I was pretty amused by this King of the Hill Episode called No Bobby Left Behind, which pokes fun at how some schools have failed to address NCLB's accountability.
The basic premise is that the Principal, when he realizes that the standardized test is only weeks away and he hasn't done anything to help his students prepare and that his job might be on the line, finally looks at the NCLB guidelines to find a loophole. His solution is to put his low performing students in special education classes. After a rather amusing field trip which brings to light what he's done, the principal finally decides, "Well, I guess we could try to educate them."
The episode features a special education teacher who has never found a child who isn't special. The excuse that these students just aren't good test-takers also makes an ugly appearance.
While I was laughing as a I started to watch the episode, I quickly came to realize that this was a case where perhaps parody came a little too close to reality for comfort. Like all parody, this is an exaggeration, but at times it struck me as a little too close to how NCLB is regarded in some schools. In the end, the show actually comes up with a happy ending. I won't say more, because it would ruin it for you. I'd recommend the episode for everyone interested in education reform.
Well, once again, I've disappointed my sister. She told me yesterday that she's been watching my blog to see what I had to say about Arne Duncan's appointment as US Secretary of Education and so far I've been mute on the subject. It really wasn't anything that I have personally against Future Secretary Duncan. I've just been kind of busy.
From everything I've read about Arne Duncan, he's probably about the best pick that reform-minded education geeks were going to get. While he has complained about specific aspects of No Child Left Behind, he has been generally supportive. Heck, Congressman George Miller had him testify in favor of NCLB, so it can't be too bad. He doesn't seem to particularly upset NEA/AFT either.
Overall, I think he's probably a good choice, but of course all that really matters is what he does once he gets into office.
If you're interested in what real education pundits have to say about him, EIAonline has a great digest of the commentary.
I thought Sandra Tsing Loh's Los Angeles Times column raised a very interesting point. Since LAUSD seems happy to hire superintendents that don't actually have any experience with education, they should consider hiring a "pit bull PTA mom."
In these last few minutes before the inevitable happens and Ramon C. Cortines is named David L. Brewer's successor as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, here is a modest proposal: How about a PTA mother for the job?
PTA moms are the very opposite of the $500,000-golden-parachute bureaucrats Brewer has come to represent. PTA moms draw no salary. We work nights, weekends, holidays. We bring our kids' schools new resources every day -- whatever we can load into our minivans. (Binders, colored pencils, toilet paper, snacks, basketball hoops and musical instruments are but some of the items I've seen moms deliver.)
We know not just how to make a dollar stretch but how to make no dollars stretch. (Look how handy we are with scrip, Chuck E. Cheese fundraisers, Vons give-back-to-school cards.) So thrifty are we, it shocks us when our snickerdoodle-baking world meets the LAUSD money-hosing world.
My L.A. public school mom friend -- and Oprah Angel Award winner -- Rebecca Constantino is the founder of Access Books, a 10-year-old non-profit that brings 10,000 new and almost new books to each of the many needy LAUSD elementaries requesting them. Thanks to a web of volunteers and private donations, the books come absolutely free.
The only obstacle? LAUSD Central Library Services. It has capped Access Books donations to a maximum of 300 books a school (some with more than 1,000 students) because of an LAUSD cataloging cost of $18 a book!
Call me hormonal (what I actually call myself is a "Burning Mom"), but I believe the district's director of Instructional Media Services should be fired -- today! That would save taxpayers $119,724.84 a year, according to an L.A. Daily news website that allows you to check the salary of any LAUSD employee.
While we're at it, let's also right-size the budget by firing any LAUSD front office worker who is rude (do you, like me, suddenly see huge, huge savings?).
In this, the 21st century, even fast-food employees greet customers with "Hello! Welcome to McDonald's, may I help you?" Walk into most LAUSD schools and you're treated like a felon -- or more likely, ignored by the sour office drone who refuses to look up from her typing. Get to know us -- we are parents, we are taxpayers, we are your bosses. And if you're at a loss for words, try this: "Hello! May I help you?" If you're lucky, you won't soon have to add: "Welcome to McDonald's!"
