Sounds reasonable…

But it’s not.

There seems to be a lot of this going around these days: ideas that seem reasonable on the surface (especially if you’re not really paying attention, which most people are not) but upon close examination are deeply counter-productive, or worse.

To cite an example I’ve used before: a change in the implementation of the Keystone exams that will allow students to take the exam in the same year they take the course, rather than making them wait until their junior or senior year.  Of course that’s reasonable! – and everyone patted themselves on the back accordingly for making the change.

But here’s my question: was what those students learned in their freshman Biology course important, or wasn’t it?  If it really is important – so important that it’s required for graduation – shouldn’t students still remember and be able to use it two years later?  Otherwise, what was the point?  This is the message we appear to be sending to students: memorize as much of this stuff as you can, regurgitate it as quickly as possible, and then forget it so you can go on to the next thing.  This is learning?

And now to the more current example: last week the PA House unanimously (!) passed compromise legislation - compromise is good, no? -  that establishes a new system for evaluating public school employees that uses student performance as a rating factor.

Sound reasonable?  Let’s look at some details. “For non-teaching professional employees, the bill requires 20% of their overall rating to be based on student performance.”

So to be clear: how well the school’s students do on their PSSAs will be 20% of the evaluation for school nurses, guidance counselors, etc.. Are you kidding me?  (Think Lewis Black as you read this.) Could they not come up with anything less relevant?

Here’s another detail: For teachers, the bill requires 50% of their rating to be based on student performance; 15% of which will be based on building level data, including things such as the PSSAs, the school’s graduation rate and AP course participation. By what shred of logic should individual teachers be evaluated based on the performance of students they have never met?

Allow me to make a point that should be obvious: teachers in schools that have the resources to offer more AP classes, and where the graduation rate is consistently in the upper 90s (such as State College) are therefore, by definition better teachers than those that teach in more challenging circumstances?

Let’s consider the unintended  (one would hope!) consequences. You’re a teacher looking for a job.  You have a choice: A) you can work in a ‘good’ school, where you are relatively well-paid, the students are relatively focused on learning, and where you are more likely to receive good evaluations – based on overall school performance - resulting in greater job security, or B) you can work in a struggling school, for less pay, where your job evaluation will be pulled down by the school’s overall test scores and you are at risk of being fired every year.  Where would you go?

Just as importantly, school A has ten applicants for every position, while school B has to take whoever they get.  Needless to say, the primary difference between school A and school B is the relative wealth of the respective communities. Under this proposal, we are institutionalizing a scheme in which the rich continue to get richer…

I haven’t even addressed the issue of statistical reliability.  (Does no one understand statistics?)  Based on the evidence so far, the use of student ‘achievement’ data results in wild fluctuations in individual teacher evaluations from year to year. We might be better off using a dartboard – at least then, the randomness would be apparent to everyone.

What will be the impact on teacher morale of this nonsense – and what will be the impact of that, on the kids?  Finally, is there anyone – anyone? – who believes the PSSAs measure more than a tiny sliver of what is important in student learning?

This proposal is either A) dumb as rocks, or B) an incredibly devious and dishonest attack on the very idea of public education. Honestly, I am somewhat torn between the two options. (As they used to say, “just because you’re paranoid…”)

p.s. One other provision of this legislation would permit non-education professionals to be school superintendents. Now, there’s a swell idea.

Are computers really necessary?

When 'old-timers' - that is, people of my age -  say "we didn’t have computers when I was in school, and I turned out fine", they have a point.  That’s why it’s necessary for educators to explain why the education we remember is not adequate for today’s students.

It is also important to understand that a "21st-century" education is not really about technology. Technology is only a tool; a means to an end. More than one school district has spent a fair sum buying new computers, only to have them sit in classrooms, collecting dust.  If access to new technologies doesn’t provoke us to fundamentally re-think the teaching and learning experience, they’re not worth the investment.

So it is important to understand how technology allows us to do things in the classroom that we couldn’t do before - and why that matters. That was the opportunity that several members of the school board had on a recent visit to State High.

For members of the public who have not stepped inside a classroom in decades, this would be enlightening, and would hopefully jump-start a community-wide conversation concerning the direction of public education.

Perhaps the most significant way that education has changed (or rather, needs to change) is that it has become less about the consumption of information - which, in the information age, is not nearly as important as it once was - and more about what you can do with that information. As one teacher put it, we’re seeing s shift from "content" to "analysis."

