It’s not about the money

Perhaps the last in a series on national education policy.

I have long been of the opinion that when it comes to teacher compensation, for the most part, it’s not really about the money - although compensating those willing to work in particularly challenging circumstances seems like a good investment.

What we pay our teachers, however, is not unimportant - teachers ought to make enough money to live comfortably and have status in the community in which they teach. But the cliché is true: few educators go into the field because it’s a steady job, or because they get the “summers off”. So we ought to be skeptical of the idea that financial rewards for teachers who produce higher test scores are going to accomplish as much as one might hope

Having said that, I’m not opposed to rewarding good teachers for results: perhaps “master teacher” status – and, along with some additional responsibilities for mentoring younger teachers, etc., an appropriate increase in compensation

The big question is: how do we measure those results?  If we base teacher incentives strictly on standardized test scores, then what we’ll get are better scores, but not necessarily better students.

The other point: if we are going to start rewarding teachers for performance – or penalize them for the lack thereof – then teachers ought to have a central role in deciding what criteria we’re going to use to measure their effectiveness. If we’re not going to give teachers at least that much respect, our efforts will be doomed from the start.

Teach for America

I lifted the following, almost in its entirety, from the July issue of Atlantic Monthly, because of its relevance to current proposals regarding national education policy.

Critics of the Teach for America program, which recruits top college graduates to teach in poorly performing public schools, have long questioned whether the program’s instructors are properly prepared, citing evidence that links teacher effectiveness to experience. However, the first study to examine Teach for America at the secondary-school level, recently released by the Urban Institute, finds that its teachers are in fact more effective than those with traditional training—at all levels of experience.

The study measured performance on state exams and found that students of Teach for America instructors did significantly better in all subject areas tested, and especially in math and science. The authors found that even though the program’s teachers are assigned to “the most demanding classrooms,” they’re able to compensate for their lack of experience with better academic preparation and motivation. As a result, the authors say, students are better off with Teach for America instructors “than with fully licensed in-field teachers with three or more years of experience.”

-“Making a Difference?: The Effects of Teach for America in High School,” by Zeyu Xu, Jane Hannaway, and Colin Taylor, the Urban Institute and the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.

Sustainability and Integrative Design

It was clear from the resulting conversations that a lot of enthusiasm was generated by last Thursday's presentation to the board by John Boecker on "sustainable and high performance” school design. The timing could not be better as the District prepares to embark on a comprehensive master facilities plan.

Much of what follows is the result of Jim Pawelczyk's effort to capture the key concepts. So, my thanks to Jim for his co-authorship; perhaps this is precedent setting.

First, even a good idea needs to be well-executed. According to Mr. Boecker, there are three essential conditions to making this work:
1)      A commitment from the entire district (including staff, parents and students)
2)      A team of professionals experienced in sustainable design
3)      The practice of “integrative design” in our building and renovation projects

That last point deserves explanation.  Integrative design looks at the interaction between all systems at the outset.  For example, if spending additional money for windows with a high insulating value means that the entire heating system can be made smaller, we can achieve cost savings in the overall project - while lowering future energy consumption.  Even the choice of paint color is important. (Using paint with high reflectivity means fewer lights are required, at less cost, etc.)

A "green-roof" may cost more to install initially - but maybe not, if it reduces what has to be spent on the storm water drainage system.

In addition to cost, and the impact on the environment, the third part of Boecker's "values triangle" is the effect that design has on people - the teachers and students who will occupy the building. (The reason we're doing this in the first place!)  For example, orientating the school building along an east-west axis in order to maximize "day-lighting" not only reduces energy consumption (and cost), natural light improves the learning environment when done correctly.

An important side benefit is that this integrative approach to design is an excellent model for our students of "21st century skills". 

Jim- what did I miss?

A good neighbor policy

Monday night's discussion concerning a request to waive the District's facilities' use policy – in order to allow a community activity to continue beyond the policy’s 11 p m. deadline - was a great illustration of the type of issue that school boards often face.

There appeared to be recognition by board members that a proposal for an all-night event from a group of local youth church organizations would be consistent with the district's desire to be part of the community, and the importance of supporting worthwhile activities for our community's younger members.

So the issue for the board was not, "is what they're proposing a good idea?" - it was balancing this "good idea" against longer-term implications. For example, would granting this waiver set a precedent that would be hard to live with down the road? We don't want to place ourselves in the position where the board regularly has to rule on requests to waive policy.

The discussion, appropriately, included an examination of the history of the current policy; in particular, the reason it was adopted in the first place. A large part of that reason had to do with disruptions that all-night events tended to bring to the local neighborhood - noise and traffic, especially. Not being disruptive is clearly a part of being a good neighbor.

Most of the issues that drove the adoption of the present policy appeared to be addressed in the proposal, although there was some concern about the potential impact of a midnight concert. (Personally, I think that somewhat goes with living in a college town, but I know a lot of people would disagree with me on that point.)

Finally, one board member noted that if granting this waiver opens the door to a lot of similar requests, this suggests a need to modify the policy, so that this type of request would be covered. It's too soon to know how difficult that would be to do, but in the long term, that seems like the right direction to go.

Know thyself?

The second in a series on last April's public issues forum: "What is the 21st Century Mission for our Public Schools?"

I was struck by a participant's observation concerning the number of people who appear to be unhappy in their jobs, in spite of the 12-16 years - or more - of education that they had invested in preparation.  She also noted that when people are unhappy, they tend to be not very good at at what they do - with the obvious implications for society at large. This suggested to her that "knowing oneself" - what you're good at, what you like to do - is an important, but overlooked part of being prepared to enter the workforce.

