Link of the Week: Matt Damon Tells It Like It Is

Thanks to Matt Damon for this lovely moment (one among many) in defense of teachers:

http://scoop.today.com/_news/2011/08/02/7232744-matt-damon-schools-reporter-on-his-view-of-teachers

The Save Our Schools March!

Yesterday, despite near 100 degree heat and blazing sun on the mall, I proudly attended the Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC with an estimated 8,000 other teachers, parents, and supporters of public education.  While organizers had hoped for a higher turnout, the marchers present were passionate about improving public schools to nurture the talents and interests of all children.  Many of the conversations I had with other participants centered on how to harness this momentum to generate change on the local, state, and federal levels.  We are exhausted by the increasing focus on standardized test scores and privatization of schools, but are determined to continue to fight for what is right for our students.

            Prior to the march there were two hours of inspiring speakers, including Diane Ravitch, Debbie Meier, Jonathan Kozol, and Matt Damon.  Damon delivered a powerful and concise speech, crediting his present day success to his teachers and the freedom they were given to treat children as individuals and tailor instruction to the needs and interests of their class.  That freedom, he acknowledged, is under attack today.  He shared, “I had incredible teachers. As I look at my life today, the things I value most about myself — my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity — all come from how I was parented and taught.  And none of these qualities that I’ve just mentioned — none of these qualities that I prize so deeply, that have brought me so much joy, that have brought me so much professional success — none of these qualities that make me who I am ... can be tested.” 

The speaker that moved me the most, however, was Texas superintendent John Kuhn.  Mr. Kuhn’s district serves a high proportion of English language learners and students in poverty, and he is proud of this fact, even though this means his test scores are low and he is under heavy pressure and sanctions from the state.  At the start of his speech Kuhn thundered, “I stand before you today bearing proudly the label of unacceptable, because I educate the children they will not educate.”  As I shared in a previous post, poverty is the core issue weakening our most vulnerable schools and communities.  Charter schools and private schools, currently hailed as the new solution by reformers like Michelle Rhee, are not required to educate students who are affected by extreme poverty- - such as students who are homeless, without healthcare, or have special needs.  Kuhn went on to proclaim, “I will never follow the lead of those who exclude the kids who need education the most so that my precious scores will rise” but instead that he will “march headlong into the teeth of your horrific blame machine and I will teach these kids!”  His speech renewed the passion I have for my work and my pride in being a public school teacher.  I highly recommend watching this eight minute version of the speech, made earlier this year at the Save Texas Schools Rally.

There is still a lot of work to be done in the effort to save our schools, but standing on the ellipse with thousands of other greedy teachers reinvigorated me for the fight ahead.  

Speak Out for Public Education

        Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in a demonstration in conjunction with Harvard’s Commencement Ceremonies designed to get Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s attention.  A Harvard graduate, Duncan was honored as Chief Marshall of the Commencement proceedings for his 25^th reunion.  A group of educators and advocates from Cambridge and beyond, including Deborah Meier and Alfie Kohn, took this opportunity to gather in Harvard Square and speak out.  I was honored to be among the speakers at the event, and delivered a brief speech to share my story as a current teacher and give some insight into how Duncan’s top-down policies are negatively impacting classroom communities.

            It was heartening to meet this dedicated group of current or retired public school teachers, researchers, and advocates all devoted to bringing about positive change for our students.  I was excited to see passers-by and graduates stop to read our signs, gather more information, and thank us for speaking out.  We were a small group, but our message was clear:  teachers, parents, and students know what’s best for schools and we will make ourselves heard.  Next stop: Washington, DC for the Save Our Schools March!

Author’s Note:  To find coverage of the event visit wmbr.org, and click on the program “What’s Left” for Friday, May 26 from 6 to 7pm.  You will find the piece about the demonstration at about the 36-minute mark.


**Author's UPDATE:  To see video of the rally, go to http://www.filmourwayfilms.com/film/teachfilm.cfm and select the "Rally Against Duncan's 'Reforms' for Public Schools of May 26" link.  I come on around the 30 minute mark!

