The State of Ohio says that if your district is low-performing–that is, scoring in the bottom 5% of all districts–then charter schools are allowed to open in your district (previously, they were limited to eight urban districts).
But here is the irony. Only one out of four charter schools in Ohio has a better score than the bottom 5% of districts in the state.
So the remedy for a low-performing district is to open what are likely to be low-performing charter schools.
I am often asked my views about what the federal government should do to improve education.
The one thing it should not do is to foist unproven ideas on the schools across the nation.
Whatever policies it supports should be amply supported by evidence and experience, such as class size reduction and early childhood education.
The more I travel, the more I recognize the enormous diversity of this great nation.
It is the height of arrogance to believe that there is one set of reforms that will work in every school in every community, be it urban, suburban, rural, or something in-between.
No one person in this nation is wise enough to tell everyone else how to teach and how to evaluate teachers and how to run schools.
No district has all the answers.
There are specific roles that the federal government should play. In this interview, I describe what I think is most important.
This reader says, look around you.
I believe great teachers know their subject matter, know pedagogy, know child development, know classroom management techniques, know motivational strategies, are passionate about what they do, and are willing to try new things. Most of the teachers I have met and worked with in my 16 years of teaching have these qualities. Why is it so hard to believe that most of our teachers are great dedicated talented professionals? Don’t tell me that the key difference in student achievement between Hartford, Connecticut and Greenwich, Connecticut is that Greenwich has all the “great teachers.”
New Jersey is unquestionably one of the two or three highest performing states in the nation on NAEP. Given its extremes of wealth and pockets of dense poverty, it may well be the highest performing state.
As is obvious by now, Governor Chris Christie and his helper Chris Cerf hope to privatize as much of he state school system as they can while they can.
Jersey Jazzman is predictably wary of the Newark contract. Here is his take on the deal, which is funded in large part by private and non-recurring money.
Samuel Freedman has a lovely article in the New York Times about young Catholic teachers working together in Tucson.
They are part of a program called the Alliance for Catholic Education, which was created at Notre Dame. They spend a summer at Notre Dame preparing to teach and another summer reviewing what they have learned and sharpening their skills. Notre Dame teaching coaches are available to them during their time on the job.
When I visited Notre Dame last spring, I met Father Tim Scully, the founder of ACE, who is truly a spiritual leader. I conversed with many of the fine young people preparing to enter their ACE experience.
They pledge to teach for two years in a Catholic school in an impoverished neighborhood.
They live in community, pray together, and are paid only $1,000 a month.
Some, though not all, decide to become teachers after their ACE experience.
They are not on a fast track to power.
They don’t have a direct line to McKinsey or Goldman Sachs or JP MorganChase.
They don’t expect to be working in the office of the Mayor or the Governor after teaching for two years.
They don’t expect to become state commissioner of education by 35.
They work in a spirit of humility, commitment and caring.
They help to keep Catholic education alive, a system that has served poor and immigrant children well for almost two centuries and that is now imperiled by lack of nuns and competition with charter schools.
I don’t understand all the details of the deal reached by the Newark Teachers Union and the Christie administration. The final details were hammered out by Randi Weingarten, NTU president Joseph Del Grosso, Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson, Acting State Commissioner Chris Cerf, and perhaps Governor Chris Christie as well.
Some people (and I include myself) worry that the deal includes merit pay tied to “performance” (test scores). I don’t think that is ever a good idea. It produces perverse incentives for cheating, narrowing the curriculum, and gaming the system.
But the odd thing about this agreement is that there is so much money for almost every one of Newark’s 3,100 teachers. There are retroactive raises; there are bonuses for working in low-performing schools; there are bonuses for working in high-need subjects like math, science and special education. There’s lots and lots of money, enough for all, and in addition, there is peer review added in at almost every stage.
A big chunk of the financing is coming from private sources, including Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift to Newark.
Nothing about layoffs; nothing about firing the teachers whose students left for Newark’s rapidly multiplying charter schools.
I am beginning to wonder if Randi and Joe walked away with Governor Christie’s shirt and trousers and he didn’t even notice.
To keep this act going, Mark Zuckerberg better pony up another $100 million for other districts.
More such “victories” like this for Christie and Cerf, and the teachers of New Jersey will be laughing all the way to the bank.
The ascent to power of anyone connected to Teach for America continues.
Governor Cuomo just appointed De’Shawn Wright as Deputy Secretary of Education for the state of New York.
Wright spent two or four years (it’s not clear) teaching in New York City as a member of TFA. Then he quickly ascended to big jobs in the Mayor’s office and the New York City Department of Education. From there he became a senior advisor to Mayor Corey Booker in Newark, then on to an even bigger job in Washington, D.C.
Now–without any experience as a principal or a superintendent, without any direct knowledge of curriculum or school administration–he will advise the government on some of the most important issues facing the state. He joins Commissioner John King, another charter booster in Albany. Perhaps he will tell the governor how to evaluate teachers, though he has never done it himself.
Only in America could rank amateurs rise to the top of a crucial profession.
