This post was written by a lawyer who also earned an MAT in secondary education. Writing as a lawyer, informed by her Ed school experience, she says that Arne’s plan to punish education colleges if the students of their graduates don’t get high test scores is “asinine.”
She explains:
“Now, please bear with me. Out here in lawyer-land, there’s a slippery concept that every first year law student must wrap her head around: it’s the idea of distinguishing between actual (or “but for”) causation and proximate (or “legal”) causation. Actual causation is any one of a vast link in the chain of events from the world was created to Harold injured me by hitting me, that, at some level, whether direct or attenuated, “caused” my injury. For instance, Harold couldn’t have hit me if the world hadn’t been created, because if the world hadn’t been created, Harold wouldn’t exist (nor would I), and therefore I never would have been hit by Harold. So, if actual or “but for” causation was legally sufficient to hold someone responsible for an injury, I could try suing “the Creator,” as if the Creator is somehow at fault for Harold’s decision to hit me.
Well, that’s preposterous, even by lawyer standards, right?
The law agrees with you: the Creator is too far removed from the injury, and therefore cannot be held legally responsible for it.
So to commit a tort (legal wrong) against someone else, it isn’t sufficient that the wrong allegedly committed actually — at some attenuated level — caused the injured’s injury (i.e., that the injury would not have happened “but for” some cause). Instead, the wrong must also be proximally related to that injury: that is, there must be a close enough tie between the allegedly negligent or otherwise wrongful act and the injury that results. So while it would be silly to hold “the Creator” legally responsible for Harold hitting me, it would not be similarly silly to hold Harold responsible for hitting me. Harold’s act was not only an actual or “but for” cause of my injury, it was also an act closely enough related to my injury to confer legally liability onto Harold. This is what we lawyers call proximate (or legal) causation: that is, proximate causation is an act that is a close enough cause of the injury that it’s fair — at a basic, fundamental level — to hold the person who committed that injurious act legally responsible (i.e., liable to pay damages or otherwise make reparations) for his act. [As an aside to my aside, if this sort of reasoning makes your head explode, law school probably isn’t a great option for you.]
Well, it appears that Arne Duncan would have failed his torts class. You see, Arne didn’t get the memo regarding the distinction between actual causation and proximate causation. Instead, what Arne proposes is to hold teacher prep programs responsible for the performance of their alumni’s K-12 students (and to punish them if their alumni’s students don’t measure up). Never mind the myriad chains in the causation link between the program’s coursework and the performance of its graduates’ students (presumably on standardized tests). Arne Duncan somehow thinks that he can proximally — fairly — link these kids’ performance not just to their teachers (a dicey proposition on its own), but to their teachers’ prep programs. Apparently Arne can magically tease out all other factors, such as where an alumna teaches, what her students’ home lives are like, how her students’ socio-economic status affects their academic performance, the level of her students’ intrinsic motivation, as well as any issues in the new alumna’s personal life that might affect her performance in the classroom, and, of course, the level of support provided to the new alumna as a new teacher by her department and administration, and so forth. As any first year law student can tell you, Arne’s proposal is asinine, as the alumna’s student’s test results will be so far removed from her teaching program’s performance that ascribing proximate causation from the program to the children’s performance offends a reasonable person’s sense of justice. [Not to mention the perverse incentives this would create for teaching programs’ career advising centers — what teaching program would ever encourage a new teacher to take on a challenging teaching assignment?]”
But that isn’t all. She compares her experience in her education school to her experience in law school and says that the education courses were far more practical than the law school and did a better job preparing her for the real world.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is crazy.. Just makes their situation worst. These students need support and mentoring, not another reminder of their failures. Arne needs a reality check…He is clueless. M
akes me angry and very sad.
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I have long been getting Diane Ravitch’s posts, but they seemed to have stopped. I thought Diane was not well. When I went to her blog site today, I discovered there were new blogs. I don’t know what has happened. I presubscribed, but, for sure, I don’t want 2—just one. I did just get this one. Thanks for helping.
Anne O’Neill Kellers (aok13@optonline.net)
Anne, I am not expert about this, but this is the experience of others who have been “dropped” by WordPress. Unsubscribe completely and re-subscribe. What happened to you has happened to many others, and I have no explanation.
Wouldn’t Duncan’s argument then suggest that he, as head of the DOE, is then ultimately responsible for the students’ failure?
Read the whole piece. That is exactly where it ends, with Arne held responsible for the flat lines in PSA scores. I really appreciated the detailed first person reports on teacher education and lawyer education.
If this goes through, can a teacher sue the College that conferred their degree if their students fail and the teacher is fired or denied a raise, etc?
As my education law professor taught us, anyone can sue anyone for anything. The question is whether or not you would win.
To me it just means that everything he has said about his concerns about the focus on standardized tests was political. It was intended to placate parents. He isn’t listening.
If he’s tying more and more of ed reform to standardized tests, he’s not reducing the reliance and focus on standardized tests, he’s increasing it.
He can’t get to “B” (reducing reliance) thru “A” (tying more and more to standardized tests).
He must know this. Therefore, his rhetoric was political. It’s pandering.
They’re just testing students for ONE MORE high stakes purpose. It’s as if they have decided to pretend addition is subtraction. It doesn’t matter what they say- addition isn’t subtraction.
There are two parts to the objection to standardized testing; the frequency of the tests and the FOCUS on the tests. This will inevitably increase the focus on test scores.
