education

rheeForm

Proposed education reforms that do not imagine that current and beginning teachers can become more effective while on the job should be considered null and void. This postulation, if accepted, would direct Michelle Rhee's new StudentsFirst agenda to the nearest paper shredder.

To be blunt, it is just plain naive and short-sighted to think that we can maximize teacher effectiveness purely by firing more teachers and marginally changing the cadre of incoming teacher candidates. Is supporting and strengthening the teaching practice of our veteran educators not worthy of our focus and investment?

StudentsFirst's "Elevate Teaching" policy objectives are limited to evaluating teachers and principals, reforming teacher certification laws, reforming teacher compensation, "exiting" teachers, and eliminating teacher tenure. Specifically, the objectives are:

State law must require evaluation that is based substantially on student achievement. Evaluation tools should measure at least half of a teacher's performance based on student achievement, using a value-added growth model. The other aspects of a teacher's evaluations should derive from measures that align with student results, including high-quality observations and student evaluations of teacher practice.
To avoid all teachers being ranked as effective without meaningful assessment, evaluations must anchor effectiveness around a year's worth of growth.
State law must require principal evaluation that is based on student achievement and effective management of teachers. Districts should evaluate at least half of a school administrator's performance based on student achievement, and the remaining portion should mostly relate to their ability to attract, retain, manage, and develop excellent teachers.
State law should give districts the autonomy to develop teacher evaluation systems apart from the collective bargaining process. Evaluations should be a matter of district policy.
States must reduce legal barriers to entry in the teaching profession, including complicated credentialing or certification schemes that rely upon factors that do not clearly correlate with teacher effectiveness.
State law should not be structured to penalize districts financially for recruiting teachers from alternate certification programs.
States should adopt a clear process by which alternative certification programs are authorized, continually evaluated, and decommissioned if not producing high-quality educators.
State law must facilitate digital learning by allowing certification for online instruction and modifying or eliminating mandatory "seat time" laws.
State law must require pay structures based primarily on effectiveness. Teacher contracts must allow for individual performance-based pay.
State law and district policy should not mandate higher salaries for master's degrees or additional education credits.
State law should require staffing decisions (transfers, reductions, placements) be based on teacher effectiveness.
State laws must prohibit forced placements and allow district control in staffing. Districts should ensure that teacher contracts require mutual consent placements. Districts should have the flexibility to offer defined grace periods, severance, or other options for teachers who have effective ratings, but do not find a mutually agreeable placement. Teachers rated ineffective should be exited from the system.
State law should not grant, implicitly or directly, tenure or permanent contracts for PK–12 education professionals.

There is evidence (from sources such as IES and AIR) that shows that high-quality approaches to new teacher induction and professional development pay dividends in terms of student outcomes. Why would a "student first" agenda utterly ignore initiatives that work in favor of some that have a paltry or non-existent research base?

To keep it brief, please read some of my most relevant past posts arguing why a focus on teacher support and development makes sense and why it should be at the centerpiece of every education reform agenda.

With regard to the StudentsFirst plan, to use a Twitter construct, #edreformfail.

Busy As a Bee

You may have noticed the recent near radio silence from Sara on our blog. No, she isn't on a secret mission and hasn't left academia to join the NSA. She, however, has been busy as a bee this past year, starting with giving birth to our daughter, being named a W.T. Grant Scholar, and engaging in important academic research.

My pride in her commitment to, excellence in and passion for issues of educational and social inequality is coupled with a recognition of her unwillingness to see academic research relegated to dusty and sometimes impenetrable academic journals. Sara has been aggressive and public with her research and committed to engaging in and communicating her work in a policy relevant manner. That fits a critical need in public policy conversations.

That's why I was quite pleased to see Sara's name mentioned among the ranks of the most prominent academics in the nation in the "EduScholar" rankings issued by the American Enterprise Institute's Rick Hess. And Sara isn't even yet a senior scholar nor is she an economist (who are overrepresented). Hess says:

The academy today does a passable job of recognizing good disciplinary scholarship but a pretty mediocre job of recognizing scholars with the full range of skills that enables them to really contribute to the policy debate. Today, there are substantial professional rewards for scholars who do hyper-sophisticated, narrowly conceived research, but little institutional recognition, acknowledgment, or support for scholars who carry their efforts into the public discourse. One result is that the public square is filled by impassioned advocates, while silence reigns among those who may be more versed on the research or more likely to recognize complexities and hard truths.

