Four years ago, I was in Colorado to discuss education policy. This was in the heady early days of Race to the Top (which Colorado did not win, despite its whole-hearted embrace of everything Arne Duncan wanted). On one occasion, I was scheduled to debate State Senator Michael Johnston, the darling of the “reform” crowd. Johnston had written a bill that was coming to a vote that very day. His bill made student test scores count for 50% of every educators’ evaluation. An effective evaluation, his bill decreed, required growth in student scores. Johnston called his bill something like “Great Schools, Great Educators.” Or something like that. Every bill these days must contain at least one impossible promise in its title.
As I said, we were supposed to debate in front of a packed room of civic leaders, maybe 80 or so people. I waited and waited. No Johnston. Finally, I got up and spoke my concerns in his absence. No sooner did I finish than the doors at the back of the room opened and out popped young Senator Johnston. I say young because he appeared to be about 25, though I think he was actually 32. He was then considered the leading voice of education reform in the Legislature, despite members who were retired and experienced educators. Senator Johnston had served two years in Teach for America, then was principal of a school for two years, then ran for state senate. And now he was rewriting the state’s education laws! Truly a whiz kid!
Since he did not hear me, he did not have to respond to anything I said. Instead, he spoke in glowing terms of his legislation. He had an almost mystical faith in the amazing results that would automatically materialize as soon as teachers and principals were evaluated by the academic growth of their students. He seemed to believe that the only source of low scores was the absence of incentives and sanctions for those unmotivated, possibly lazy educators. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to believe that he knew what he was talking about.
Now, we know it takes time to phase in new policies and practices. As Bill Gates famously said, “It will take a decade to know whether this stuff works.” What he meant by “this stuff,” I guess, is the idea that privatization and measuring teacher quality by student scores will make students better educated. My own view is that we should stop looking for the “secret sauce” because it is a chimera. Instead, we should do what we know works, which is reduced class sizes, early childhood education, family education, experienced teachers, healthy children, a full and rich curriculum, and the wraparound services that children need. But all that is complicated, not simple; our data-driven reformers like simple solutions, the bumper sticker ideas.
But surely we should see some positive movement in Colorado, don’t you think? And it should be cumulative, stronger every year as the “reforms” take hold.
The latest state scores from Colorado–which has been dominated by data-driven reformers for a decade– are unimpressive. Actually, the scores of third-graders, who have known nothing other than a testing culture, took a slight dip. In truth, they were flat.
Oh, well, maybe next year, we will see the miracle that Senator Johnston promised. Or the year after that.
Meanwhile Senator Johnston has been invited to be Alumni Commencement Speaker at Harvard Graduate School of Education, which has aroused some protest. This is allegedly a tribute to his great accomplishment in Colorado, where every year his promises grow more hollow. How many of the graduates at HGSE would want to work under Johnston’s law? Presumably, students at HGSE read research and know that VAM is Junk Science.
These guys pop up like garden mold after a rain. They talk at you, not to you, with a wild-eyed, caffeine-driven mania. After dancing like marionettes as ALEC pulls the strings, they magically disappear to avoid all accountability. It will be the true educators, the teachers, cleaning up the mess when the billionaires finish with their playthings.
Excellent imagery!
After reading about the “motivating” “shout outs” at Teach for America in the previous post, and now this sham debate, I can only conclude that Ed Reform (which is based on “rank and yank” ) has the elements of a fundamentalist cult — a combination of of Enron and Billy Sunday (with a touch of Bernie Madow). Emanating from Harvard, no less! We live in strange times.
Harold: you are going to provoke negative reactions from every “fundamentalist cult” by comparing them to the movers and shakers and enablers of the self-styled “education reform” movement.
Proof? Just read an ex-TFAer about the proper mind-set and behavior of corps members:
Link: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/i-quit-teach-for-america/279724/
Now, how can that be compared to a fundamentalist cult?
Or is the above a Rheetorical question?
Rheeally?