The point of Arne’s policies are to shut down ed schools if they don’t merely focus on test prep, so that the schools (ahem, employee training centers for military style charter chains) that do just that, such as Relay and Match, can snap up market share and train the majority of teachers. This is evident by the fact that places like Relay have extended their tentacles and are now training teachers from traditional K12 public schools.
Ed schools should sue before they become extinct as the result of a policy that legally holds no water and is one more example of corporate “reform” racketeering.
Arne’s worst idea? That’s a BIG claim. How can one possibly chose the worst from among the teeming absurdities of current U.S. federal education policy? Never has the phrase “an EMBARRASSMENT of riches” seemed so appropriate.
You’ve heard of Turtles all the way down, right?
Well, this is
“Absurdles all the way down”
Duncan’s worst idea
Is resting on another
And what is very clear
Is that one had a mother
lol!
I have to say just as a citizen, too, that the Obama Administration has absolutely failed at regulating for-profit colleges. They failed so completely that they are currently bailing out a for-profit chain. That happened on their watch.
I think it’s amusing that they have taken this stern, get-tough line with colleges that train teachers, while they coddle these for-profit chains that rip off some of the most vulnerable people in the country.
I hope that isn’t because the for-profit chains are hugely politically connected, in both the Democratic and Republican parties. I wish they’d take some of that regulatory zeal and apply it consistently, is all I’m saying.
Great post. Seems that the entire reform movement stuggles with the whole concept of causation, regardless of proximity, confused with correlation and ideology.
In a nutshell (or house), what they struggle with is the concept of reality
Remember, they make the reality and the peons are graciously allowed to react to it. Not to do anything to change that reality except to react to it.
MathVale: yes.
SomeDAM Poet & Duane Swacker: good follow ups.
Just consider part of the difficulty that the ‘thought leaders’ of the self-proclaimed “education reform” have in explaining their policies and rationales. *Suggested to me by three recent books: Anthony Cody, THE EDUCATOR AND THE OLIGARCH; Yong Zhao, WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD DRAGON?; and Dana Goldstein, THE TEACHER WARS.*
They will admit that other factors besides teachers play a part in student “achievement/performance” . But they fault the rest of us for trying to directly tackle the host of difficulties and obstacles present in the real world because it’s too much to handle. According to them, the key lies in measuring some one aspect of the in-school/out-of-school factors that is amenable to the rewards and punishments that they will mete out using the sorts of measurements they are comfortable with, understand, and profit from both financially and egowise.
That translates into test scores, with other so-called “multiple measures” used in circular fashion to predict, ensure, and align with, those test scores. And they use their very limited and self-justifying and self-reinforcing ‘measurements’ as a way to devalue public school staff, above all teachers.
So yes, with studied determination and quite vociferously they accuse the rest of us of ignoring what they consider the one most important element of equity necessary for they sort of education they want the vast majority to have: “highly effective” teachers aka “champions of test prep.” All that other stuff, from counselors and nurses and librarians to TAs and SpecEd teachers and healthy physical environments and so on, are just distractions from the rheeal problem—
How to solve every other problem in the world, indirectly, by getting those mythically defined “highly effective” teachers into every classroom and removing all the mythically defined “highly ineffective” teachers out.
The disconnection with reality is complete. This is like the comic books I read when I was a small child with the ads for a secret one-finger Chinese martial arts move that enabled 100-pound weaklings to crush 200-pound bullies. Just send them the money and they would send you back a booklet that gave every tormented youngster that secret sauce, magical formula, silver bullet, pixie dust, that they needed to defend themselves.
Even as a youngster I knew then that that was total nonsense. Reality is a lot more complex and messy and difficult.
There is no one single gimmick in anything as complex as self-defense or public education.
The very indirect and measured approach of the leaders of the so-called “education reform” movement is just a way of maintaining the status quo and hoping that, magically, somehow, someway, positive change will happen in education.
You don’t solve problems by minimizing, and in practice, running away from them. The rebellion of the 13 colonies from England. The anti-slavery movement. The women’s suffrage and rights movement. The civil rights movement. Just to mention a few. They didn’t get even partial victories by aiming low.
Just like shooting an arrow at a target far away. You have to aim high in order just to hit the target.
Pardon the length of my comments, but IMHO, the rheephormistas don’t have big ideas or goals or aspirations, but actually very limited and small ones, and they continually fall back on proven failures like merit pay and stack ranking and scripted teaching.
Again, thank y’all for your comments.
😎
¡EEBD!
It’s all just one more way of saying that the value of public education does not reside in the real outcomes of universal, free, public education — to wit, a more creative, critically wise, and civil society — that it does not reside in the long-term well-being of the teaching profession and its public — that its value is simply what We, the Corporate State says it is.
It’s all about shifting the locus of valuation to arbitrary arbiters of arbitrage.
Yes, and your words are uncommonly apt in describing the loss.
The same legal reasoning can be applied to VAM. While it is true that a teacher has direct contact with a student for at least 180+ days a year, can it be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the teacher is the main cause of the student’s poor score on a test? Then the lawyer would attack the VAM formula and throw in an array of other possible scenarios. Other factors such as poor nutrition, poverty, a history of mental illness, unstable living conditions and history of violence and drugs in the home would be presented. I may not be a lawyer, but I watch the “Good Wife” so I know the play. I have seen murderers walk with less evidence.. “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.” The teacher would be found “not guilty.”
The reform idea is teachers are considered guilty until proven less guilty.