Link of the Week: U.S. Reforms Out of Sync with Top Nations, Report Finds

"The United States’ education system is neither coherent nor likely to see great improvements based on its current attempts at reform, a report released this week by the National Center on Education and the Economy concludes."  Check out the article in EdWeek here.


Shocking, I know.  

Congratulations 2011 Graduates!

          It’s graduation season and I have had the enormous privilege of attending two university commencement ceremonies in the past few weeks.  The first was in Greeneville, North Carolina, where my brilliant and spirited sister-in-law earned her M.D. from the Brody School of Medicine.  The second was in Medford, Massachusetts where my dear, patient husband earned his Master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.  After many months despairing over the frustrating state of affairs in public education, these two ceremonies inspired me to have faith in a brighter future for schools and communities around the world.

            The Brody School of Medicine is part of the public East Carolina University system and falls in the top ten among U.S. medical schools in percentage of students that go on to practice primary care and rural medicine.  Brody ranks in the 90 percentile for medical schools in the percentage of African American and Native American graduates, and boasts the one of the lowest debt burdens for graduating doctors.  In a time when inequity feels like the status quo, it is uplifting to see public schools crafting opportunities for scholars of all backgrounds to afford a quality education and go on to serve communities in need.  I am so proud of the newly graduated Dr. Elliot and the diverse Brody class of 2011!

            The Fletcher School, part of the private Tufts University, has a mission to prepare “the world's leaders to become innovative problem-solvers in government, business and non-governmental organizations”.  Fletcher's students come from all over the world, and have done everything from earning Olympic medals to establishing non-profits prior to enrollment.  The speakers at Fletcher’s commencement ceremonies, which included Senator John Kerry, all acknowledged the increasing severity and complexity of the problems these graduates would face upon re-entering the global work force.  What made the commencement so uplifting, however, was the faith and conviction expressed by each of the speakers that the graduates were prepared to face these challenges and pave the way to a more harmonious tomorrow.  They didn’t say the process would be easy- - simply that it would be possible.  Having spent time with many of the Fletcher graduates during my husband’s two years of study there, I have no doubt this is true.

            The problems generated by scarcity of resources, inequity, and philosophical and cultural clashes are certainly not unique to education, nor are they going away any time soon.  There are already wonderful efforts in place, such as those at both Brody and Fletcher, to provide opportunities for higher education to a diverse range of scholars and encourage the graduates to tackle the complex problems facing communities locally and globally.  Congratulations to all 2011 graduates- from high school grads to Ph.D.'s!  I can't wait to see what you all make possible!

Link of the Week: Budget Mix-Up

         Here's to The Onion for bringing some much needed levity to the school reform debate.  Their recent article Budget Mix-Up Provides Nation's Schools with Enough Money to Properly Educate Students is a hilarious account of a congressional blunder resulting in the accidental misappropriation of $80 billion earmarked for national defense.  A true disaster!  The Onion quotes House Speaker John Boehner: "Once these kids learn to read and think critically, you can never undo that," Boehner said . . . "It could take a whole generation to cancel out the effects of this. . . What will our nation do if the next generation knows that all we care about is our own selfish interests and pandering to the wealthy elite? Is that the future you want? Not me."  Sounds like a great future to me.

Here's to the Students!

Link of the week: A Letter to Arne Duncan

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!  On Monday, education blogger Sabrina Stevens Shupe crafted an eloquent and powerful response to Arne Duncan’s open letter to teachers, in which he praises our work and promises, “I hear you, I value you, and I respect you.”  Unfortunately, the Secretary’s actions do not match his words.

. . . Change the Rules!

As promised in my post "If at first you don't succeed. . .", I return to the topic of the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind.  After combing through the full text of the document, I am disappointed to find the changes to Bush’s original legislation to be either minimal or flat-out harmful.

We’ll start with the minimal.  Fortunately, instead of holding fast to the ridiculous deadline that mandates all students be 100% proficient in all subjects by 2014, the bill allows for the Secretary of Education to adjust the requirements every three years.  This creates a kind of escape hatch for the government to get out of following through with the punitive measures of the current law.  These measures would have required closing the thousands of schools that are nowhere near meeting the rapidly approaching deadline.