And then there's the union problem. Even a chipper, resourceful PTA mom will have her hands full dealing with A.J. Duffy's teachers union. Consider this sad tale.
Two years ago, the school my children attend was lucky enough to receive a VH1 "Save the Music" gift of 36 string instruments, the only requirement being once-a-week musical instruction. Not only could our Title I school not come up with $10,000 a year for an LAUSD teacher, there weren't any available. Fortunately, a professional musician parent was thrilled to step in to volunteer. However, according to union rules, we could not call that person a "teacher" or "instructor" and technically could not bring the person into the classroom -- we'd potentially be denying a teacher a job.
If you haven't seen the pattern yet, ask yourself this: Whose needs are held hostage in every case? That's right -- the children's.
I think Brewer truly cared about the kids, but what he found is that a school district is not like the Navy. In the Navy, you assume excellence and accountability -- military personnel actually earn their stripes. Not so in the LAUSD.
So which PTA mom should we look to in our hour of need? Well, why not the pit bull with lipstick herself, Sarah Palin? I hear she's available, and the LAUSD certainly has some bridges to nowhere that could use exploding.
Sure, this hair-trigger hockey mom might ban a book or two. But with Palin in the job, local schools would finally be front-page news. And the city might finally notice how children's opportunities are being squandered by a nest of non-admirals saying, "The buck stops there."
I think Sandra might be a little confused since Sarah does have that little Alaskan Governor job. However, I think there is a lot to be said for having a little more of the PTA mom attitude in LAUSD's next superintendent. With its huge bureaucracy, I think LAUSD is probably the worst district in the state for the problems Sandra talked about, but clearly aspects of these problems exist in many districts throughout the state. Maybe we all need to spend a little less time thinking up new reforms and a little more time listening to PTA moms.
Many people interested in education reform, myself included, think that teacher quality has a huge impact on student achievement. If we could figure out which teacher education programs do the best job at preparing teachers for being successful to raising achievement and closing achievement gaps, we could help all these programs improve. That being the case, it makes one wonder why there isn't more discussion about evaluating the quality of these programs based on the impact their graduates have on student achievement.
For students to learn, they need well-trained teachers. Unfortunately, far too many teacher-preparation programs in this country are little more than diploma mills. As states and the federal government consider ways to fix this problem, they should look to Louisiana’s accountability-based reform efforts.
Louisiana already has required public- and private-teacher-education programs to offer more rigorous course work, and teachers must pass licensing exams in more subject areas than before.
The most striking innovation is an evaluation system that judges teacher-preparation programs based on how much their graduates improve student performances in important areas, including reading, math and science.
Once the evaluation system is in place throughout the state, officials would be able to determine which programs are turning out first-class teachers and which ones still need work. Just as important, local school districts would know which institution’s graduates to avoid and which ones to hire for which subjects.
This year’s report, released earlier this month, gives high marks to the teacher-preparation program at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. The report is especially flattering to The New Teacher Project. The private certification program, which works in other states as well, puts highly qualified college graduates through 12 to 18 months of additional training before placing them in schools.
According to the Louisiana report, new teachers from The New Teacher Project were more effective at teaching math, reading and language arts than others with two or more years of experience. A significant proportion of the project’s Louisiana teachers were sent by Teach for America, an increasingly popular nonprofit group that recruits high-achieving, young college graduates expressly for placement in schools that are difficult to staff.
The Louisiana findings echo a study earlier this year showing that Teach for America participants who worked in North Carolina between 2000 and 2006 had a more positive impact on student performance than traditional teachers. The difference was evident in several areas of science and was strongest in math.
