Woodrow Wilson

Communicating in the Garden State

Eduflack PR, Woodrow Wilson

It has been a few weeks, and I’ve thus been negligent in sending major thanks to the good folks over at the Public Relations Society of America – New Jersey. Earlier this month, PRSA-NJ named me its communicator of the year. 

It is great to be back home in New Jersey, making a real difference to improve educational opportunities. It is great to be recognized for all of the terrific communications work we are now doing at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. And it is even greater to be recognized by my peers at PRSA-NJ for this work. 

Thanks to all who made it possible. I have a lot to live up to, but I look forward to the opportunity. 

  

Good Teaching Trumps All

Eduflack Achievement gap, Teacher Education, teachers, turnaround, Woodrow Wilson

It is impossible to seriously improve student achievement without focusing on how we prepare teachers for the classroom. Over at the American Youth Policy a Forum blog, I recently talked to AYPF about the new for effective teacher prep and the impact it can have on student achievement, particularly in high-need schools. 

“If you have a good teacher in charge of a classroom to do what is necessary to educate the kids, the kids learn. There’s no getting around that,” said Riccards. “As policies change, as instructional approaches change, we know that good teaching trumps all.”

Give it a read. You won’t be disappointed. 

“Broad”-ening Ed Leadership Opportunities

Eduflack higher ed, reform, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

As Eduflack has written previously, some research shows that a good school principal can account for 25 percent of a school’s total impact on student achievement. In the education space, we talk a great deal about the importance of having top-notch principals and superintendents and central office personnel in place, but we do so with the same, sometimes lame ed leadership programs serving as their training grounds.

We know that many of these ed leadership graduate degree programs aren’t of the highest quality. We know that many enroll in them just to move up the salary scale and get a bump in pay. And we know that few of these programs are providing aspiring leaders with the skills, knowledge, and support they need to be both the managers and instructional leaders we seek and that so many of our kids need.

It’s one of the reasons I get so excited about the work I’m involved with at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, where we are now working in three states, and with many more universities, to provide aspiring school and district leaders with a high-impact MBA program for education leaders. I know our model works because I witness the impact. I can see how an MBA path steeped in a strong academic program, an equally robust clinical experience, and multi-year mentoring can transform a great teacher into a tremendous ed leader.

And I get equally excited when I see announcements like I did this week from the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems. For those following from home, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges’ Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities granted Initial Accreditation to the Broad Center.

This is an important announcement because it demonstrates there is more than one path toward being an effective school leader. Through its Broad Residency in Urban Education, the Broad Center provides a two-year management development program for career-switchers looking to move into top levels of K-12 urban public education systems. They come out of the Broad program with a master’s of education in educational leadership, and now, thanks to WASC, they graduate with an accredited degree, ready to take on the world and help run an urban school system.

Yes, some of the haters will continue to crow about Broad and ask how this could happen. But let’s remember, WASC isn’t a “reform organization.” It is the quasi-governmental body that oversees higher education institution in California, Hawaii, Guam, and the Pacific Basin. It is the West Coast equivalent of NEASC, which oversees the likes of Harvard and MIT. in the Northeast. It is a long-standing, established institution embedded into the very fabric of American higher education.

In granting the Broad Center this important approval, the WASC Educational Effectiveness Review Team, according to Broad, commended The Broad Residency for “a very rich data-driven program of unusual depth,” “reflecting a pervasive spirit of inquiry and a commitment to continuous improvement” and for being “painstaking and comprehensive in its assessment of its programs, residents’ learning and satisfaction during the residency period, and through the residents’ career preparation.”

I get that accreditation decisions rarely grab the headlines and public attention. But let’s not overlook the significance of Broad joining the WASC accreditation club. It is a strong acknowledgement that there are different ways to effectively prepare school leaders, and it is an even stronger nod to the need for new, innovative approaches to educational leadership preparation.

No, this isn’t your grandpa’s ed leader prep program, and that’s a good thing. As our needs continue to change, as our demands continue to grow, and as our hunger for accountability and quality continues to expand, we need better prep mousetraps that truly develop a cadre of diverse, effective ed leaders. This is another step toward that.