I think these kinds of metrics are relevant because I believe it's the scholars who do these kinds of things "who can cross boundaries, foster crucial collaborations, and bring research into the world of policy in smart and useful ways."

Jay Greene -- seeking to give credit to more junior scholars who have had a great impact on contemporary public policy conversations and to move beyond rankings based on a single year (2010) of performance -- perfected the Hess rubric, causing Sara's ranking to increase by about 30 points to #39.

Hotshot researchers like Roland Fryer, Jacob Vigdor, Susanna Loeb, Matthew Springer, Brian Jacob, Jonah Rockoff, and Sara Goldrick-Rab are having a large impact on current education policy discussions even though their careers have not been long enough to accumulate a longer list of books and articles. The original ranking shortchanged these scholars in measuring their current “public presence.”

I agree. As I mentioned in this recent post, advocates who too often simply echo one another's opinions are too influential in policy debates. There is an important void to be filled by the likes of academic researchers as well as classroom teachers.

Congrats, Sara! Keep up the great work!

A New Year

We hope all our readers enjoyed relaxing holidays and have returned refreshed for the new year. While our family and professional lives continue to make it difficult to blog with great frequency, we hope you'll continue to read our infrequent commentary and join in the discussion during 2011.

A few thoughts to start the new year...

(1) Outcomes First? If outcomes are what really matter in education, it is interesting that so many advocates, commentators and policy organizations seem to count adoption of favored policy reforms as ends in themselves. We are all guilty of this to some degree. It is only when there is a research base to suggest that specific reforms and programs work that there is a strong argument to be made. Examples might include targeted class size reduction in grades k-3, high-quality early childhood education, and comprehensive, multi-year induction support for new teachers. But, at a macro level, certain arguments fall apart when there is no evidence to back them up, such as teachers' unions being a wart on the ass of progress. Take Massachusetts, for example, a strong union state. It leads the nation in TIMMS scores in spite of the fact that the Massachusetts Teachers Association looms large in state politics.

(2) Teachers, Teachers: One of the best developments of 2010 was an increased focus on teachers and on teacher effectiveness in particular. This focus was not always for the better, as in the case of the Los Angeles Times' decision to publish value-added scores for individual teachers or the misleading, union-bashing documentary Waiting For Superman. But an overall focus on the outcomes of teaching is the right policy conversation to be having. However, that conversation must lead to solutions that create comprehensive structures and systems to maximize benefits for all involved -- students, teachers, parents, etc. Regular feedback about teaching is critical for educators, not just summative data or annual evaluations that don't provide actionable feedback. A key goal around improving teacher effectiveness should be the development of schools and districts as communities of practice that make teaching more of a collective endeavor and support all educators to strengthen their individual practices and skills.

(3) ESEA: I am increasingly of the mind that something -- but not much of anything -- will happen with regard to reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2011. If successful, reauthorization will primarily serve as a token of bipartisanship that both parties can carry into the 2012 elections to say "we can work together to get things done." If accomplished, it may be one of the few significant bipartisan accomplishments of this Congress. Look for substantive tweaks to the No Child Left Behind Act rather than a wholesale overhaul of it. More flexibility around AYP. Attention to the needs of rural districts. More local control. Perhaps a stronger focus on teacher performance pay, charter schools and school choice options -- some elements of the Obama Blueprint combined with priority issues for Republicans like John Kline and Lamar Alexander. And level funding, at best.

(4) Exclusivity: One of my wishes for the New Year is that the DC echo chamber would become less and less influential in conversations about education policy. I am constantly amazed at how regularly the usual suspects parrot, squawk about and retweet the comments and ideas of the other usual suspects, especially those with whom they have personal or proprietary relationships. And how the same usual suspects are quoted saying the same usual things by the mainstream and educational media. This dynamic plays out, too, in conversations within multiple exclusive fiefdoms within education that generally have little to no intersection with fiefdoms with competing worldviews or different policy priorities. As someone who once worked in DC and who now works for a non-DC-based national non-profit organization that has relationships with all sides of the education community, I am especially cognizant of this dynamic in which voices outside of the Beltway 'influentials' are not heard.