Guilty until proven VAMocent
“Guilty until proven VAMocent”
Guilty until VAMocent
Is what the teachers are
Nobody gets Duncansent
‘Til proven by their score
Oh, retired teacher! You are sounding like a TV doctor! “I’m not a real doctor, but I play one on TV.” “I’m not a real lawyer, but I watch an actor play a lawyer on TV.” I totally agree with you, but you are going to get murdered for your example! 🙂
Let’s just say I am as much an expert in the law as Jeb Bush is an expert in education.
VAM/SLOs/SGOs are being used to measure the effectiveness of teachers using the scores of . . .
a) students they DO NOT TEACH, or
b) students in subjects that they DO NOT TEACH.
I don’t think this would even qualify as “actual” (‘but for’) causation, much less “proximate” (‘legal’) causation.
Any teacher that has suffered harm under this brazen misuse of VAM/SLOs/SGOs should absolutely contact a lawyer.
On the other hand, your injury was reasonably foreseeable to an omniscient Creator.
FYSMI —
☞ The Present Is Big With The Future
Tell it to the judge, Leibniz.
HIS NOOODLY APPENDAGE pleads innocent!
Thank you, Diane, for reposting this, and thank you all for the comments and discussion.
Susan, I think my P.S. does make exactly this point (and the WaPo version of this post, where I had to tone things down slightly, incorporates the P.S. into the body of the post) — I suggest that the feds should pull Harvard’s funding because Arne has failed to raise test scores nationally.
Teacher Ed — A lawsuit is too early here, but the traditional teacher prep programs should certainly be lobbying and submitting formal comments to the proposal. By the way, anyone can submit a formal comment (I did!). Here’s the link: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/12/03/2014-28218/teacher-preparation-issues Comments close in 56 days.
Bob Shepherd — I called it Asinine Arne’s Idiotic Idea. I think some of his other ideas (especially re: special education) might actually be the “worst” ideas, but this does strike me as the most preposterous.
MathVale — Agreed!
Jon Awbrey — Agreed as well! I’ve been writing a lot about the idea that the purpose of public education is educating citizens for a democracy, and that preparing students for “college and careers” may be a happy byproduct of educating citizens, but that such preparation is NOT the purpose of taxpayers devoting our hard-earned funds to supporting our public schools.
Retired Teacher — Agreed that the same reasoning likely applies to VAM, although you’ll see people who honestly believe that the economists were able to pinpoint the amount of a teacher’s influence. Just as an FYI, however, much as we might like to indulge in hyperbole, this is a potential civil case, not a criminal case, so the appropriate standard of proof is preponderance of the evidence (i.e., 51% or “more likely than not,”) and not the criminal standard of proof (“beyond a reasonable doubt”).
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Sarah,
If you haven’t read Noel Wilson’s complete destruction of the supposed validity of educational standards and standardized testing, I suggest you do for total background information for all the connected issues (such as BlArne’s idiocies) with those educational malpractices. See:
“Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
By Duane E. Swacker
I have to admit that I have somewhat mixed feelings about this post and the underlying story.
On the one hand, I think it’s clear that Duncan doesn’t care about improving the quality of teachers or schools. He is using the teacher programs as an easy target to push programs like TFA and Common Core by shutting down the more traditional teacher programs. The model is that public schools will be reduced to a mechanical process in with heavily scripted lessons and constant testing that requires more monitoring than testing.
On the other hand, I think we have to ask ourselves why Arne has such a big, juicy target in the first place. I think the fact that he can make his claims speaks to the unevenness of teacher training programs, which Diane points out in her book Reign of Error at page 276:
Earlier in her book, Diane set out a vision for a well-qualified teacher (page 274–275):
As the spouse of teacher, a parent who sent kids to public schools, a product of public school education, and a school board member, I’ve seen the lack of professionalism and intellectual quality that is rampant in our schools close up. Some years ago, I considered taking my considerable offering my experience in science, math, and law as a teacher. What I learned was not no one cared about my professional background. The issue was simply whether I would jump through two years of expensive certification classes to get a teaching certificate. That didn’t strike me as the attitude of professionals.
So, it’s not like Arne doesn’t have an argument. What’s disgusting is the reality that he doesn’t want to fix the problem, but use the problem as an excuse to push an even worse solution.
I think the better analogy is not tort law, but the law of contracts. The issue isn’t about injury; it’s about the failure to deliver what was promised. I would argue that for decades, teaches, principals, superintendents, and especially the schools of education and think tanks, have pushed the outlandish promises of the Progressives, which should have been obvious failures many years ago, hand-in-hand with the outlandish promises of Taylorism, again, which should have been disproved years ago, to create a fantasy that the public schools could teach anything to anyone anywhere and at any time. All we had to do was follow our “scientific” education formulas and our “educators” (i.e., the ones who take on the sole responsibility for “educating”) will create students magically ready to take their place in society. Spend some time reading the likes of Dewey, Cubberley, and Thorndike back in the years leading up to the First World War, and this should be obvious.
Well, when you promise the moon on a subway token budget, you’re bound to fail. And when you fail to live up to your promises you have a breach of contract. Our society needs to take a hard look at what can really be done, what needs to be done, what it will cost, and how parents, children, teachers, and administrators need to behave in order to make that happen.
Or else, the future will be brought to you by the letters “T”, “F”, and “A”.
Arne should, but won’t read this, from Politico today.
Abstract: “In this article, we analyze 25 years of data on the academic ability of teachers in New York State and document that since 1999 the academic ability of both individuals certified and those entering teaching has steadily increased. These gains are widespread and have resulted in a substantial narrowing of the differences in teacher academic ability between high- and low-poverty schools and between White and minority teachers.” http://bit.ly/1wiyBfF
M&S,
“ideally, teachers should have a four-year degree with a major in the subject or subjects they plan to teach.”