STEM Priorities, STEM Teacher Ed Investments

Eduflack STEM, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson, Workforce

Earlier this week, President Obama celebrated the White House Science Fair. As part of an event celebrating all things science, he recognized recent investments in his administration’s STEM initiative, talking about jobs and the impact on the economy.

In its coverage, Tech News World went a little deeper than most, exploring recent STEM progress and where it is headed. In his story, Jack Germain endulged Eduflack, as I pushed a topic near and dear — STEM teacher education.

There is no question that STEM is important to our economic and societal success. But STEM success doesn’t come without a real investment in STEM education. And high-quality STEM education only comes when we have truly excellent STEM teachers leading our classrooms, particularly those classes in high-need schools.

As Germain wrote:

 The United States has experienced a shift from a national analog industrial economy to a global digital information economy.

U.S. social institutions — including education, finance, government, media and health — were created for the former, observed Patrick R. Riccards, director of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. That’s a problem, because Americans live in the latter, in a society that demands we transition from the models of the past to those needed today.

“This is particularly true in education,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“As a sector, we have been reluctant to embrace change, whether in the form of research findings, shifting demographics, technological advances, or similar triggers that demand change in other fields. Even as our methods of old work less and less well than they did previously, we have too often resisted the necessary transitions,” Riccards explained.

“Slowly, though, we are seeing a transformation in public education. This has been particularly true in the ways we prepare children with the science, technology, engineering, and math skills they will need to be college and career ready,” he pointed out.

If we truly see STEM as our future, the focus must be on developing a generation of excellent STEM educators for our schools — particularly our high-need schools, Riccards urged.

All the love in the world for STEM is meaningless, he said, if schools are staffed by ineffective teachers who are not truly versed in the STEM disciplines.

Couldn’t have said it better. The full article is definitely worth a read.

It’s All About the States, Bout the States, No Federal

Eduflack reform, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

For years now, Eduflack has written about the balance of edu-power between the Federal government and the states. While major statement pieces like NCLB or Race to the Top signal the Feds in the driver’s seat, the real action (or inaction) on school improvement continues to happen at the state level.

And as Congress continues to show less and less interest in funding those big signature pieces, that power will likely continue to shift to the states, with governors and state legislatures determining what is best for their states and their students. The Feds provide the guidance and broad strokes, but it falls to states and locals to decide what to do, how to do it, and ultimately how to determine if it works.

Over at The Hill, my colleague Arthur Levine (former president of Teachers College, Columbia University) has a commentary on this specific topic. In his piece, Levine focuses on how states can and should be beacons for innovation and school improvement. And he looks at places like Tennessee, as well as states like Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio (all states that have adopted the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship program) as examples of the power of state transformation in education.

As Levine writes:

States are already doing much to strengthen education. Simply put, they need the encouragement, policy framework, and flexibility to explore new avenues that will work best for their schools, their students, and their communities.

As the 114th Congress looks to chart the course for the next phase of our shared educational journey, policymakers in Washington must give states the tools they need and the right incentives to help them think outside the box, and then hold them accountable for results.

Give it a read. With a new Congress coming to Washington, and new leadership more in tune with the power of states than the growing power of the Feds, it could be a glimpse into the edu-future.

Teaching the Teachers: Improving Ed Schools

Eduflack Media, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

In recent weeks, the topic of teacher education has been picking up steam. After spending years (or decades) focused on how to improve student achievement, many are now starting to see that real improvement can’t happen until we fundamentally address how prospective educators are prepared and supported for their roles as teachers of record.

This week, Education Week’s Stephen Sawchuk offers up a terrific collection of stories examining the issues, including:

States Slow to Close Faltering Teacher Ed. Programs, which looks at how our national quest for improved education and improved educational outcomes hasn’t quite reached those overseeing our ed schools;

Disparate Teacher-Prep Curricula Complicate Accountability Efforts, which demonstrates the continued challenges in demanding effective teacher ed efforts; and

N.Y. College’s Experiences Shows Conflicts Around Ed. School Closures, which shows how all of these policy debates play out, or fail to, in the real world.

All three pieces are worth the read, particularly the examination of Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, NY. Anyone who has been in higher ed knows that the tale told by Sawchuk there is similar to many others around the nation.