One alternative stream recently profiled by Rick Hess and Jay Greene are academics doing policy-relevant research and cutting a high profile in policy conversations. We need more of that type of intellect in play -- and not just from economists. Another is the rise of state-based reform groups like Stand for Children, the PIE Network, Delaware's Rodel Foundation and Oregon's Chalkboard Project. Finally, the voice of actual teachers is too often missing from policy conversations. Fortunately, there are numerous efforts afoot to remedy this. Two, in particular, worth checking out are Teach PLUS and the VIVA Project. My organization, the New Teacher Center, in conjunction with the College Board, recently profiled real-life teachers in a publication about the importance of teacher mentoring.

One way or another, 2011 undoubtedly will be an interesting year for education.

Fili-Bernie

I've officially given this blog over to Bernie Sanders. Well, not really. But I can't think of an issue more fundamental in defining who we are as Americans and more important to our nation's economic and educational future than what Bernie discussed in his old-school, non-filibuster filibuster on Friday. Economic justice -- along with sensible tax policy -- is something too few on Capitol Hill and too few Americans care to consider. But it's centrally related to the future educational outcomes of our people -- research shows that socioeconomic factors are more important even than teacher quality, a frequent topic of my posts and a central feature of my professional work.

I note that former Labor Secretary and current Berkeley professor Robert Reich, in his Twitter feed (@RBReich) today, backs up a point I made about these proposed tax cuts being a precursor to Republican efforts to launch an assault on domestic spending and entitlements -- using the federal budget deficit made so much worse by these tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires as their rationale.

I said: "I recognize that this issue isn't specifically about education, but it is inexorably linked. Given President Obama's apparent unwillingness to go to the mat for Democratic principles (and his own campaign pledge!), Republicans have succeeded in extending the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires -- not just for the first $250,000 or $1,000,000 of their income, but all of it up to infinity. The total cost of all the proposal's tax cuts is $900 billion. Republicans' likely next step is too take off their "tax cutter" hat and don their "deficit hawk" cap, saying that the federal government is living beyond its means, and will fire away at domestic spending. You don't think education will avoid being in their crosshairs at that time, do you? You know that this is more than simply a ploy to line the pockets of rich Americans, right? It's part of a plan to bleed government dry and then argue that government programs need to be reduced, eliminated or privatized."

Reich wrote: "$900 b tax cut w/ lion's share for rich explodes deficit and makes future domestic discretionary spending sitting duck for R cuts."

Yes, folks. This isn't just about tax cuts for the richest Americans. This is but a front in the war to reduce the size of government regardless of its collateral damage to Americans who need government the most.

Economic inequality is already at an all-time high in this country -- even higher than prior to the start of the Great Depression. Our educational system only has a finite amount of power to overcome such overwhelming inequities. If these forces are left unchecked, it may become an impossible job, especially as education programs themselves may fall victim to all-too-easily-predictable budget cuts.

The rich, on the the other hand, will continue to party like it's 1929. Only the party's even better this time 'round. So much for the national economy being a collective good.

Bernie Sanders

Vermont's U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is a hero for speaking truth to power, something he has been doing his entire life, regardless of whether it's been politically popular. He's one of the few public officials who has entered the U.S. Senate chamber and not become co-opted by it. Now, I may be biased as a former Vermonter who watched his rise from third-party also-ran to mayor of Burlington to U.S. congressman to U.S. senator. Bernie is genuine, he is forthright, perhaps a bit holier than thou at times. He is the real deal.

Check out his 13-minute speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate on November 30, 2010 providing a compelling and detailed analysis of historic economic inequality in America and the duplicity of Republicans talking woefully about the national debt and budget deficit one minute and pushing as their top priority tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires that would break the bank the next. Sanders is one of the few national leaders making any sense today and putting economic inequality and proposed tax breaks into historical context. It's probably because he is one of the few that actually cares.

On Saturday, we watched as Republicans voted in lockstep against two alternatives to extending the Bush-era tax cuts to all Americans regardless of income. One proposal would have extended tax cuts to all families first $250,000; another to all families' first million. Even millionaires and billionaires would have continued to enjoy lower taxes on some of their income. Alas, why should the rich settle for half a loaf?

Who else thinks that the current policy debate over tax policy in Washington is absolutely insane? Not enough of us. One who does is Noble Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who in the New York Times on December 3, 2010, laid much of the blame on President Obama:

It’s hard to escape the impression that Republicans have taken Mr. Obama’s measure — that they’re calling his bluff in the belief that he can be counted on to fold. And it’s also hard to escape the impression that they’re right.