What is the number of credit hours that are needed to be considered a “major” vs a “minor” or whatever else it may be called?
Gracias,
Duane
Duane, There is no hard and fast rule because it varies by college and by state. (That lack of standardization must make “reformers'” heads spin.) Typically, a BA requires a minimum of 120 semester hours and, very generally, majors account for about 45-60 hours, while minors are about 18-24 hours. (Not all colleges require minors, and some colleges require more hours in a minor and less hours in a major.) The remaining hours are state and college requirements in General Education courses, from the Arts and Sciences, plus electives.
Some states and colleges have required people who want to become certified teachers to have more than 120 hours to graduate, such as more hours in the major and/or minor, as well as more hours in specific Gen Ed courses, in addition to the Gen Eds required of all students.
I forgot to mention that while states like mine had long had semester hour requirements in specific courses for teachers, that changed after NCLB and NCATE state partnerships. because ed schools were required to go to standards based programs. That meant eliminating course hour requirements and replacing them with documentation of student competence in meeting standards. (A veritable nightmare!)
Somehow this got left out of my message above:
In response to the change from course hour requirements to standards based competencies for teachers, some colleges made major changes to their programs, such as eliminating minors and courses that had been previously required by the state. Other schools just made minor changes and largely stuck to their traditional course hour requirements, even though the state no longer required them, and they added measures for evaluating and documenting students’ standards-based competencies;
This is more old news. As I mentioned previously, ever since NCLB, ed schools in 48 states have had to meet NCATE standards, whether the schools sought individual NCATE accreditation or not, because their states partnered with NCATE and made those standards state requirements. This included building partnerships with the college of Liberal Arts and Sciences at universities, such as by getting input from LAS faculty, as well as their evaluations of the performance of ed school students in their classes and their dispositions. There are many more tests that people have had to pass in order to become certified since NCLB and NCATE state partnerships. It’s also required that teachers majored in and are certified in the area they are teaching, in order to be considered highly qualified under NCLB.
The only regular dumbing down that I know about is how states have made exceptions for TFA, for whom those requirements are waived. So even though they are not certified, TFAers with 5 weeks of summer school training are treated as if they are full fledged certified teachers and they are often placed in classrooms where they teach subjects unrelated to their majors.
Laura, Duane, and TeacherEd,
Thanks for your comments. I hope DIane will reply, since the quotes I provided on the issue of teacher training are from her book. The question she raised, and which is consistent with my own experience, is whether too many teachers lack an appropriate level of mastery in their subejcts. How that gets determined, of course is the question.
My larger point however, is that I think we need to revisit the question of the basic function of public schools. I think many of the assumptions of what we can do, and how much we’re willing to pay for it, have been disproved by experience. The gap between what the pubic expects and what can be delivered reasonably is now being filled by the likes of Duncan and the de-formers. I fear that if we don’t have this debate, then the public schools won’t survive.
“My larger point however, is that I think we need to revisit the question of the basic function of public schools. I think many of the assumptions of what we can do, and how much we’re willing to pay for it, have been disproved by experience. The gap between what the pubic expects and what can be delivered reasonably is now being filled by the likes of Duncan and the de-formers. I fear that if we don’t have this debate, then the public schools won’t survive.”
You’re quite correct with that paragraph. So, then:
What are your thoughts on the basic function of public education?
I believe we must start with both the “raison d’etat” and the “raison d’etre” for public schools. With the reasons for public schooling being found in each states constitution the place to start might be to compile those reasons. For example here in Missouri the reason as given in the constitution is: Article IX-EDUCATION
Section 1(a) Free public schools–age limit.
Section 1(a). A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the general assembly shall establish and maintain free public schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this state within ages not in excess of twenty-one years as prescribed by law.
Or for Maine:
A general diffusion of the advantages of education being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people; to promote this important object, the Legislature are authorized, and it shall be their duty to require, the several towns to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the support and maintenance of public schools; and it shall further be their duty to encourage and suitably endow, from time to time, as the circumstances of the people may authorize, all academies, colleges and seminaries of learning within the State; provided, that no donation, grant or endowment shall at any time be made by the Legislature to any literary institution now established, or which may hereafter be established, unless, at the time of making such endowment, the Legislature of the State shall have the right to grant any further powers to alter, limit or restrain any of the powers vested in any such literary institution, as shall be judged necessary to promote the best interests thereof.
So perhaps by cataloguing/listing all the state constitutions’ “raison d’etre” we might discern the similarities and commonalities and use that as the starting point of such discussion.
Your thoughts?? Or anyone else’s???
Thanks, Duane!
I like your idea. But I suspect that most states will have language similar to MO and ME. In fact, I would argue, that’s one of the major problems we have today—that we’ve forgotten the basic role of schools in maintaining our democracy, and we’ve become distracted with ideas of using the schools to prepare a “workforce” or create a social utopia (or both). The shift from the former to the latter was a hallmark of the Progressive Era.
Returning to the view that schools serve first to educate our children for their future roles as citizens, and not workers and consumers or “role players” in some social model, would greatly focus the curriculum on developing the intellectual faculties of the students and the attention of the parents.
Democracies require a commitment to three main qualities: equality, justice, and truth. Each of these is best supported by an education that emphasizes the development of observation, thinking, and expression. These in turn would require a focus on the arts, reading, and writing. In short, we would return to the philosophy that runs the very best private schools—the ones the élites like Bill Gates and Arne Duncan send their kids.