In his States Slow piece, Sawchuk quotes Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and President Emeritus of Teachers College Columbia University, on the current state of the American ed school. Levine rightly notes: “I haven’t visited a state where the political leaders are enthusiastic about the quality of ed. schools. They have the capacity to do a reauthorization of their existing programs, and they haven’t done it.”

We all seem to be good at pointing out the problems. It’s what we do with the capacity (and power) to improve that is the ultimate measure. This series from Sawchuk may very well serve as the canary in the coal mine, with meaningful “reform” coming to teacher education in the near future.

In Search of STEM Teachers

Eduflack STEM, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

STEM. STEM. STEM. STEAM. STEM. STEM. STEM. STEM. STEAM. STEM. STEM.

If one spends his or her time in education, it is impossible to avoid the topic of STEM. For a decade now, ever since “21st century skills” jumped the shark, we have been focused on a STEM-literate society. Sometimes, we look to add the arts to STEM, making it STEAM. (Though in one ingenious school district I visited in Wisconsin, they had STEAM, but the A was for agriculture, not the arts.) But we can’t get away from that STEM focus.

Last month, ACT released a survey of its test takers on a range of topics, one of which was STEM. ACT found that nearly half of those looking to take the ACT test demonstrated an interest in STEM subjects. That’s almost a million aspiring college students giving at least a look to the STEM areas.

But that interest in the content isn’t translating into an interest in teaching the content. Surveying those same students, of the nearly 1 million interested in STEM, only 5,500 are thinking about a future where they are teaching a STEM subject.

Over at Education World, I delve a little deeper into this disturbing revelation, looking at both why we need to do a better job or recruiting STEM teachers and how we can do it.

The teacher is the single-most impactful influence on the learning of the child. If we want today’s students to have an interest in STEM and to want to pursue careers in STEM teaching, we need to provide them with well-prepared teachers who make STEM real in their classrooms. We need excellent educators who inspire the next generation of STEM teachers. We need classroom teachers who can inspire an interest in the STEM subjects, encourage high-ability students to consider teaching careers, and show them how best to prepare the next generation of learners.

It’s an important read. Give it a look.

Boosting Excellent Men — and Women — in Teaching

Eduflack STEM, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

Over the weekend, The New York Times’ Motoko Rich wrote about the dilemma of how to get more men into the teaching profession. As one would imagine, the news analysis discussed the need to raise salaries, increase respect for the profession as a whole, and other such ideas.

While those are important, the education community also needs to drill down a little further. If we are serious about getting excellent teachers, be they men or women, into high-need schools, we need to dramatically improve our teacher education programs. If we want higher outcomes, we need improved inputs. It is that simple.

In response to Rich’s call to action asking why more men don’t teach, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation reflected on what it has learned constructing rigorous STEM teacher prep programs in states like Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio. From the Foundation:

Motoko Rich is absolutely right. We need the best candidates to go into the teaching profession. Collectively, we need to do everything we can to ensure our schools, particularly those that are high need, have excellent teachers leading all classrooms.

 

To achieve this, we must recognize the importance of high-quality teacher preparation programs that ensure teachers to be have the pedagogy, clinical experiences, and mentoring and support necessary to achieve. We must redesign our approach to teacher education, requiring greater rigor and stronger relevance to where instruction is headed, both in the near and long term.

 

An example of this new path is the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellows program. Our innovative program is helping develop the next generation of STEM teachers in states like Georgia, Indiana, and New Jersey. We are partnering with 28 universities in five states to improve teacher education and, in the process, prepare excellent teachers for the 21st century classroom.

 

This focus on rigor and impact directly addresses the concerns Rich and others raise. This year, 45 percent of our Teaching Fellows in Indiana are male. In Ohio, 49 percent are men. And in New Jersey, the majority of our Teaching Fellows, 52 percent, are male.

 

What does this tell us? A high-quality, rigorous teacher education program attracts our best future educators, both male and female.

 

This should not be an issue of men versus women. Instead, we should be focusing on how to improve our teacher education programs in general. The Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship offers a proven solution, and the results speak for themselves. We know what a difference well-prepared teachers, male or female, make when it comes to both student learning and achievement outcomes. And we are working to get more of those teachers in our high-need schools.