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quote: “The latest state scores from Colorado–which has been dominated by data-driven reformers for a decade– are unimpressive.”
this is probably not the place to make this parallel but I see the VA difficulties in a similar fashion ; the nurses and doctors get criticized. Washington policy will incentivize the computers to spit out data; the data get distorted to meet the funding priority??? or some other goal? or even worse, the data are distorted on purpose. But, the purchase of the computers to spit out the data went through and the corporate will benefit; that doesn’t mean we have fixed any of the problems. If you see parallels, you might want to also read Suzanne Bump’s audit reports of the Division of children and families in MA and why the problems in the audit aren’t being addressed appropriately. On the TV the quick fix band-aid is “buy computers” and you will solve all the problems. This seems to be a parallel in each of the systems: education, VA health care, DFC etc and the corporate $$$$ solution is proposed in each case. The feds incentivize it with the “gun to the head”… I keep writing to the Governor of MA but he is on a new career ladder and I just wish he could fix a few things before he leaves.
Familiar scenario
1- Media ramps up rhetoric, spilling into outrage. “The U.S. Office of Personnel Management uses an antiquated system for federal pensions. The office is in a cave!”. “Education is a disaster, student performance languishes behind all other countries!” “Pensions are out of money and tax payers are paying for lavish lifestyles!” “Hundreds of veterans die from inadequate healthcare at the VA!” “‘Social Security is bankrupting the nation!” “The post office will require a massive bailout!” Etcetera.
2-In sync with media, think tanks create data/reports, manufacturing the illusion of system-wide failures and then, send representatives to the state and federal congresses to “testify” about what is needed. Surprise, expensive private fixes are required.
3- Politicians respond. “New computers and software must be acquired by the Office of Personnel Management.”
“Schools must purchase testing and curriculum (copyrighted for profits).” “Government workers must buy 401K’s”. “The VA must be privatized.” “Employees must save and invest in hedge funds.” “The post office is redundant, switch to private sector providers.” Etcetera.
4- And, at the end of the loop, business moguls reward politicians. It may be campaign funds or a loose equivalent. Or, it may be the possibility of a lucrative revolving door.
Tiresome process.
thanks, linda, you have captured it… there are parallels. And, the business types with profit incentives are ready to move right in because the “computer” has the answer and if we buy more computers and spit out more data we can magically solve the issues. Deus ex machina. There is a whole “technology bubble” that is ready to explode ; yet, it has become that status seeker’s goal to purchase more of the machines and ramp up the need for “STEM” etc…. I have muddied things a bit here in trying to say you have captured it well and thank you.!
the lucrative revolving door and the career ladder — I write to the Governor’s email to tell him that Mitchell Chester should just take his job with Pearson/PARCC NOW!!! and not wait for 2 more years. I have seen some of the comets across the state in their career ladder and they leave devastation behind in 3 or more school districts while working their way into the state office. The lobbyist to legislator and back and forth is another career revolving door…. is that the one you had in mind? I know we had one fellow on payroll in a special education program who never showed up one day for work but was lobbyist with connections to legislature and consulting with computer firm… at least that one was identified and another individual paid a $5,000 ethics violation fine but we need more oversight
After ten years of reform, the third grade TCAPS for Colorado dipped 1.5% to 71.5%. Denver Public Schools, on which I shall focus, saw a 1.4% drop to 59.6%. DPS superintendent Boasberg always compares Denver to the state. Frankly the state ought to be ashamed as should Denver Public Schools which has become the poster child for all things reform. Oh, and the achievement gap which reform is going to eliminate, increased 5% to 38%. In ten years of reform these scores in Denver have gone from 52% in 2005 to 59.6% in 2014 for an average gain of less than 0.8% per year. State scores have seen even smaller gains over this period.
Superintendent Boasberg always find a way to spin the nothingness of reform by writing in his weekly MY DPS newsletter how DPS is improving. Guess what he didn’t write about this week? Diane has said the scores basically remained flat. I beg to differ. While common sense and statistics may say that, the fact that DPS went DOWN is a huge public relations disaster here, not to mention another indicator reform is failing. You can’t spin DOWN. Out of 100 elementaries, 53 went down, 43 went up, 4 no scores because of newness, etc. My old district, an economically middle class and above district, saw 8 of 12 schools go DOWN. When is enough enough? What is the definition of insanity?