Another change includes rewording the definition of a “highly qualified teacher” to include first year TFA teachers and others who have undergone minimal training but are pursuing certification while teaching full-time.  The bill reads, “the teacher should be considered highly qualified for purposes of this part based on a showing that the teacher is making progress toward becoming highly qualified.” Do we consider a teenager on the day they pass their written permit exam to be Highly Qualified Drivers, based on a showing that they are making progress toward earning their license?  Do we consider pre-med undergraduates to be Highly Qualified Doctors based on a showing that they are making progress toward becoming doctors?  In what other profession do the words highly qualified refer to someone who is in the early stages of their training?  Instead of tackling the greater problem of improving teacher training programs and providing funds for bright young professionals to enroll and complete these programs, like countries with successful public education systems, the new bill is simply lowering the bar.  The idea that the U.S. Government is even bothering to confer the distinction of “Highly Qualified” upon any teacher with this revised definition is laughable.

Finally, one of the changes I consider to be most harmful involves increasing the budgetary allocations for developing newer and more frequent standardized tests.  In a time of budgetary crisis, why are we allocating more money to hand over to companies like Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill, Riverside Publishing, or ETS K-12, which we know produce flawed and inadequate products?  As is, many states are already spending an exorbitant amount of money on standardized testing without any tangible improvements.  This simply does not make any sense.

Needless to say, my initial cautious optimism about the reauthorization of NCLB has been replaced with a grim frustration.  If teachers want to do what is best for our students, it will continue to be in spite of, rather than because of, current national policy.

Link(s) of the week:

Teach for America is no longer simply filling gaps in areas with teacher shortages.  The superintendent of Kansas City Public Schools just fired nearly 100 teachers in order to replace them with Teach for America Recruits.  The same thing recently happened in Los Angeles, where teachers were told they would be fired during administration of the state standardized tests.  One teacher who did not lose her job in the L.A. fiasco wrote, “It's been a horrible week here. Very depressing. Plus we're in the middle of our state tests. How smart is that to fire teachers while they are giving their students the TEST?   We work for idiots.”  As I hope I made clear in my previous post “Charity vs. Equity”, I don’t believe the expansion of TFA is a healthy decision for children and communities.  I also don’t understand how this makes financial sense in a time of budget crisis, considering the hefty recruitment fee TFA demands for the placement of its teachers.

*Thanks to Sydney for the link!

Merit Pay and the Myth of Monetary Motivation

Conventional wisdom dictates that providing monetary incentives to employees will effectively increase quality and quantity of work produced.  Arne Duncan and Bill Gates, among other influential education reformers, are buying into this wisdom and pushing for policy changes that would link teacher pay to student test scores.  This works for executives who earn bonuses for meeting sales goals, right?  What could possibly be different about teaching?  And why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?

We HAVE thought of this before- - and it has proved a failure over and over again since the 1920s.  Within the past five years alone, merit-pay programs have been proven ineffective in Nashville Public Schools, New York City Public Schools, and Duncan’s native Chicago Public Schools, to name a few.  The following are direct quotes from the research reports in question, with links to the documentation:

o   Nashville:  “POINT was focused on the notion that a significant problem in American education is the absence of appropriate incentives, and that correcting the incentive structure would, in and of itself, constitute an effective intervention that improved student outcomes.  By and large, results did not confirm this hypothesis.”

o   New York: “I find no evidence that teacher incentives increase student performance, attendance, or graduation, nor do I find any evidence that the incentives change student or teacher behavior. If anything, teacher incentives may decrease student achievement, especially in larger schools.”

o   Chicago: “We found no evidence that the [TAP merit-pay] program raised student test scores . . . We also found that TAP did not have a detectable impact on rates of teacher retention in the school or district during the second year it was rolled out in the district.”