Sad, but true.

I recognize that this issue isn't specifically about education, but it is inexorably linked. Given President Obama's apparent unwillingness to go to the mat for Democratic principles (and his own campaign pledge!), Republicans have succeeded in extending the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires -- not just for the first $250,000 or $1,000,000 of their income, but all of it up to infinity. The total cost of all the proposal's tax cuts is $900 billion. Republicans' likely next step is too take off their "tax cutter" hat and don their "deficit hawk" cap, saying that the federal government is living beyond its means, and will fire away at domestic spending. You don't think education will avoid being in their crosshairs at that time, do you? You know that this is more than simply a ploy to line the pockets of rich Americans, right? It's part of a plan to bleed government dry and then argue that government programs need to be reduced, eliminated or privatized. [UPDATE: The deal is a "budget buster." (The Atlantic)]

Now, there are would-be Democrats who are in denial and are not considering this likely outcome at all. Rather than reserving their scorn for Republican tax policy, they are attacking progressive Democrats and the likes of Bernie Sanders. Shame on them.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, the President suffered a split lip in a pick-up basketball game. How I wish he were as willing to put his body on the line for economic fairness as he was for a rebound!

I am encouraged that Senator Sanders has expressed a willingness to use the filibuster to put the breaks on extending tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. God knows that Republicans have used the filibuster -- or the threat of one -- for dozens of nefarious purposes, including preventing extensions of unemployment insurance, regulation of Wall Street, and recently more rationale tax cut extension proposals. Imagine! A progressive willing to stand up for what's right and not "punt on third down," to use the words of New York Congressman Anthony Weiner.

At this time, I couldn't be more disappointed in President Obama. I have always been a political realist, voting for the "least bad" candidate when necessary, and a life-long Democrat. I honestly don't know what I might do in 2012. I literally couldn't sleep the other night, I was so angry. Maybe it's time to follow Robert Reich's lead and form a "Peoples' Party."

Rhetorically, President Obama is making the same mistake over and over again, putting bipartisanship ahead of smart public policy. I am not criticizing the President because I wrongly fancied him a liberal. Rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy was one of his chief campaign pledges for Chrissakes! I'm criticizing him on the substance of the issue, for walking away from a campaign promise (without fighting for it), and for making the same tactical mistake he made during the health care battle: working feverishly to assemble a bipartisan coalition for health care reform when there was no real willingness among Republicans to meet in the middle. In the current case, he horse-traded away a key campaign plank and agreed to an extension of the Bush tax cuts for two years plus deeper estate tax cuts, while only receiving a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits and one year of payroll tax cuts.

I'll give the New York Times the last word. In this morning's editorial, it writes:

President Obama’s deal with the Republicans to extend all the Bush-era income tax cuts is a win for the Republicans and their strategy of obstructionism and a disappointing retreat by the White House....

The Republicans gave up very little except for their unconscionable stance of holding up all other Congressional action until they ensured that the richest Americans keep their tax cuts.

Silver Linings

It's probably no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I'm a Democrat. That said, in my professional life, I have worked for non-partisan and non-profit organizations committed to working with public officials of all political persuasions. And I think that both political parties -- as well as political independents -- are potential partners in improving pubic education. Nonetheless, I can't honestly say that November 2010 was an uplifting month from my (electoral) perspective.

But this is the Education OPTIMISTS blog, right? I guess I'm a little self-aware in that I recognize that a majority of my posts grouse about something or other and too few are offered in a truly optimistic vein. So here is my attempt at weaving a silk purse from an elephant's(?) ear.

Newly elected Republican governors and state legislators have opportunities to improve education in ways that some of their Democratic counterparts may not. They may be more politically willing and able to take on certain vestiges of the education status quo that may not be research-based, may not be working, and may be not be in service of student outcomes. I'm talking about things like the traditional steps-and-lanes teacher salary schedule, the length of the school day and year, and largely purposeless teacher evaluation systems. They may be able to construct new human capital systems and reform outdated school practices and processes. Certainly, these opportunities will vary depending upon numerous contextual factors, including state systems of educational governance, the intellectual and policy foundations for such work, the existence of non-governmental advocates and thought partners, existing vehicles for collaboration (such as p-16 councils), etc.

A number of past Republican governors emerged as leaders, or so-called "education governors." Some that immediately come to mind are former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, outgoing Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, and former Tennessee Gov. (and current U.S. Senator) Lamar Alexander (who also served as U.S Education Secretary under President George H.W. Bush).