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” [Albert Einstein]
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As one, all Harvard education school graduates need to turn their chairs around the minute this Michael Johnston clown starts talking. What a horrible way to end a graduate education.
To me, it seems the monied class are seeking to devalue anyone who is in a service job. Finding ways to turn student learning into a product helps to pave the way to make profits from a service. I find it puzzling and degrading that service workers are looked down upon. But it seems that, despite having earned degrees, teachers are viewed by many as servants without opportunity to grow financially unless they decide to agree with the leadership, advancing the privatization goals.
What better way to do this than to take find new graduates willing to get inside the teaching profession, stay a couple of years, and assume roles of experts? This undercuts traditional education from its roots…teachers, principals, schools of education, curriculum design, and leadership. If providing a service is considered menial and valueless, providing low paid hourly jobs instead of professional salaries will be the profiteers’ choice. It is a means to an end.
Their goal seems to be to replace educators with monitors who may be paid even less than first year teachers are now.
I think this embodies the feelings of disrespect that veteran teachers began to realize, resulting in droves of retirees. Younger teachers are seeing their opportunities dwindle and feel that they may have entered the wrong profession.
I can honestly say that the thing most hurtful to me and my colleagues was the feelings of disrespect that crept into the kinds of nitpicky subjective evaluations we endured, while the fake objective lists were randomly used to “observe” us to collect “data”. I want to know when opinions became “scientific data”.
First line “is” not “are”.
Johntston’s bill, the implementation of Gates’ policy, with a pat on the back from Obama. Originally named, the data beatings will continue until morale improves.
Looks like they couldn’t upscale the secret to their success? How to relocate all the low performing students out of state to improve stats. How much money do you have to offer a low scoring student for a long bus ride to Nebraska?
Harvard University couldn’t find an intellectual to speak to those worthy graduates? How insulting to, what I’m sure are, research based graduates who studied all the greats (chomsky, vygotsky, Bloom, Dewey, Brown ) opposite of edreformers.
HGSE has been foisting itself and its rheeforminess upon the Boston Public Schools for years. The have made an unholy alliance with the Business School. Profit and privatize anyone? And remember, it’s Harvahd. Naturally, they know more than anyone else, because it’s Harvahd.
Weren’t the research flaws of the Rogoff/Reinhart study enough of an embarrassment for Harvard?
Good info! Never knew. Let me know of colleges that are more resistance than reform! Have got to start looking for a public schooler in a couple years!!
this is the report released and it tells of a meeting to present the results (if I lived anywhere nearby I would go and listen)
quote: “The Colorado State Board of Education met for its regularly scheduled meeting heard findings from the first phase of a study commissioned to examine issues and concerns associated with implementation of the new state assessment system.
Researchers from WestEd will be in Denver to share the presentation that was provided to the board on Wednesday, May 21 from 2-3:30 p.m. at CDE, 201 E. Colfax Ave., State Board Room, in Denver.”
on the website for CDE you can read the report… I tried to copy it into this space …
“As Bill Gates famously said, ‘It will take a decade to know whether this stuff works.’ What he meant by ‘this stuff,’ I guess, is the idea that privatization and measuring teacher quality by student scores will make students better educated.”
Aren’t people who are truly dedicated to quality education for all of our students completely sick and tired of the “experiments” ???!!! When will this horrible time in public education end???
Isn’t the whole point to show how badly the schools are doing so someone can swoop in and save them? So we are damned either way?
The “great promise” by and for any individual, or State, begins with the FAMILY. As long as there is divorce, disconnection, denial, lack of concern/input, faulty “conditioning” (ex. poor reward system), etc. there can be no promise, or only that of “less than ideal dysfunctionalism”.
The State (ex. districts) can never make-up for the failures of the families, and neither bypass the moral law of “reaping and sowing”, which is inherent in God’s economy.
So, let us all seek the promise of having better families, and the schools will benefit; anything short of this is misguided policy, vanity and futility.