An interesting observation. And an incredibly important point. First and foremost, we must be focused on excellent teachers. Doesn’t matter gender or race or socioeconomic background. We need to do a better job of getting great teachers in the classroom. And that starts with offering great teacher education.

 

(Disclosure: Eduflack calls the Woodrow Wilson Foundation home.)

School Leadership and Business School Training

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, higher ed, Teacher Education, Woodrow Wilson

Last week, Eduflack was fortunate to visit America’s heartland in pursuit of a better way to prepare tomorrow’s school principals and district leaders today. We’ve all seen the research. After classroom teachers themselves, we know that school leaders have the second-greatest impact on learning. Some research even says a school principal accounts for 25 percent of a school’s total impact on student achievement. Yet the preparation of said leaders seems to get short shrift in today’s debates on school quality.

As a result, too many of our current education leadership programs are focused on quantity and how many graduates they can provide administrator’s credentials to in the shortest period of time. It isn’t necessarily about quality. It isn’t necessarily about ensuring tomorrow’s principals have the skill sets to lead tomorrow’s schools. And it rarely is about who those future leaders can lead by example in their quests to improve student achievement, serving as the instructional leaders they truly are.

So it was heartwarming to see efforts in two states that break the leader prep mold and focus on how best to prepare tomorrow’s school administrators. In both Indiana and Wisconsin, efforts are underway to create a more rigorous terminal degree to prepare school leaders. In each state, business schools are taking the lead, offering MBA courses given through an education lens, combined with clinical instruction and meaningful partnerships with local k-12 school districts.

The expected result? A new generation of education leaders who are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and tools to help close the achievement gaps in the schools they will soon lead. And we are talking about closing the dual achievement gaps we currently face, the gaps we see within and between states here in the United States and the gaps we unfortunately see with our nation’s highest performing schools and their peer institutions internationally.

Chalkbeat Indiana’s Hayleigh Colombo has the story on how a generous gift from the Lilly Endowment is expanding the Woodrow Wilson MBA Fellows program in Indiana. And Erin Richards at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has the story on how Wisconsin is blending school leadership and business acumen.

Both pieces are well worth the read. If we are serious about getting excellent administrators into our schools and districts, we need to examine new ways to prepare those leaders, providing them more than just traditional pedagogy. Programs like those in Indiana and Milwaukee are working to do just that.  

 

Excellent Teachers, Meet High-Needs Schools

Eduflack Achievement gap, higher ed, HQT, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

We are constantly hearing about the struggles finding (and keeping) effective teachers. And the discussion gets louder and louder when it comes to placing (and keeping) such teachers in high-needs schools.

A decade ago, the Feds tried imposing “highly qualified teacher” provisions on such schools, but those provisions have had little lasting impact. Next came a collective push for merit pay for teachers, particularly those in hard-to-serve schools. But again, the data on whether such efforts improved student outcomes or improved placement efforts is still TBD.

So the (multi) million-dollar question is, what can we do to ensure that excellent teachers are being placed in our high-needs schools?

Over at Education Week, Arthur Levine, the president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, offers some sage insights on what it takes to match great teacher with in-need schools.

Based on the Foundation’s experiences with Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellow programs in Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio, Levine offers 15 specific lessons from their on-the-ground efforts working with real teachers at real ed schools in real states before moving those educators to real schools.

These lessons provide a real, effective blueprint for successfully addressing the teacher quality debate. From selectivity to one-year masters programs, accountability to recruitment, partnerships to sustainability, these Woodrow Wilson exemplars can serve as tent poles for future efforts across the country.

And Levine knows of what he speaks. The former president of Teachers College was ahead of his time was ahead of his time in focusing on how to address teacher prep for the 21st century while at TC. And he is ahead of the pack with the Teaching Fellows initiative.

The lessons put forward by Woodrow Wilson Foundation are important for both the five states currently invested in such a path, as well as for the 45 states that should be pursuing similar ideas. If nothing else, they serve as an essential launch pad for where the we need to start focusing when it comes to identifying and preparing excellent teachers for a career in the classroom.

Rather than looks for the next fad or the newest silver bullet, isn’t it time we look to proven ideas for getting excellent educators in hard-to-staff schools? Levine’s list serves as the syllabus for such a discussion.

full disclosure, Eduflack serves as a director at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.