That said, here's where my pessimism takes over. There are certainly members of the current Republican gubernatorial circle that are certainly not in the running for such an earned label, such as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. With less than a year in office, he has moved in a decidedly confrontational direction. His actions and rhetoric makes him better suited for talk radio than as a collaborative education governor who needs to work with a Democratic-controlled state legislature and, yes, with teachers. Christie is casting himself as a modern-day Archie Bunker and is relishing the attention and headlines he is getting. The sad fact is that such rhetoric is what garners attention in today's media rather than the dogged policy work that actually changes the equation for students and teachers.

Christie seems to think that leadership consists of rhetoric rather than results. And that's dangerous if our collective goal is the creation of meaningful reform as opposed to simply talk or threats of it. Christie has attacked his own state's relatively good educational performance in order to further his demonizing of the state teachers' union, which appears to be his primary priority. He fired his first education commissioner who dared to strike a compromise with teachers around New Jersey's aborted Race to the Top application. That former commissioner said that the Governor "placed fighting with the state teachers unions and his persona on talk radio above education reform." Good luck to those who seek to thrust him upon America as a 2012 candidate for President.

My fear is that there those within the ranks of new Republican governors that are more likely to fashion themselves in the style of Christie than as "old school" education governors. Texas Governor Rick Perry's ascension to head the RGA probably doesn't help either.

With the exception of the 12 Race to the Top winners, one challenge that these new office holders of both parties will face is the distinct lack of new resources to inject into the educational system, either from state or federal sources. They won't be able to buy reforms by increasing education funding or refashion teacher pay with a major infusion of cash.

My hope is that governors of both parties will seek to work with educators to accomplish their policy objectives rather than force their desires onto them. There is good evidence to suggest that collaboration leads to more resilient and relevant policies that are likely to trickle down to actually change practices and processes within classrooms and schools. That's where the real work gets done.

I am hopeful that some quiet leaders will emerge.

Building A Better Teacher

If you haven't been reading the excellent "Building A Better Teacher" news series in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, you should be. It really doesn't matter whether you're from Wisconsin or not, or particularly interested in this state's policy context. The series is taking an expansive look at the various issues related to human capital development, teacher effectiveness and teaching quality. And it's not quoting the same overused Beltway prognosticators to drive its points home.

The fourth installment in the eight-part series, funded by Hechinger, ran this past Sunday and was entitled "Trying to steer strong teachers to weak schools."

My main quibble with this particular article was that it gave short shrift to one of the most effective answers to the question posed: How do we steer strong teachers to weak schools? The answer: Improve the teaching conditions at those schools.

Here's the extent of what the article offered on this issue:

So what else might be done, in hopes of having more impact? A few ideas in nutshells:
• Make schools better places to work: This is both the simplest and most complex solution. The New Teacher Project report in 2007 said, "The best way to staff high need schools is to make them attractive to great teachers." But how do you achieve that?

Mike Langyel, president of the Milwaukee teachers union, listed things that would attract teachers: "A competent and fair principal is key not only in getting teachers there but in keeping them.... We're also looking at schools that are safe."

My suggestion would have been a much more robust treatment and discussion of the issue of teaching conditions. I have extrapolated on its importance in a series of blog posts, and the New Teacher Center (my employer) has unique national expertise in administering statewide Teaching and Learning Conditions surveys. The NTC has a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to administer a Teaching & Learning Conditions Survey as part of the foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project. The Survey is being administered in select schools and districts participating in the MET project across the country.

Perhaps Wisconsin and Milwaukee, in particular, should consider administering such an anonymous full population survey to its educators -- teachers, administrators and support staff -- and see what they have to say. Why do they stay or leave a given school or district? What's working and what isn't? States and districts that have administered such surveys have used the data to improve principal preparation, rewrite professional standards for teachers and principals, and strengthen teacher mentoring and professional development. This is not data to be afraid of but data that can empower policymakers, school leaders and teachers alike.

Teaching and learning conditions are highly correlated with issues such as teacher retention and the presence of such conditions explain as much as 15 percent of the variance in student achievement between schools (Helen 'Sunny' Ladd, 2009). This stuff matters greatly in the current policy debates about teaching and student outcomes and it gets far too little attention as compared with value added, teacher evaluation and teacher pay.