Why anyone continues to push merit-pay programs in the face of such overwhelming data regarding their ineffectiveness is beyond me.  It is unclear why education reformers act on the assumption that education should function like a business, despite all the evidence to the contrary.  To quote Diane Ravitch: “Education is not a business. It is supposed to provide good education to all children, not to segment its market and compete with others in the marketplace. It operates on the principle of equality of educational opportunity, not a race to see who can sell the most or win the biggest market share and beat out the others.”

Furthermore, there is something fundamentally wrong with the market-driven view of children and their education as a product.  In Duncan’s merit pay plan, which bases teacher salary on test scores, the product in question is how well a child does on a standardized test.  I fundamentally disagree with this for two reasons.  First, I argue that focusing so narrowly on this singular metric ignores the true heart of education: a complex process of joy, discovery, collaboration, problem solving, creation, and social-emotional growth.  Second, the tests by which we are currently judging students and teachers are flawed.  At present, there is no accurate way to measure how a specific student has grown over time with a specific teacher.  Teachers are judged on all scores, regardless of how long a student has actually been in their class.  In areas like D.C., where there is a high percentage of charter school students being unceremoniously kicked out come test time, the public school teachers are then assigned the punishment for failing students who have only been in the class for a few days.  Is this a reasonable and fair way to judge teacher effectiveness?

Finally, there is new evidence from scientist Daniel Pink disproving the conventional wisdom that the best way to motivate someone is with external rewards like money.  Pink found in his research that “the secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.”  Teachers have known this for hundreds of years.  Clearly, we didn’t choose the profession because we were dazzled at the prospect of earning a few extra hundred dollars for raising test scores.  We do this work because we love “those rare moments when understanding of the world alters and a previously impossible thing is admitted” (Audrey Niffenegger).  In honing our craft year after year, we feel we are, in the words of Daniel Pink, “doing better by ourselves and our world.”  We are already motivated and working as hard as we can.  Let’s stop trying to force merit-pay to work and begin looking at actual solutions.

Easter Sunday and the Texas Miracle

This week has been busier than I expected, so I am still working on my merit-pay post.  In the meantime, I encourage you to check out this article, written by retired principal Katherine Cox.  It tells the tale of “The Texas Miracle”, a well-documented lie that bafflingly continues to influence educational policy today.

Here is an excerpt:

“In the 1990′s, Houston Superintendent of Schools, Rod Paige, made principals and administrators accountable for the drop-out rate and for test scores. When those two criteria did not improve at a particular school, Paige fired the school administrator. Scores suddenly shot up at schools all over the district. Some schools made incredible progress with both the drop-out rate and student achievement scores. When George Bush campaigned for President in 2000, he thought he had found “the magic bullet” to reform America’s public schools and touted “the Texas miracle” during his campaign. But, as we shall see, the improvement turned out to be based on lies and fabrication. Houston had not improved its scores or its drop-out rate.

Even though the sham was known in inner circles by 2000, President Bush, once elected, appointed the very shaman himself, Rod Paige, as U.S. Secretary of Education.”

Unfortunately, this is only where the story begins.  Read the rest of the article here.

Link of the Week:

Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell just announced a plan to spend $3 million on a pay for performance pilot program for hard to staff schools in the Commonwealth.  Citing a previous unsuccessful attempt at a similar program, Virginia’s largest school district declined the plan and all attached funds.  Why aren’t more school systems drawing on actual data and historical record to make reasonable decisions about improving schools?  Paying teachers based on student test scores does not, nor has it ever, resulted in higher test scores or the effective recruitment and maintenance of great teachers.  I am off the rest of the week on an overnight field trip with my class, but check back over the weekend for more on the subject of performance pay. 

A Grave Disservice

         Recently, I signed on to help coordinate volunteers for the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action. I believe in the mission of the March to promote teacher, family, and community leadership in forming public education policy and curriculum; secure equitable funding for all public school communities; and end high stakes testing for the purpose of student, teacher, and school evaluation and punishment.  What I enjoy the most about my new role is the opportunity to collect stories from public school educators around Virginia and help these educators turn their frustration into action as we prepare for the March.

