Office of Teacher Advancement — Obama has made a major commitment to recruiting, retaining, and rewarding teachers.  We should focus an office on the teacher, including teacher training and pre-service education, in-service professional development, teacher incentives, alternative routes for teachers, and overall educator quality.
* Office of Assessment and Accountability — Yes, I know we have an Institute of Education Sciences.  We’ll address that later.  ED needs an office that works directly with SEAs and LEAs on assessment issues, how we measure student achievement, how we address the issue of multiple measures, and how we ensure our schools and our government are accountable and focusing on the instruction and the supports that make a true difference.  And I wouldn’t mind if this office took a close look at the notion of national education standards.
* Office of School Options — During Obama’s time in Chicago, he was involved in the charter school movement.  He has also acknowledged charters as a piece of the education improvement puzzle.  This office would seek to de-politicize the issue, focusing on effective infrastructure, supports, and accountability in school options, particularly charter schools and virtual schools.  Within this office, ED should also include after-school, or out-of-school-time, programs, as such OST efforts are now a bastion for academic supports, social supports, the arts and other opportunities designed to fill the current learning gaps.
* Office of Family and Community Engagement — As I detailed in my open letter to the President-Elect earlier this week, there is a need and a hunger for an office focused on better involving parents and families in the education improvement process.  We need to better inform families, better encourage families to pursue options, and better prepare families to be a part of the solution. (http://blog.eduflack.com/2008/11/05/an-open-letter-to-presidentelect-barack-obama.aspx)
* Office of Educational Entrepreneurship and Innovation — I’ll admit it, I’ll buy into Andy Rotherham’s vision for converting OII into an incubator for new ideas and new opportunities.  Call it entrepreneurship, call it venture capitalism, even call it pubic/private partnerships if it feels easier, but it is a needed component to education improvement in the 21st century.
Not all of these may be (or should be) assistant secretary-level offices, but they should merit consideration somewhere in the grid.
The Conversions  
In addition to these new approaches, there are also a number of current offices that could use some assistance and  fresh outlook on the education landscape:
* Office of Communication and Outreach — This is obviously an office near and dear to Eduflack’s heart.  For too long, OCO has been viewed as a reactive office, one that regularly issues press releases, fields FOIA requests, and decides which media calls will be returned by whom.  Moving forward, the office needs to jump on the latter part of its name, and transform into an office of public engagement.  Utilize the vast social network built by the Obama campaign.  Broaden the reach to stakeholders.  Be proactive in pushing policy issues and promoting successes.  Set the terms and drive the story.  Doesn’t get more simple than that.
* Institute of Education Sciences — IES was created to be our nation’s home for education R&D.  Unfortunately,
there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done to meet that goal.  IES needs to broaden its mission beyond the WWC and become a true clearinghouse for quality research and a Good Housekeeping seal of approval for what works.  More importantly, it needs to expand the dialogue beyond the researchers and effectively communicate the education sciences to practitioners, advocates, and others in the field.
* Office of English Language Acquisition — OELA, and its previous personalities, has almost been a red-headed stepchild in ED for quite some time.  But as our nation’s demographics continue to shift, ELL and ESL issues become more and more important to closing the achievement gap and providing opportunity to all students.  Focusing on inclusiveness, partnership development, stakeholder engagement, and integration with other offices (particularly elementary ed), OELA can be the lever for improvement many want it to be.
* Office of Federal Student Aid — I’ll admit, I am a little out of my element here.  But with the economic issues we are facing as a nation, ED is going to have to spend more time and intellectual capital on helping students and their families better understand the funding options for postsecondary education.  Simplifying the FASA, ensuring students understand accreditation, articulation of credits between institutions (and between high schools and colleges), and other issues that factor into our ability to pay for college.
I can go on, but I will leave it at that.  Obviously, many core offices will likely remain in place — General Counsel, Inspector General, Civil Rights, Leg Affairs, etc.  Some will say the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development — could be folded into the core responsibilities of a top three ED official.  And offices like Vocational and Adult Education may be past rescuing and just need to be left alone.  Regardless, there are clearly a lot of options for those thinking the big thoughts in the transition.
Yes, the Obama campaign was based on hope and change.  When it comes to the U.S. Department of Education, it may also be a time for similar hope and change.  Clearly, our educational priorities and needs have shifted over the last decade, as we focus on teacher development, 21st century skills, STEM, and the P-20 education continuum.  A new approach, with new foci, serves as a strong rhetorical tool to make clear what the Obama Administration will hold dear.  And such rhetoric is all the more important when current economic concerns make it difficult to fund new policy ideas straight out of the gate.