It would also require a commitment to end poverty, the single biggest factor in student achievement.
We would stop looking for magical solutions to avoid the poverty problem. We would stop using public education as a dumping ground for useless and superfluous technologies. We would finally grow up and stop looking for “Superman”. We would build our society on developing the most precious resources we have—our children’s intellects.
It’s certainly a ridiculous idea. Two frustrations:
1.) It gives an extra use/justification for the standardized tests.
2.) It distracts from his far more damaging though theoretically less ridiculous ideas of evaluating teachers and schools by test scores.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. If you read the whole post on my original blog rather than just Diane’s excerpt of it, which is great, but understandably doesn’t capture everything in the original post (or the slightly less “salty” version on Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet blog over at the Washington Post – http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/12/02/the-concept-education-secretary-duncan-has-entirely-missed/ ), you’ll see that I did not give at least my own teacher-education program a free pass.
I don’t think this is an either/or issue. I think it’s a “both” issue. That is, we can reject the ridiculous proposal out of USDOE/Arne AND we can take the position that our teacher prep programs can and should do better. That being said, as I argued in my piece, I think that part of the argument here does pertain to the practice of anything compared to the study of anything. Neither studying law nor studying education made me feel 100%-fully-absolutely-completely-awesomely-prepared-to-hit-the-ground-running. That’s part of the nature of entering a professional career and/or part of the philosophical problem between learning about a thing and doing that thing: there’s still going to be a gulf between studying education and doing education, even if a teaching program does provide more of an apprenticeship format than, say, a law degree. Unlike Arne, however, I don’t think this is necessarily “bad,” I think it’s simply fact.
There is an assumption that ed schools don’t typically provide internships in high needs public schools, just because Arne and NCTQ say so –both self-appointed authorities on teacher ed. That is blatantly false, because it was a requirement of many states for years and, after NCLB, when 48 states plus DC and Puerto Rico partnered with NCATE, that requirement effectively became law across the land. I know because I experienced it at several urban colleges where I worked prior to NCLB, which had long partnered with inner city schools for its internships. I personally drove students to such placements and served as the clinical supervisor on site.
Then, when my state formed a partnership with NCATE, I was teaching at a suburban college and they had to expand their internship program to include inner city schools. This was done to the chagrin of many students who didn’t plan on ever teaching in the city and who erroneously thought they could circumvent the NCATE requirement by attending a suburban college. Not so.
There is a silver(ish) lining to this very dark and threatening thunderhead. Arne has inadvertently motivated a very large and credible group to join The Resistance,
which now includes P-20 teachers and administrators, parents, high information taxpayers, education majors, and (the soon be added) HS seniors who are prevented from graduating thanks to his black magic (Voodoo) approach to education reform.
I’ve written on this too, and I have to confess how stunningly disappointing yet entirely predictable it was that Secretary Duncan gave a shout out to Relay “GSE” as some kind of innovator.
The Secretary of Education for the United States of America singled out for praise a “graduate school of education” that is based primarily upon the teaching methods employed at a charter where an African American male has only a 40% chance of making it to his senior year.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. And that was BEFORE the proposal of ranking colleges of education based upon the VAMs generated by our graduates.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
Sarah, Virtually every component of corporate “reform” imposed across this country is based on disasters that “reformers” have fabricated and tyrannical racketeering. Clearly, this is being done in order to privatize public education and raid tax dollars, while diverting attention away from the real disasters of poverty, a severe decline in the number of jobs with livable wages, a diminishing middle class and the inequitable distribution of wealth.
Are we supposed to wait until the perpetrators turn the screws and receive their dues for each part of this scheme before lawsuits can be filed? Is that how it works with the mob, too –payoffs have to be made first by victims before anything can be done about all the threats and dire consequences to result from not kowtowing to demands?
Is it possible to file a lawsuit that addresses virtually ALL of the components of the corporate “reform” business plan that is rapidly unravelling the fabric of American education? Maybe the ACLU could manage it, if only someone who cares would help fund it.
There’s a lot to be said for impact litigation, and if someone offered me the opportunity for employment working on meaningful anti-reform education-related impact litigation, I’d be the first to say yes. Education Law Center in NJ, for instance, has done great work over the years, but they’re one tiny organization (and they haven’t offered me a job). And funding is a huge issue here — impact litigation isn’t cheap, and while I do my blogging for free, I do need to earn a living from my day job.
The reality is that there are doctrines — for a reason — that prevent the judiciary from overstepping its role in our balance of powers system. Lawsuits are typically blunt instruments, and they can certainly have unintended consequences. It’s a lot easier (and less costly) to stop a specific proposed regulation or law, such as this one, from becoming the law of the land than it is to challenge that regulation or law once it’s been passed. If you don’t like the proposed regulation, take action to stop it now by calling public attention to it and filing a comment opposed to it. You’ve got 56 days for public comment (although there is a petition going around, for whatever it’s worth, seeking to extend that time).
I don’t think the sort of “umbrella” lawsuit you envision is viable or practical. Rather, lawsuits need to be brought by particular plaintiffs who have standing to sue, against particular defendants who have caused particularized and specifically stated harm. If plaintiffs don’t have standing, the suit will be thrown out on a motion to dismiss, and perhaps some problematic caselaw will be made as a result. So impact litigation needs to be carefully planned and targeted at where it will do the most good. An umbrella lawsuit that takes on standardized testing, charter schools, funding injustice, value-added measurement, and whatever else we’re so frustrated by is not something that’s realistic, regardless of whatever a lawyer-show on TV might have implied.