It just seems to make sense me that we'd want to make sure our new teachers are as well trained as possible. Figuring out who is doing the best job, identifying their practices that make a difference and exporting those effective practices to other colleges is a logical improvement strategy. If alternative programs like The New Teacher Project and Teach for America are better preparing future teachers, colleges of education should be taking notice and working to find out what they're missing.
Unfortunately, if past behavior is any indicator, instead the deans of these colleges of education will come up with reasons why they can't change their curriculum or strategies or why the data showing better performance from alternative programs is flawed. Is it any wonder that education reforms are slow when we continue to train our teachers in less effective strategies?
As an edu-geek, it can be disturbing to find out how little the average voter actually knows about public education. I found this video on Mike Antonucci's EIA online where he pointed to a Jay P. Greene piece. It is incredible.
While this video picks on poor Utahans, I suspect you'd get very similar responses no matter where you go. People just don't know much about public education. Previous studies have shown us that people have poor regard for public education in general, but high regard for their local public school. As this video suggests, I think if voters knew more about public education, pressure on policymakers and educators to enact reforms would grow rapidly.
I thought this post from Jay P. Greene was great. He likens the big three automaker bailouts to No Child Left Behind.
It’s now becoming clear that rather than moving K-12 public education to look more like a competitive market, we are moving the competitive market to look more like K-12 public education. To assist in those efforts (can’t nobody say JPGB never did nothing for the peoples), I would like to propose the No Consumer Left Behind act. You don’t even need a new acronym!
Under the No Consumer Left Behind act we will provide a system of goals and assistance to ensure that all companies serve their consumers effectively. No longer will we have stigmatizing terms like “bankruptcy.” Instead, we will have “companies in need of improvement.”
All companies will have to achieve profitability by 2014. And they can define for themselves what “profitability” really means. Each year they must make adequate yearly progress toward that goal. If a company fails to make AYP they must offer their consumers the option to buy a different product that the same company sells. After all we have to have choice!
Companies that are in need of improvement will also be provided with additional resources and professional development. If we don’t help them, how else can they help their consumers? We won’t call these additional resources a bailout or reward for failure. Instead, we will call it technical assistance. It’s just technical — like a technical foul.
We will also require all companies to employ “highly qualified” workers. Highly qualified will generally be defined as whoever they currently employ. Alternatively, highly qualified can be restricted to workers possessing union-approved credentials.
If a company fails to make AYP for several years, it will have to “restructure.” But restructuring won’t be like the old bankruptcy restructuring, where you have to sell assets or layoff workers. Instead, it can mean that you held some team-building workshops or hired a new CEO. This new NCLB will be all about accountability.
Jay is absolutely right. We've long been screaming that public education needs to learn some lessons from the business community regarding the concept of return on investment, using data to drive decisions, learning from successful organizations, etc. Unfortunately, public education has resisted all of our efforts at reform. Now it appears that the business world has "seen the light" and is seeking to learn from education by seeking taxpayer money to reinforce ineffective practices and delay real reforms. Unfortunately, I don't think it is going to work any better for car buyers than it has worked out for our children.
Brewer, who is midway through his four-year contract, did not formally resign. He said he would ask the school board to honor the buyout provisions of his contract.
Senior Deputy Supt. Ramon C. Cortines is widely expected to take over as interim superintendent, a job he held in 2000. Just prior to returning to the district, Cortines served as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top education advisor. The mayor and his school board allies have long been unhappy with Brewer's performance.
Under the terms of Brewer's contract, the 62-year-old superintendent would be entitled to 18 months' severance, an amount estimated at $500,000. His compensation package includes a $300,000 salary, $45,000 a year for expenses and a $3,000 monthly housing allowance.
While I greatly respect Admiral Brewer for his service to our country, I think his lack of any education reform experience and a failure to really appreciate the scope of the entrenched bureaucracy in LAUSD doomed him to failure. It was simply too big a problem for someone to solve while at the same time trying to come up to speed in public education.