         The following is an excerpt from an email written by special educator about the impact of high stakes testing (in this case the Virginia Standards of Learning exam, ironically given the official acronym SOL) on students with special needs. This teacher describes an experience with the VGLA, Virginia’s iteration of alternate assessment for special needs students.

“Each year the impact of the SOL tests seems to become worse and worse.  I work in a school that pretty much demands that special education students take the grade level alternate portfolios regardless of whether they ethically meet the criteria (meaning without doctoring the data) or should be assessed in that fashion.  With the change in documentation for students to talk the VGLA assessment, I found myself testing my students at an obnoxious and ridiculous level.  One of the criteria is that the students demonstrate that they do poorly on multiple choice tests.  Since my students actually did better on the multiple choice tests, my guidance counselor and principal continuously told me to keep testing until they fail the MC test.  That's nuts, and it's a symptom of life in a public school in the time of high stakes testing especially as more and more decisions are being based on the results of these tests.  

I've also read over and over from groups like Students First and many of their fans that teachers are the root of much of the evil in our children's education.  I'm tired of being vilified and demoralized.  I want to do my part.”

This teacher’s story is not unique.  Special education students are seen as an obstacle to schools trying to make AYP, rather than individuals who have a right to a quality education.  There is extreme pressure on schools to have students with special needs take an alternate assessment, typically a massive portfolio of student work samples accompanied by teacher evaluation.  Students are more likely to pass this type of assessment; therefore their scores will not have a negative impact on the school’s overall test results. With the enormous amount of work required to put the portfolios together, the burden to ensure they will pass review, and the increasing number of students in each special educator’s caseload, there is little time left over for the actual business of teaching.  In addition, a study from the University of Dayton found that states with the most punitive sanctions for schools that do not make AYP tend to place special needs students in more restricted settings, rather than finding the most appropriate and least restricted setting required by IDEA. 

Special educators are overworked, underpaid, and not given the autonomy to do what is right for their own students.  In emphasizing test results above all else, we are doing a grave disservice to all our children, especially those with special needs.

Link of the Week:

The DC Community speaks out about former Chancellor Michelle Rhee's tenure in this video.

Call to Action! Save our Schools!

If you are as frustrated about the current educational policies as I am, there is something you can do!  Oakland teacher and author of the "Living in Dialogue" blog Anthony Cody has drafted a petition to the President asking him to reconsider his administration’s stance on education policy in light of his recent comments on the way in which his own children are taught and assessed.  I encourage you to read the text of the letter below and go here if you agree and wish to sign the petition.

"President Obama, Save Our Schools

Greetings,

President Obama, 

On March 28, 2011, you said the following: 
"... we have piled on a lot of standardized tests on our kids. Malia and Sasha, my two daughters, they just recently took a standardized test. But it wasn't a high-stakes test." 

"Too often what we've been doing is using these tests to punish students or to, in some cases, punish schools. ...one thing I never want to see happen is schools that are just teaching to the test. Because then you're not learning about the world; you're not learning about different cultures, you're not learning about science, you're not learning about math. All you're learning about is how to fill out a little bubble on an exam and the little tricks that you need to do in order to take a test. And that's not going to make education interesting to you." 

We agree with what you have set forth as a vision for education here. Unfortunately, this vision is exactly the opposite of the education policy your office has promoted nationwide. By encouraging states to tie teacher pay and employment to test scores, and continuing the punitive, ineffective “turnaround” strategies of No Child Left Behind, your administration has increased the amount and importance of standardized tests given to children in our public schools. 

Mr. President, what’s good for Sasha and Malia’s education is good for public education. The vision you proposed aligns with the Guiding Principles of the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action. We hereby request that you endorse these principles, and more importantly, we implore you to bring the policies of your Department of Education into line with your vision. We furthermore invite you to address citizens concerned about these issues at the Save Our Schools rally at the Ellipse in Washington, DC, on July 30th.

[Your name]"

If that doesn’t feel like enough and you are still fired up, visit the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action website and consider joining me in the March July 28 – 31.   I would love to see you there! 