Another comment referenced the pre-forum article in the CDT in which Bill Gates claimed that even schools that are relatively well-functioning "are not designed to prepare people to go out in the workforce now."  This raised the question: what does he mean by that? - and how have the set of skills that make for an effective employee changed in the thirty years since the industrial model dominated the economy?

School choice

(Another in a series of comments on national education policy)

The current political campaign has again brought the issue of school choice into the public conversation.

If a school is not effectively educating its students, it seems both reasonable and fair to give parents the option and financial resources to send their children someplace better.

But it seems to me that there’s a problem with the underlying assumption of the school choice argument.  If a particular school is inadequate - and unquestionably, some are, for a list of reasons - wouldn't every parent choose to send their children somewhere else? Are "school choice" proponents suggesting that we build the capacity that would allow every student to opt out of the public school?  If not, who would be left behind?

For example, one current proposal would use public funds to give private school vouchers to low-income families. I would be all for that - as long as there's enough public money for everyone. And it begs the question: what might be the result of investing that much money in the public system?

(It should be noted that if money really didn’t matter, as some pundits insist, per pupil expenditures in the wealthy suburbs of Philadelphia wouldn’t be nearly so high. These taxpayers – the majority of whom one would expect to be fiscally conservative – would not be supportive of high property taxes unless they thought they were getting a good return on their investment.) Perhaps money isn’t the solution, but it’s certainly part of the solution.

It should also be noted that for practical purposes, the rhetoric of school choice applies only to urban communities. If State College failed to make AYP, and its students suddenly had the legal option to go to another school, where, exactly, would they go?  How would they get there? And here’s the ‘secret’ nearly everyone fails to mention: the receiving school is under no obligation to take students from the under-performing school.

I’m sure that some of the proponents of school choice are well-meaning, but as current proposals are structured, it’s hard for me to see them as anything but a sham.

What am I missing?

Looking back - and forward

As the new co-chair of Public Issues Forums of Centre County, I inherited the responsibility for maintaining the PIF blog on the Centre Daily Times web site. Generally, I'll try to keep my blogging hats separate, but since the topic of today's post is clearly educational in nature, I thought it would be appropriate to post here, as well.

So, I'm 'double-posting'.  My apologies if that's a violation of protocol.

I recently had a chance to look at the videotape from last April's public issues forum: "What is the 21st Century Mission for our Public Schools?" The first approach addressed by the group suggested that the primary mission was "to prepare students to be successful in the workplace."

Although the majority of group members consisted of high school and college students, it was two of the 'parents' who opened the discussion by expressing the concern that our educational system is still preparing students for a single-career employment model that has already become obsolete.

Do today's graduates have the skills that will enable them to transition into a completely different career when they're 40?

Will they have the ability to learn what they need to know on their own?

Are they being prepared for an era when "life-long learning" is not just a nice aspiration, but a necessity?

These forums often raise more questions than answers; and these questions were a good way to begin the dialogue.

Defining “highly qualified”

When you ask Americans to describe the qualities of a good teacher, what you'll hear tends to be pretty consistent:  good teachers engage their students; they respect and relate to their students personally; they find creative ways to make course material relevant; and they hold their students to high standards - while conveying a faith in their students' ability that justifies those high standards. The idea that a good teacher should "know the material" is just assumed.

But under NCLB, a "highly qualified teacher" is primarily one who has demonstrated that he or she "knows stuff" - enough stuff to pass their own standardized test in the relevant subject area. 

While "knowing stuff" will always be important - you can't teach Chemistry unless you understand it - this "highly qualified” designation unfortunately says nothing about the aforementioned characteristics of good teaching; nothing about the ability to teach. This is particularly true at the secondary level, where for many years the emphasis has been on content knowledge.

This is what concerns me about a current proposal to increase support for alternative-certification for teachers, particularly since it’s based on the premise that a “Nobel laureate might not be qualified to teach in a public school today.”  Well, let’s consider the possibility that our hypothetical Nobel laureate isn’t qualified to teach.  Has not nearly every college student had the experience of sitting in a lecture hall listening to an obviously brilliant professor – who nevertheless bored them to tears?

It’s one thing to be in favor of having “highly qualified” teachers for every student.  It’s another thing to define that in a meaningful way.

Chalk it up to Luddism?

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) recently issued a new set of technology standards for teachers.

The first set of standards, issued in 2000, focused primarily on technology skills - proficiencies in PowerPoint, Word and email; knowing how to “cut and paste”, that sort of thing - as well as the use of technology to collect and analyze data.

The new standards stress the importance of how teachers can use technology to “promote the ability of students to learn effectively in an increasingly digital world”.

As one example, the four performance indicators for “inspiring learning and creativity” are:
1)    Promote, support and model creative and innovative thinking;
2)    Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems;
3)    Promote student reflection using collaborative tools; and
4)    Model collaborative knowledge acquisition by engaging in learning with students.

Most readers will recognize similarities to the “21st century skills” model.

For each of these indicators, the document describes what meeting the standard would look like at four levels of competency: beginning, developing, proficient and transformative. While this terminology sounds similar to the PSSAs, this strikes me as a more sophisticated and potentially useful model for measuring student learning.

By the way, all of this makes me wonder: in this day of digital projectors and electronic whiteboards (not to mention 30-year-old overhead projectors) why are some teachers – and many university professors - are still using chalk on a chalkboard?  Just asking..