I hope that the LAUSD board will use this opportunity to find a proven education reformer or at least someone like DC's Michelle Rhee who isn't afraid to take on the behemoth that is LAUSD. They need more than a figurehead.
All too often educators have excuses for why poor and minority students don't do well in school. The excuses I've heard have included everything from not having copies of Harry Potter books to a lack of involved parents. Unfortunately, this University of California Berkeley research suggests that poor children have differences in their brain.
University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown for the first time that the brains of low-income children function differently from the brains of high-income kids.
In a study recently accepted for publication by the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, scientists at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and the School of Public Health report that normal 9- and 10-year-olds differing only in socioeconomic status have detectable differences in the response of their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is critical for problem solving and creativity.
Electroencephalography, or EEG, uses electrodes on the scalp and held in place by a cap to measure underlying brain activity. (Lee Michael Perry/UC Berkeley) Brain function was measured by means of an electroencephalograph (EEG) - basically, a cap fitted with electrodes to measure electrical activity in the brain - like that used to assess epilepsy, sleep disorders and brain tumors.
"Kids from lower socioeconomic levels show brain physiology patterns similar to someone who actually had damage in the frontal lobe as an adult," said Robert Knight, director of the institute and a UC Berkeley professor of psychology. "We found that kids are more likely to have a low response if they have low socioeconomic status, though not everyone who is poor has low frontal lobe response."
They don't suggest that these kids are doomed however.
"This is a wake-up call," Knight said. "It's not just that these kids are poor and more likely to have health problems, but they might actually not be getting full brain development from the stressful and relatively impoverished environment associated with low socioeconomic status: fewer books, less reading, fewer games, fewer visits to museums."
Kishiyama, Knight and Boyce suspect that the brain differences can be eliminated by proper training. They are collaborating with UC Berkeley neuroscientists who use games to improve the prefrontal cortex function, and thus the reasoning ability, of school-age children.
"It's not a life sentence," Knight emphasized. "We think that with proper intervention and training, you could get improvement in both behavioral and physiological indices."
So, according to the article, all we need to do is have poor kids play more games? Or read more books or visit more museums? I think there might be more to it than that.
While I'm sure this research has some genuine scientific merit, I'm concerned that it will end up as yet another excuse for why school's can't get poor and minority children to grade-level. I'm not saying that the research isn't true. I'm not a neuroscientist, so I have no idea if the research is scientifically valid.
My point is one that I've made many times before. So what. What this research doesn't say is that these children can't learn. It only says that they found "damage". There are schools across the state that successful every day with getting poor and minority students to grade-level. These schools prove it can be done. It doesn't matter if the student's brains are different. It doesn't matter if the student's parents don't read to them. It doesn't matter if they don't have a copy of Harry Potter at home. None of these things matter. These things might make educating poor students more difficult, but they don't make it impossible.
It might take doing something different in the classroom or on the campus to help these kids be successful academically. It might require some educators to get outside their comfort zones. It might require extra effort from teachers, staff and administrators. Just getting more money to do the same old things isn't going to cut it.
It is worth it the effort. These poor and minority children are worth the extra effort. They're our future and I would much rather see them go into that future able to read, write, do math and ready for college or work. We shouldn't give up on these kids simply because it is hard to teach them. We can't give up on them. We can't let them give up on themselves.
Those successful schools can show us the way. They've found strategies that are working. They've figured out what it takes to do it within our current screwed up system of public education. While if you handed them some extra money, they'd know what to do with it, they're not complaining about limited resources. They're not looking outside for answers, but instead they're looking inside and making the most of what the have.
If you want to see some of these schools, look at the CBEE/JFTK-CA Honor Roll Star Schools. Here are schools that have the answers. Educators making excuses, need to stop and start looking for the solutions. The solutions are at these schools. Go find them!