The Core Issue: Poverty

The recent frenzy around increasing standardized tests, demonizing teacher unions, and promoting business practices like merit pay completely ignores the core issue of poverty and how it impacts our children.  The frenzy itself is largely a response to poor overall U.S. performance on international tests like the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study and the Trends in International Math and Science Study.  A closer look at these tests reveals that one does not have to take the overall performance at face value.  The PIRLS and TIMSS both disaggregate data according to the poverty rate in each school.  According to the scores, U.S. students in areas of low poverty rank at the top.  Not surprisingly, U.S. students in areas of high poverty rank at the bottom. Journalist Joanne Barkan broke it down this way: “students in U.S. schools where the poverty rate was less than 10 percent ranked first in reading, first in science, and third in math. When the poverty rate was 10 percent to 25 percent, U.S. students still ranked first in reading and science. But as the poverty rate rose still higher, students ranked lower and lower. Twenty percent of all U.S. schools have poverty rates over 75 percent. The average ranking of American students reflects this. The problem is not public schools; it is poverty.” 

Stephen Krashen summarizes the research on the impact of poverty with regard to education in his article “Children need food, health care, and books. Not new standards and tests.”  He describes the negative influence of prolonged hunger on language development; the realities of low access to medical care; the effects of increased exposure to toxins and pollutants on health and behavior; and lack of books and other reading material.  Full service models of education like the Harlem Children’s Zone and Neighborhood House Charter School are a step in the right direction.  These schools house many social and community services like healthcare, dental care, and even parent training programs.  Unfortunately, these models rely on many private sources of funding and it is currently unclear how they could be scaled to reach a greater number of children.

Teachers are not, nor should they be, Superman.  We cannot solve these problems on our own and should not be blamed when we fail in our attempts to do so.  How exactly do we expect children to focus and be enthusiastic about learning when they arrive at school hungry, sleep deprived, and without having ever been to a doctor or dentist?  How exactly do we believe students who regularly bury their friends and neighbors from violence on their streets will automatically trust teachers and be inspired to learn new things?  How exactly does increased testing provide an accurate measure of student or teacher performance in classrooms where student turnover is so high due to homelessness that a teacher might end the school year with only a small portion of her original group?  Any one of these problems on their own could be a significant barrier to effective teaching and learning.  The combined impact of these issues makes cultivating healthy, positive, and confident students like “growing roses in the concrete” (Duncan-Andrade*, 2009).  It can be done, but it requires a significant amount of hope.  I want more than just hope for our students in poverty.  I want food, healthcare, and books.

* Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade is both an associate professor at San Francisco State University and an Oakland high school teacher.  He explored the impact of poverty on our students eloquently and viscerally in his 2009 speech “Note to Educators:  Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete”.  I highly recommend anyone with a strong interest to watch the complete video of his speech here.  

Link of the Week:

Why do politicians continue to insist that people with zero educational experience can lead schools and school systems?  Parents and teachers saw this one coming from a mile away. . .

Charity vs. Equity

         At the start of my career, the news that I was teaching in an urban public school was invariable met with the response, “Cool!  Teach for America, right?”  As if going through TFA were the only reason a fresh young college grad would concede to such a flat and ambitionless career.  Somehow, the fact that I chose to pursue a degree in education seemed to disappoint people.  Upon receipt of this information, many potential new friends dismissed me as unmotivated, mediocre, and not worth their time.  Shocking though this may be, popular opinion of career teachers was, and is not exactly positive.

Although I will freely admit I am not a fan of Teach for America, I will say that I know and love many brilliant and dedicated people who have pursued work with TFA either as an entry point to a career in education or a learning experience prior to further study in graduate school.  I think the program does help as a stopgap measure in areas that have low pay and poor teaching conditions, and therefore have difficulty attracting quality, credentialed educators.  The problem is that people have come to view TFA as a permanent fix, rather than actually tackling the underlying problems of poverty and inequity that led to the teacher shortage in the first place.  In addition, die-hard supporters of TFA tend to inflate the program’s impact and “suck the air out of any public discussion about restructuring and improving the profession.”