Educators and employers have identified a set of "21st-century skills" that today’s students will need in order to be successful. The list includes critical-thinking, collaboration, broad communication skills, civics and creativity. What technology does is make it possible, or at least considerably easier, to incorporate that set of skills into the student learning experience.

As one teacher described it: we need to see computers not as "consumption" machines, but as “creation” machines.

A high school English teacher decided it was important to expand the concept of what it means to be an effective communicator beyond the "5-paragraph essay" - which is all that many high school students learn to do. So she incorporated live performance and the creation of 30-second Public Service Announcements into her college writing course.

Consider the higher-order communication skills that a performer must have in order to connect with an audience on both an emotional and intellectual level. (For me, it also validated the idea that the arts can be infused throughout the curriculum, not just as stand-alone courses.)

And consider the skills one has to learn in order to produce an effective PSA. Of course, technical editing skills are useful, but more importantly, this project requires that you grab someone's attention and make your point in 15-30 seconds. (As Mark Twain  said, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn’t have the time.")  A record of these kinds of experiences, in a digital portfolio, provide a much fuller picture of student achievement than the results of standardized testing.

Another teacher took advantage of on-line resources to stimulate classroom  deliberations on current events.

Several classes demonstrated how technology has made it easier to work on group projects, and how those projects were of higher quality, and more in depth as a result – and required collaborative skills the students will surely need in college and the workplace.  It is also far easier for students to comment on and critique each other's work, which 1) makes the writing more authentic, because the teacher is not the only one who will read it, and 2) with the students acting as "teachers" their learning becomes more ingrained.

But the value of the teacher’s input is also increased. Use of the Googledocs technology allows for more frequent and timely teacher input: revisions and feedback that used to take a week or more can now happen prior to the next day’s class.

Clearly, this requires that teachers adjust from their traditional role to one of "co-collaborators".  That’s not easy to do, so one theme we heard repeatedly was the necessity of quality professional development. You have to provide sufficient support and time for teachers to become comfortable with doing things differently, but the investment is both necessary and worthwhile.

Then there are the side benefits. First, a student perspective I would not have considered: "spellcheck" actually enhances good spelling, because it provides immediate feedback. And as the students told us, experiencing a subject via a virtual tour has far more impact than reading about it in a textbook.  Several students commented that it is easier to organize and edit class notes.

In my mind, it's no longer a question of whether technology should be incorporated into the classroom, but what’s the most effective and efficient way to do it.

"Bully"

The recent release of "Bully" and the controversy over its initial "R" rating (it was eventually released "unrated") has sparked a national conversation over bullying in school. Putting aside the absurdity of the MPAA rating, I’d like to talk about the movie itself, and where we might go from here.

First, the movie is worth seeing. It is an excellent portrayal of what bullying looks like from the perspective of students. It also does a nice job of showing how clueless adults can be, adults within the school system in particular. You can imagine how frustrating that is to both affected students and parents.

It’s probably too much to ask, but where I think the movie falls short is in solutions, which don’t get much beyond insisting that the school, and the public at large, face up to the issue. While that’s a good start, it highlights the shortcomings of traditional anti-bullying efforts: they tend to be reactive, with the focus typically on changing the behavior of the “bully”.  Not enough attention is paid to the behavior of the bystanders, nor on the overall climate of the school. 

By contrast, a comprehensive “school climate” approach is pro-active. The emphasis is on developing a sense of community, including behavioral expectations, that make bullying less likely to occur in the first place. It is important that we address the random, casual disrespect that occurs in some school environments – places where bullying is likely to be taken for granted. 

Parents have to recognize that their role is critical - a key part of which is to challenge this idea that bullying is an acceptable and unavoidable part of growing up. All that bullying accomplishes is to produce schools in which all of our children will find it harder to learn.  Adults are also responsible for modeling the respect for others that we want our children to demonstrate. Bullying is a learned behavior; fortunately, so is respect.

But perhaps the most important component of developing a positive school climate is to allow the students to acquire a sense of ownership in their school. We need to move from the traditional student perception that school is something that is “done” to them to one in which students and teachers share the responsibility for their school environment. 

That’s why it is so encouraging  to hear that many of our high school students will be seeing the film in the coming weeks, following up with school-wide conversations, all initiated by the students, themselves. Hopefully, this will be the beginning of a conversation that includes all of us.

A revolt against high-stakes testing?

Perhaps it's the arrival of spring, but I'm catching a whiff of optimism in the air: there appears to be the makings of a revolt against our national obsession with high-stakes testing.  And it's originating in Texas of all places!