The proper venue for taking on the “big picture” of corporate reform is not a courthouse (although courthouses are powerful possibilities for dealing with concrete and targeted issues); rather, it’s a grassroots movement, covered by the media, that seeks to influence legislators and executive branch members to roll back the tide of their harmful policies. It’s not easy, and it doesn’t come with the possibility of a judge’s stamp of approval saying that we’re right, but it’s how we get things done in a democracy that hopefully will refuse, despite the odds allied against it, to be beholden to big money, big business, and big philanthropy.
Good luck with that. The oligarchs own 90% of the media and control the message, and gullible voters just gave us a second conservative house in Congress, plus many more GOP in individual states. And most people didn’t vote in such a crucial election.
Except for Bernie Sanders, I can’t think of any politicians who are not complicit in this business plan. I am semi-retired, because I have no pension and can’t afford to live on Social Security alone, and I don’t work in a teacher prep program that leads to certification anymore, but I have signed petitions and provided my input. If I could afford it, I would move to a more equitable country and fund whatever targeted lawsuits would have the best chance of stopping these destructive policies and overturning this corrupt government. But, alas, I am just dreaming –even though I watch mostly PBS and don’t view lawyer shows on TV.
On a side note, could a case be made that the NCLB act is unconstitutional based on the fact that not one state can possibly comply as written, despite their best intentions and efforts? The NCLB act is an example of de-facto entrapment by the federal government; no?
Teacher Ed – I am not saying it’s easy, and I’m not saying that we can accomplish miracles. And I agree with you that we’re in the process of (if we haven’t capitulated completely already) allowing a new oligarchy to take over our governance. But we the people do have power, and we the people can organize, and the reality is that social media does provide us with a tool to thwart the agenda of the “oligarchs.” It’s lumbering and local, and the last election was devastating, but when it came to school-specific elections, look, for instance, at the win in California. Look at Ras Baraka’s win last spring in Newark.
Look what Diane has accomplished with this community. Look what the parents are accomplishing through the United Opt Out movement. Look what the BadAss Teachers are accomplishing. Look what the Save Our Schools movement has been getting done. None of these outlets are perfect, and there are powerful, powerful forces allied against a truly democratizing public education system, but we need to use what avenues are at our disposal. At the moment, with respect to this particular proposal, the avenue at our disposal is to provide public comments to the teacher-prep proposal and to generate media attention to it.
Have I solved the issues I’ve set out to solve? No, I haven’t. But without spending a dime of my own money (just with my “spare” time), I think my writing has managed to help to move the conversation. And in part because The Washington Post has been so generous, I’ve been able to reach millions of people with my writing since I began blogging in early 2014.
And look in particular at the Opt-Out movement. I think that there is no question that awareness of the consequences of high-stakes standardized testing is growing, and I will be participating in the civil disobedience of opting my child out. I doubt it will (even though our local Superintendent is a Reformy Broad Academy grad, her comments at our last BOE meeting show that she sees the line in the sand on this issue locally, and she doesn’t want to cross that line), but if my local district tries to impose negative consequences on my kid as a result of my opt-out decision, then you can bet your ass that I will run into court to seek an injunction, and I’d be happy to represent any other parents similarly situated.
At times, targeted litigation may help to move the cause forward. But the courts are not going to solve these issues. I agree with the federal judges I saw speak last fall, who think that we need a new Brown v. Board of Ed to combat the resegregation of our school system. See: http://parentingthecore.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/yesterday-power-spoke-truth/ I think Philly is a great place to start with that, because the system is so egregiously unfair there. But true desegregation would require solutions that cross school district/town lines, and the Supreme Court put the kibosh on that way back in the day. SCOTUS as it is currently constituted is not going to overturn that precedent.
I think that the State AGs offices are probably the first line of action in challenging endemic charter school fraud. I haven’t looked at the law, so I don’t know whether public school children plaintiffs could acquire standing there, or whether we have to rely on the State AGs to prosecute the charter school fraudsters.
Finally, if you move to a foreign country and want to bankroll me to fight the good fight in the courts, I’m happy to do that. But again, an “umbrella” litigation is not going to be effective here.
Sarah, I will keep you in mind and get back to you when my windfall arrives.
Sarah, your efforts are much appreciated!
☟ What Ariadne Said To Theseus ☟
☞ “You have to understand, the Minotaur is not clueless, he just has a different goal than getting out of the maze.” ☜
Two reasons this qualifies as Arne’s worst idea:
1. NCTQ
2. RELAY
Arne’s recommendations legitimize these faux organizations. Relay purports to be a graduate school of education, when it is better described as a training program not unlike McDonald’s hamburger university. And NCTQ (run by the Fordham Institute) has published a “ranking” of teacher prep programs whose methodology can be summed up this way (from Peter Greene): “this is a report in which some people collected some graduation brochures and course syllabi and close read their way to an indictment of all college teacher training programs”. See Linda Darling Hammond’s more scholarly indictment of NCTQ here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/18/why-the-nctq-teacher-prep-ratings-are-nonsense/
During Duncan’s tenure, up has become down and not through legislation, but stealthily, through regulation changes behind closed doors.
TFA’s = highly qualified teachers
Relay= graduate school of education
FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act) = conduit to give away private information to for-profit entities
NCTQ – “ratings” of teacher prep institutions = research
Charter schools = the answer to life’s persistent questions
Looks like our former pro basketball player has become a water boy, carrying water for the dismantlers of our public school systems.
We are left with only one real question: Why was Arne Duncan appointed Secretary of Education?