The issue that has disturbed me the most about TFA however, was recently addressed by TFA Alum Marie Levey-Pabst in an article titled “Will the Teach for America Elite Save the Poor?”  She writes, “What I don't hear people talk about as much, which bothers me, is the fact that students of color really become ‘training material’ for mostly middle and upper class white ‘leaders.’”  The idea that the privileged, white elite can fix all the problems in our education system if only they spend about two years seeing what life is like on the wrong side of the tracks is an absurd notion.  Why is it ok for our nation's poorest, most disenfranchised neighborhoods to serve is a training ground for the next leaders in educational policy while wealthy suburban areas enjoy their pick of only the most seasoned educators?  (This is especially frustrating in light of recent events, revealing corruption and misrepresentation of performance data in charter organizations and school systems run by TFA alums.)

My friends and fellow teachers Gemma Cooper-Novack and Masha Wasilewski describe this dilemma as the “charity model vs. the equity model” of education. It seems as though, in embracing and promoting TFA, the U.S. has settled for a charity model, in which quality education for the poorest children becomes the responsibility, should they choose to accept it, of the wealthy elite.  We should be working instead towards an equity model, in which quality education is the right of all children, and the responsibility falls on all of us to create and maintain the conditions necessary for such education to take place.

Another Kind of Gap

         Recently, a friend of mine shared this article with me, which describes how an NYC school proposed by long-time principal Julie Zuckerman with a rare mission to not focus on standardized tests, was bumped by the Education Department out of its promised location by an incoming KIPP school.  KIPP has become an increasingly powerful charter school company, due largely to success (as measured by test scores) in poor urban or rural neighborhoods.  I worry about the explosion of charter school companies like KIPP, which are financed by hedge funds, focused on test-prep and behavioral training, and promote the myth that a truly caring teacher should not have weekends or a life outside of the classroom.  I recognize there is a need to serve children in areas of poverty whose local public schools are failing them.  I also understand the challenges faced by a teacher in an urban classroom, and can empathize with the feeling that a rigid and authoritarian style and a focus on the all-important standardized tests feels like an attractive solution to the frustrations these teachers face on a daily basis. 

The attractive solution, however, is not always the right solution.  I worry that in our effort to narrow the achievement gap between those who have and those who don’t, we are simply creating another kind of gap.  A gap in understanding of the democratic process, how to question, create, and think critically about the world.  I see how students in wealthy suburban public schools and private schools are nurtured and taught academic habits by social curricula like Responsive Classroom and programs developed by Educators for Social Responsibility.  Teaching in this way takes time, however, time that many charter schools feel is better spent preparing students to take a test.

       I recently interviewed to teach at a charter school in the Boston area whose students are 98% black or latino, almost 80% of whom are eligible for free-and-reduced lunch.  Having taught previously at a school with a similar demographic, I was deeply troubled by the attitudes of the principal towards these children and their families.  Her disdain for my beliefs in classroom management based on logical consequences and empowering children to make responsible choices was evident when her response to my explanation of this was, “Well that doesn’t work for ALL kids.”  She went on to explain that her students were used to an authoritarian style of parenting and that meant the teachers were obliged to mimic this same style in order to be effective.  As if to illustrate her point, a second grade student sat in a corner of her office throughout our entire interview, working on a practice bubble test in atonement for some wrong he had committed in class that morning.  This seemed to me a wholly inappropriate and absurd punishment.

I was further disturbed when we left the principals office to tour the school and every class we visited, K – 5, was completely silent.  Where was the collaboration, the joy, the discovery, or the debate necessary to cultivate the habits of lifelong learners?  In what ways were these students being prepared to communicate, ask questions, defend their ideas, or develop and sustain meaningful friendships?  In the hallway, we passed a line of children heading in the opposite direction and one turned around to give a cheerful good morning to the principal.  Instead of a smile and greeting in return, the principal responded with, “Which way are you walking?  Turn around, face the proper direction and stop talking.”  Is this sending the right message to children about respect and courtesy for those with whom we live and work?  To quote a friend of mine and respected colleague, Therese Arsenault, “What . . . is so frightening about an education that looks to develop our youth's sense of self as thinker, doer, and maker?"  Why is it that we do this for some children for not all?  Isn’t it telling that the same business professionals and politicians who praise and support KIPP as a brilliant and economically sound solution for our educational crisis, send their own children to private schools or suburban public schools with child-centered philosophies?  I think all children deserve the same type of education enjoyed by Obama’s children.  Keep fighting Ms. Zuckerman- - your community needs you!