There is a great Time Magazine article to go along with the cover on Washington DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her efforts to reform DC schools. I thought it was a great article. There were a couple quotes that I thought really stood out and were really in line with my last post about teacher quality.
She says things most superintendents would not. "The thing that kills me about education is that it's so touchy-feely," she tells me one afternoon in her office. Then she raises her chin and does what I come to recognize as her standard imitation of people she doesn't respect. Sometimes she uses this voice to imitate teachers; other times, politicians or parents. Never students. "People say, 'Well, you know, test scores don't take into account creativity and the love of learning,'" she says with a drippy, grating voice, lowering her eyelids halfway. Then she snaps back to herself. "I'm like, 'You know what? I don't give a crap.' Don't get me wrong. Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don't know how to read, I don't care how creative you are. You're not doing your job."
I couldn't agree more. When we have nearly 60% of students below grade-level every year, it is not the time to worry about a love of learning. Let's get those basic skills mastered and then we can focus on broadening the curriculum and focusing accountability on more than just testing.
The most glaring example of the backward logic of schools is the way most teachers receive lifetime job security after one or two years of work. As Larry Rosenstock, CEO of eight California charter schools, noted at an education panel last spring, we don't give that kind of job security to pilots or doctors--or any others who hold our children's fate in their hands: "What is it that is so exceptional about teachers that they should have this unique right?"
Teachers got tenure rights in the early 20th century to protect them against meddling politicians and school-board members who treated their jobs as patronage pawns. But the rationale is plainly antiquated. Today dozens of federal and state laws protect teachers (and other people) from arbitrary firing. But most teachers still receive tenure almost automatically. In fact, even before they get tenure, they are rarely let go. Schools spend millions of dollars evaluating teachers, but principals have little incentive to shake up their staffs, and so most teachers end up scoring near the top. "What I'm finding is that our principals are ridiculously--like ridiculously--conflict-averse," Rhee says. "They know someone is not so good, and they want to give him a 'Meets expectations' anyway because they don't want to deal with the person coming into the office and yelling and getting the parents riled up."
Right now, schools assess teachers before they teach--filtering for candidates who are certified, who have a master's degree, who have other pieces of paper that do not predict good teaching. And we pay them the same regardless of their effectiveness.
By comparison, if we wanted to have truly great teachers in our schools, we would assess them after their second year of teaching, when we could identify very strong and very weak performers, according to years of research. Great teachers are in total control. They have clear expectations and rules, and they are consistent with rewards and punishments. Most of all, they are in a hurry. They never feel that there is enough time in the day. They quiz kids on their multiplication tables while they walk to lunch. And they don't give up on their worst students, even when any normal person would.
I really don't get the argument for tenure either. As I understand it, it was supposed to guarantee academic freedom for college professors. I agree with the author that in this day and age, it seems like an unnecessary complication for K-12 education. Personally, I feel that the people who most benefit from tenure today are poor teachers. Unless they do something terrible, principals aren't motivated to go through the hassle or getting rid of a clearly unskilled tenured teacher.
I'm not for dumping teachers who aren't making it immediately. I think there needs to be a process of remediation where teachers have every opportunity to pick up needed skills and improve their teaching before they can be let go, no matter how many years they've been with a district. At the same time, if they're not making progress toward improving their skills, we shouldn't be punishing class after class of children who are waiting for the adults to get it together.
The data back up Rhee's obsession with teaching. If two average 8-year-olds are assigned to different teachers, one who is strong and one who is weak, the children's lives can diverge in just a few years, according to research pioneered by Eric Hanushek at Stanford. The child with the effective teacher, the kind who ranks among the top 15% of all teachers, will be scoring well above grade level on standardized tests by the time she is 11. The other child will be a year and a half below grade level--and by then it will take a teacher who works with the child after school and on weekends to undo the compounded damage. In other words, the child will probably never catch up.
There are kids in classrooms today with poor teachers. There are kids falling behind every day. They can't afford to keep waiting for us to figure it out.
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