For more on NCTQ (it’s worse than you think), see:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/group-rating-teacher-preparation-deserves-close-scrutiny-b9926746z1-210656001.html?ipad=y
If you prefer humor to take off the edge, try Peter Greene’s great takedown:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2014/11/nctq-its-so-easy.html
Ooops! Forgot about the attack on special education.
Is it yet to be worse? He never knows when he ceases to be a Duncanstein since he still seems to have a lot of room in his belly to munch a magical spinach. Next idea? Perhaps sending robo-zombie infected by VAMpire virus to all schools to watch over teachers in the classroom and those joining in the unions.
Christine Langhoff: you are too kind re NCTQ.
From the blog of Aaron Pallas, 6-19-2013, the entire posting:
[start quote]
Yesterday, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released its first national ratings of teacher-preparation programs. Passing judgment on 1,200 undergraduate and graduate programs across the country—but not other routes to teacher certification, such as Teach For America—NCTQ painted a dismal picture. Only four institutions rated four out of four stars: Furman, Lipscomb, Ohio State and Vanderbilt Universities. One hundred sixty-two programs received zero stars, earning them a “Consumer Alert” designation, and an additional 301 were awarded a single star.
The release of the ratings, and their damning character, came as no surprise to schools of education and their supporters. NCTQ has made its mission over the past decade to promote a particular vision of teacher education emphasizing criteria such as the academic performance of teacher candidates, instruction in the teaching of school subjects via scientifically proven methods, and rich clinical experiences. No one really knows if meeting NCTQ’s standards results in better teachers—but that hasn’t slowed down the organization a whit. If an ed school had a mix of goals and strategies different than NCTQ’s and chose not to cooperate in this institutional witch hunt, well, they must have something to hide.
To be sure, few of us relish being put under the microscope. But it’s another matter entirely to be seen via a funhouse mirror. My institution, Teachers College at Columbia University, didn’t receive a summary rating of zero to four stars in the report, but the NCTQ website does rate some features of our teacher-prep programs. I was very gratified to see that our undergraduate elementary and secondary teacher-education programs received four out of four stars for student selectivity. Those programs are really tough to get into—nobody gets admitted. And that’s not hyperbole; the programs don’t exist.
That’s one of the dangers of rating academic programs based solely on documents such as websites and course syllabi. You might miss something important—like “Does this program exist?”
Today, the editorial board of the Washington Post praised the NCTQ ratings, while blaming ed schools for why “many schools are struggling and why America lost its preeminent spot in the world for education.” Sunspots too, I suppose.
I look forward to the Post instructing their restaurant reviewer, Tom Sietsema, to rate restaurants based on their online menus rather than several in-person visits to taste the food.
[end quote]
Link: http://eyeoned.org/content/the-trouble-with-nctqs-ratings-of-teacher-prep-programs_478/
I also suggest viewers look over a posting of 6-24-2013 on this blog entitled “Aaron Pallas: The Trouble with the NCTQ Ratings of Ed Schools” and read the thread.
And again, according to the usual unconfirmed rumors, is it true that NCTQ stands for NotConnectedToQuality?
Do we really have to wait ten years [thank you, Mr. Bill Gates!] to know if this is true?
Or do we already know that anything out of the NCTQ is Rheeally only true in a Johnsonally sort of way. You know, kind of like believing that a prominent self-styled “education rheephormer” can all by her lonesome take “her” [forgetting her pesky co-teacher] kids from the 13th to the 90th percentile but having absolutely no proof that she did the educational equivalent of walking on water and turning water in wine.
Hard data points. Seems like every time they end up in the hands of the ‘thought leaders’ of the self-styled “education reform” movement they end up having less backbone than a jellyfish.
Or at least that’s how I see it…
😎
I concede your point.
Christine Langhoff: I appreciate your graciousness.
I know I laid it on thick.
Please keep commenting. I’ll keep reading.
😎
Great post, KrazyTA, though I have to admit that I overlooked the “kindness” towards NCTQ in Christine’s post and links.
I have seen so many changes in teacher ed since 1990 that are not readily apparent from perusing the kinds of documents that NCTQ examines. I attended many meetings and conferences with other colleges, where schools described the changes they made in detail.
For example. after standards-based teacher ed became mandatory in my state, one college completely redesigned its programs and created all new courses, each named after one of the NCATE standards (which differ from the standards created by the self-appointed ed school rater NCTQ).
Some ed schools tore apart their own college in order to diffuse teacher ed across colleges in the university (and they still did not get high rankings from NCTQ). As an example, see Illinois State University, which offers 29 undergraduate teacher ed programs, “Secondary & K12 Education Programs: At Illinois State, these majors are housed within other colleges”
http://education.illinoisstate.edu/academics/majors/index.shtml
One of the things I noticed about the NCTQ is their total lack of knowledge about and consideration for the state certification requirements which ed schools must meet. For example, after NCLB and the NCATE partnership, my state changed from having categorical certifications in special education to adding a basic special ed certification in PK – 12, so that all special ed teachers have training in a wide range of disabilities impacting all ages served in P12 public schools as their foundation. Then, endorsements for working in specialty areas, such as Learning Disabilities or Blind/Visually Impaired, etc., are to be added on top of the PK-12 certification. All colleges with special ed that I’m familiar with offer endorsement programs, but even then, NCTQ penalized colleges for their state mandated PK-12 special ed programs, indicating they were too “generic,” and they gave no credit at all for any of the college’s endorsement programs.
As far as I can tell, the only expertise NCTQ has is in tooting its own horn.