*** THIS JUST IN: Immediately after I posted this, I found the following article - - > "Study finds high dropout rates for black males in KIPP schools:  Researchers say high attrition rates and private donations help explain the charter school network's success record."  Let's just say I am not exactly shocked.

Link of the week:

Let us teach!

Math teacher Vern Williams eloquently argues that quality, dedicated teachers would be more attracted to the job if they knew they would be respected as professionals and trusted to do what was right for students.  It’s so crazy it just might work. . .

If at first you don't succeed. . .

For my second blog post, I thought I might tackle my favorite topic: No Child Left Behind (NCLB), also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965/2001.  While I believe NCLB played an important role in drawing attention to the educational inequities for underserved groups of children, I disagree with the implementation of high stakes testing as a solution to this problem.  I also believe Congress acted absurdly in setting an unattainable goal of 100% proficiency in reading and math for all students by the year 2014 and then proceeding to respond as if anyone in disagreement with the policy was rabidly anti-child.  Diane Ravitch put it best when she described the obtuse goal as “akin to a declaration of belief. Yes, we do believe that all children can and should learn. But as a goal, it is utterly out of reach . . . The law is comparable to Congress declaring 'that every last molecule of water or air pollution would vanish by 2014, or that all American cities would be crime free by that date.'"

Well, friends, 2014 is coming up in just a few short years and I hate to shock you, but we’re not even close.  Relax!  You know the old saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, change the rules.”  That’s right, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is under revision yet again!   And although I’m a little confused that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appears to think the revisions provide for new and improved testing, while President Obama appears to think the revisions significantly reduce testing, I am hopeful this reincarnation might lead to something positive for school communities. 

**Currently reading the full text of the proposed bill here.  Stay tuned for more updates!

Cry of the Greedy Teacher

The public debate on education has become insane.  It doesn’t make any sense that foundations run by wealthy philanthropists (ex. Gates, Broad, & Walton) currently have more say in education policy than the people who are in the classroom every day teaching our children.  It is absurd that ideas like charter schools and merit pay, which have been attempted for decades with no evidence that they improve teacher or student performance, continue to be lauded as panaceas for the educational crisis.  It is frustrating to see Teach for America, which advertises itself as a leadership program and not a comprehensive teacher-training program, held up as “the answer” to all our educational problems.  As we pursue these avenues to fix our broken system, America’s students lag further and further behind students in countries with truly excellent systems.  Worst of all, those who have the most to contribute to the solution – teachers – are being vilified as lazy, greedy, and unwilling to make sacrifices for the greater good.  What?!?

As an elementary school teacher who has taught in both public and private schools in urban and suburban settings, I have worked with an overwhelming amount of highly trained, talented, caring, and exceptionally hardworking teachers.  We show up early to prep; we stay at school late to tutor; we visit student homes when parents can’t make it to the school; we pay for crayons, paper, books, classroom snacks, and supplies; we dry tears and bandage skinned knees; and we do all this while teaching children how to read, write, think mathematically, analyze information, be kind, ask questions, and believe in themselves and their ability to change the world.  We know what our students need, and work to meet those needs every day.  We deserve a voice in this debate.

         I recently saw this picture of a Wisconsin teacher protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s legislation to eliminate collective bargaining rights.  Her sign reads, “I am teaching today.  This is what democracy looks like.”  This image reminded me of my position as role model to my students.  If I want my students to believe in the power of their voice to make a difference in the world, I need to believe in my own voice.  I won’t claim to speak in this blog for all teachers, but I do believe teachers have a right to participate in the debate on education reform and have their views be heard.  It is imperative that teachers be seen as a key part of the solution to our educational woes, rather than the source of the problem.