According to the latest news, the parents at Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, California, have chosen a charter operator to take over their low-performing public school.
This is the first instance in the nation where the “parent trigger” has been put into effect.
But it is not a demonstration of parent empowerment or democracy.
There are over 600 children in the school.
286 signed the petition to convert to a charter.
Some parents asked to have their names removed when they realized that the school would be handed over to a charter operator. The judge said no. He said they were not allowed to revoke their signature.
When the vote to choose a charter operator was taken, only parents who signed the petition were allowed to vote.
Parents who did not sign the petition were not allowed to vote.
Only 53 parents voted.
Fifty parents selected the charter operator. Three voted for another operator.
Some parent empowerment.
The U.S. Department of Education is doing something to the nation’s schools that has never been done before.
Through the leverage of its Race to the Top program, it has persuaded, pushed, and prodded at least 36 states to evaluate teachers by the test scores of their students.
There is no evidence that this will improve education or teaching. There is reason to believe it will incentivize narrowing the curriculum, cheating, and teaching to the test.
There is plenty of evidence from sources like the National Academy of Education and the American Educational Research Association that the ratings will reflect who is in the class, not teacher quality.
John Thompson, guest-blogging for Anthony Cody, asks why the Gates Foundation went full-steam ahead with value-added assessment and the MET Project, encouraging rapid implementation of value-added assessment without waiting to get the results of its experimentation.
Wouldn’t it have been wiser to learn how to do it right rather than imposing this untried, unproven methodology on millions of students and teachers?
Never before has the U.S. Department of Education imposed its views on the nation–even when there was ample evidence to support its policies.
No one knows how to make VAA work without incentivizing all the wrong consequences.
It would have been a good idea to do this right, not fast.
Unfortunately both Gates and Duncan agreed that the basic problem of U.S. education is “bad” teachers.
They are wrong, and they won’t admit it.
The basic problem of American education is poverty.
The kids in affluent districts are doing very well indeed.
On my trip to the Midwest this past week, I met the superintendents of 86 districts in Michigan who belong to the Tri-County Alliance, which enrolls almost half the children in the state. Every one I spoke to (and I had a private dinner with a dozen leaders of the group) told me of the state’s efforts to destroy public education and to create a free market of schools, where schools compete for “customers” (students). One of the members is already on the Honor Roll as a hero of public education, but as I looked around the room, I saw many potential members, because every one of those superintendents is a fighter for public education.
A reader sent this article written by another superintendent in Michigan, Rod Rock.
For speaking out against the misuse of testing, Rod Rock joins the Honor Roll of heroes of public education.
Stop using the MEAP test
Rod Rock
October 18, 2012
Over a period of three weeks each October, tens of thousands of Michigan’s school-aged children sit in their seats for several hours each day taking the MEAP tests. In these three weeks, teachers virtually stop teaching and kids stop learning. Three to five months later, the State of Michigan returns the results to schools and ranks them to determine teacher effectiveness, school effectiveness, principal effectiveness and per-pupil funding levels. All of this information is then reported to the press, and schools that do not achieve a designated level of advancement/achievement receive sanctions.
As a superintendent of schools, I am troubled that a single assessment carries this much weight. I am troubled that such young children are subject to long interruptions in their learning. I am troubled that this assessment is multiple-choice based and inconsistent with the philosophy of learning in our schools.
Even before the first #2 pencil is sharpened, the first test booklet is opened and the first instructions read to students by a teacher, I can tell you the results. I can tell you that the tests do not truly reflect the quality of learning in a school. I can tell you that a test score alone is not a reflection of the quality of the teacher. These tests will verify for us what we already know: Kids who come from middle- to high-income homes will do well on the MEAP. Kids whose parents have a bachelor’s degree or higher will meet achievement targets on the MEAP. Kids whose mothers can read well will demonstrate proficiency on the MEAP.
We already know the results. Why stop student learning and spend tens of millions of dollars to verify what we already know? We are already assessing our students’ learning on a regular basis and we are already providing support for students who struggle. The tests provide no useful information to teachers, largely because it takes three to five months to get the results.
I say we stop the MEAP and use more authentic measures to assess teacher, principal, school and school district effectiveness. I say that communities work across governmental, private and not-for-profit sectors to intervene shortly after conception on behalf of kids. I say that we offer parenting classes, child nutrition classes, and that every child is enrolled in a high quality preschool program. I say that we do not wait until the results of the tests come back or until the state tells schools they have not reached performance targets. I say we do it now in every community across Michigan. A switch from the current remediation/intervention model to a prevention model would prevent the proliferation of factors that largely determine scores on tests, such as poverty and learning disabilities. Eventually, a prevention system will alleviate failure, dropouts, special education and even prison time.
When educational policy one day reflects research instead of politics, our public schools will become authentic reflections of organic learning, and we will no longer need standardized tests to measure students’ knowledge or potential. Instead, the ability to think will emanate authentically from every child we educate.
We won’t be able to turn them off from telling us what they know and how they know it, and test scores will reflect it.
Rod Rock is superintendent of Clarkston Public Schools.
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