As a special education teacher, my teaching certificate has gone through so many different iterations, I don’t know what it says anymore. My next new one will be delivered when my current certificate expires. What I have done to obtain the appropriate certificate has not changed. Neither the state nor its teachers cannot afford to retrain every few years as someone comes up with some new regulation, and what we need to know to fulfill our professional duties is handled through an unending series of workshops and courses. One must stay current on the accepted buzzwords.
The new buzzword is “license,” so your next certificate will say “license” instead of “certificate.”
Well, I got on here and figured I’d take a quick look at Diane’s blog BEFORE checking the weather (there’s a nasty storm approaching) …… and it was WELL WORTH IT. I was going to look for a moment, but then I just kept on reading and reading. Wow, this one was interesting.
Thank you, Sarah Blaine, for your sincerity and hard work.
It’s sort of like there’s a nationwide, category 5 crap-storm of bad educational ideas swirling my way and I check this blog to see, okay, what might I have to deal with this morning at school. Luckily, we’ve got some people on here who can see the big picture and have some ideas to help weather this storm.
That was really kind. Thank you!
I LOVE Arne Duncan’s proposal, and for the first time, it’s something that makes sense according to the uniformly and faithfully applied logic he uses..
Finally, someone with some consistency!
And while we are at it, let’s please add:
Nursing schools: to be rated upon how many patients of nurses get better or live.
Dental schools: to be rated upon how many patients have cavities and buck teeth.
Medical schools: to be rated upon how many patients of doctors heal, improve, or live. For those studying spinal cord or head injuries, the school will be rated upon how many quadriplegics and paraplegics can walk again or be fully ambulatory. Gymnast activities will boost the score of the school.
Law schools: to be rated upon how many litigated cases are won.
HVAC schools: to be rated according to the performance of the manufactured equipment to heat and cool buildings.
Auto Mechanic schools: to be rated if cars last 25 years or more and cost $20K or less to buy.
Culinary school: to be rated upon how many restaurants get rated with Michelin’s Five stars of Zaggat’s top ratings.
Police academies: to be rated upon the rate of lowered incidences of crime.
Firefighter academies: to be rated upon how many fires start in homes and in forests and are put out.
Schools of fine arts: to be rated upon how many artists end up having their work displayed in major urban museums of fine art.
Schools of theater: to be rated upon how many thespians win the Oscar, the Tony, the Emmy, the Golden Globe, or the Cannes.
Schools of music: to be rated upon how many graduates end up as first violinist in a major city symphonic orchestra.
Schools of dance: to be rated upon how many graduates attain Paula Abdul’s or Gelsey Kirkland’s choreographer or prima ballerina status in nationally recognized dance troups. Also rated upon who becomes the next George Balanchine.
I think Mr. Duncan is being fair.
And speaking of fair: based on critical thinking and the ability to problem solve, I’m afraid the university that educated Mr. Duncan will be in a LOT of trouble . . . . . .
Arne has only a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Harvard. He and his ilk have demonstrated that there really needs to be a rating for colleges that produce graduates who use their diplomas merely as status symbols, in order to claim expertise in fields that differ from their majors, just so they can usurp the top jobs with the highest pay in areas they know nothing about, are not prepared to lead, and which should have gone to genuine experts (like Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond).
There should also be sanctions against colleges that produce corrupt politicians, including those that engage in bait-and-switch and racketeering, with extra points off for schools that graduate lawyers who claim ignorance of the law when on trial, and double points off when they are convicted of corruption. (That’s the last two governors, from both parties, who preceded the current governor in my state,)
Please don’t put down Arne Duncan.
We are a capitalist society.
There are plenty of people who little to no merit who make a lot of money, and, well, duh, money is what makes you important and valued.
Where have YOU been, China Town Resident, with the Kardashians?
Bruce Jenner turning into a girl, Kim pouring champagne using her bum as a drink cart, Chloe dating and breaking up. . . . . .
Don’t you know Arne is the Kardashian of education policy?
Vapid, stupid, talentless, inarticulate, low level of lexical expression, opportunistic, and just outright an amateur jock who can shoot hoops better than he can talk about Vygotsky.
Don’t you touch MY Arne.
Take him away, and we stand to bloom, but what about all the laughter we will be deprived of from his depravity . . . . . ?
Oh, Arne. If you only could think . . . . . . If you only had a brain cell in that cast grand canyon skull of yours.
Sorry, Robert, I’m not sure what you meant by the reference to China Town. I know very little about pop culture nor do I keep up with people like the Kardashians, who I believe are famous for doing nothing. I think a lot of those folks were created by reality TV and, sadly, that just might have the greatest influence on the career aspirations of many kids today, rather than teachers, guidance counselors and parents.
As for Arne, he chose his career as a puppet of politicians and big business, and he knowingly ventured into deep waters without skills, so he’s sinking of his own accord and he’s very deserving of all the criticism he gets. Many of us in Chicago long ago felt that we had heard more than enough from that know-nothing. We never would have wished that his amature notions, ill-informed expectations, puerile Behavioral systems, and insulting Taylorist management style would be imposed on the entire nation.
Chi-Town, you are not China Town. Sorry.
And yes many times over to everything you say. I cannot agree more.
I cannot contain myself when it comes to expressing such sheer and pure, 100% free range organic hatred for Arne Duncan.
He is such a hateful, shameful man. . . . The Dick Cheney of education.
“Saving the best for last?”
If Duncan has a “best idea”
He’s saving it for last
Cuz all we’ve seen is “worst” so far
And six years now have passed