Even more encouraging, it's not just educators who are standing up (which begs the question: why weren't teachers consulted in the first place?); it's also parents who are beginning to say, "enough is enough!"  Some parents have gone so far as to not allow their children to take these high-stakes tests. Just saying.

Truthfully, parents were never really on board in the first place. When you ask parents what they want from their schools, they've never supported the inevitable shrinking of the curriculum that occurs when you test only a narrow band of the curriculum, place enormously high stakes on those tests, and then cut resources.

From the parents' perspective, it's not just about being prepared to get a job, either. Parents have always believed that schools should also prepare students to be citizens - the original justification for public schools, by the way  (ask Ben Franklin); to discover what interests them, and to be exposed to the arts.

In fact, with the exception of those relatively few places where the schools really are terrible, parents overwhelmingly rate their local school - the ones their kids go to; the ones where they know the teachers - "A" or "B".

It's those "other" schools that are failing. And why the public perception that our education system is failing?  Well, because everybody seems to be saying it (e.g., "Waiting for Superman"), so it must be true. Except that it's not.

When you compare the typical, reasonably financed suburban school in the United States with similar schools in "high-performing" countries elsewhere, our schools hold their own quite well, thank you. What brings our average down, so to speak, are the schools at the lower end of the equity spectrum.

Did you know that among the industrialized countries against which the U.S. compares itself on these international benchmarks, the U.S. has the highest percentage of students in poverty?
Which brings me to this question: if we're going to hold teachers accountable for student progress, shouldn't we hold politicians accountable for the environment in which that progress does, or doesn't, occur? That's what 'high-performing' Finland did.*

Instead, we hear politicians say: "We're not responsible! - it's the teachers fault!" (Well, they're right about the first part.) And while we're on the subject of politicians and accountability, shouldn't legislators be required to take these tests, themselves? And publish the scores? And then explain to us why these tests are so important?

For all the time, effort and money that are put into Pennsylvania's version of high-stakes testing (the PSSAs) the data we get from them is almost worthless. Why?  Because we don't even receive that data until six months after the student has left the class! And as limited in value as that data would be, we could get it sooner, but the Commonwealth is too cheap to pay for a quicker turnaround.  I kid you not.

Almost completely off the radar is the proposal - for which the current administration appears only too happy to allocate resources - to begin implementing the newest version of high-stakes testing, the Keystone exams, for the class of students entering 9th grade a year from now. Of the three exams that students must take, one will be Biology.

Now, I have nothing against biology, per se, but by what logic is 'proficiency' in biology elevated in importance above all the other things students could, or should be learning? How much do you remember from high school biology? How important was it, really? In order to keep your high school diploma, should you be required to periodically take the new Keystone exam?  Just asking.

This lack of coherence is an indication of what high-stakes testing really is: a political fig leaf; the sole purpose of which is to allow politicians to claim that they're 'doing something' about education.

What frustrates me is that a considerable amount of energy must be spent countering these really silly ideas, which only diverts us from the conversations we should be having, like: How do we improve the quality of teaching in the classroom and make it more consistent? What would a meaningful and useful system of assessment look like (including a serious discussion on what it is we ought to be assessing in the first place!).  Or, more fundamentally - in what important ways does education need to change in order to meet the needs of the current generation of students?

In my imagination, teachers and parents would have a big part in that conversation. Well, it's spring; hope is in the air.

*American students in schools where less than 10 percent of children live in poverty score first in the world in reading, writes Linda Darling-Hammond in The Washington Post. Our lower international standing is because high-achieving countries like Finland and Singapore have social safety nets that ensure virtually all schools have fewer than 10 percent of students living in poverty.

Comparing Apples to Oranges

A friend recently wrote to me on the subject of standardized teacher evaluations:

"Just musing, but maybe there needs to be some standardization with respect to teacher evaluations.  I am generally of the opinion that each community knows best and that standardization means more bureaucracy, but it would be nice to compare apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.  What do you think?  Please be brutally honest."

This was my reply... 

That's an excellent question. There's certainly a strong push towards developing objective, universal standards that can be used to compare teachers across districts, states, etc.

My biggest problem with this idea is that "teacher effectiveness" depends to a considerable extent on the quality of the teaching environment. Do teachers receive appropriate administrative support and training? Do they have opportunities to collaborate with and learn from more experienced teachers? (I am very much of the opinion that most good teachers are made and not born.)

Class size, and especially the students themselves vary enormously. (Are they hungry? Are they being bullied? What's going on at home?)  Is there adequate heat, light, books?  Obviously, the "climate" for teaching and learning varies considerably from school to school. Even the "effectiveness" of an individual teacher can vary significantly from year to year, depending on the students in his/her class. (Ask any teacher.) And how do you evaluate teachers when students have more than one, or enter a class mid-year, or...?

So, I am deeply skeptical that an evaluation rubric could be developed that even begins to account for all these factors. The better approach is to have teacher evaluations occur at the school/district level, where principals have been trained as "educational leaders", responsible for establishing best practices across the faculty. And rather than having teachers compete against each other, they should be developing a climate in which teachers are encouraged - and have the time - to share with each other what they have found to work, and what doesn't.

The focus should be on helping teachers to get better at what they do. As long as it's not punitive, other teachers (and even students, who can be quite good at identifying good teaching) can, and should, have significant roles in the evaluation process.  (The principal can't be everywhere.)

Those are my thoughts. Have I been brutally honest? The idea of 'standardized teacher evaluations' sounds appealing, but it's deeply wishful thinking.

A few more thoughts since then:

A recent report from the New Teacher Center emphasizes the extent to which school leadership, opportunities for teacher collaboration, and customized professional development impact teacher success - with particular significance for hard-to-staff schools. High-quality induction programs can help transform these schools into strong professional communities where educators actually want to stay and work.

A must read: Diane Ravitch's scathing criticsm of the NYC DoE decision to release its teacher evaluation data, despite its egregrious unreliability, and their explicit assurances in 2008 to the contrary.

Bill Gates, in his NYTimes editorial, was among those who pointed out that the decision was counter-productive to improving teacher effectiveness.

Also worth reading: Grading the Teachers

Anthony Cody's excellent blog:

And finally, Linda Darling-Hammond's piece in EdWeek: Value-Added Evaluation Hurts Teaching

Act 1 redux

“That makes no sense whatsoever,” said Hutchinson.

That statement begs for an explanation, which, to be honest, I was not fully prepared to give at Monday's board meeting. I did not anticipate having to defend a practice widely used by school boards in the era of Act 1, and I certainly didn't expect to have to defend the ethics /morality of that decision.

A little history on school budgeting is in order. Once upon a time, although school budgets were developed over a period of months, the actual tax rate wasn't determined until fairly late in the process - usually not until June - by which time you would have a much clearer picture of the most important factors impacting the budget, such as:
the cost of health care for the coming year
the number of retirements, and (most significantly for many districts)
the amount of the state appropriation

Then came Act 1, under which school districts are required to submit preliminary budgets when all of those numbers are no more than educated guesses, and while you are barely half-way through the current fiscal year. Act 1 also limits, by formula, the possible real estate tax increase for the coming year. For next year, that number is 1.7%.

However, for a couple of big ticket items - special education and retirement contributions - if the increase in expenses is significantly higher than the index (approximately, the rate of inflation) districts are allowed to raise taxes to cover the difference (how nice of the legislature!) on the reasonable premise that these expenses are beyond local control.

This is a fairly simple calculation for the retirement contribution rate, which is already known for next year. But your special ed budget is not so easy to predict. It is not unusual for a particularly high-needs student to unexpectedly transfer into your district, and there is a moral and legal obligation to provide that student with appropriate services, regardless of whether there is money in the budget to do so.  

So instead of permitting a district to raise taxes to pay for future special ed costs - which are unknown - this number is determined by looking backwards, essentially allowing districts to recoup expenses that have already been paid - a fairly reasonable idea in an otherwise unreasonable piece of legislation.

But there's a catch. School boards have to decide now, in January, whether or not to apply for these exemptions. Keep in mind that this merely establishes the maximum tax rate; there's no requirement that we use it. But the opposite is not true; if you don't apply for the exemptions you can't change your mind later. So the prudent course is to apply for the exemptions, maintain flexibility, let the process play itself out, and hope for a less-than-worse-case-scenario.

But to suggest that it is immoral and unethical for the district to recoup expenses that the district was legally required to make (and has already made!) makes no sense whatsoever.


p.s. I should once again point out that Act 1 is a deeply undemocratic (unethical, immoral? - who's to say?) piece of legislation.  Local citizens already had an effective way to control local school spending.  If a majority of citizens believe that their schools are in need of additonal community resources, they can elect board members who agree with them. If citizens believe that taxes are too high, they can elect people who agree with them. It's really that simple.  Why state legislators think they are a better judge of each community's values is beyond me.

And to beat the poor horse one more time, school districts are legally required to pass their budgets on time, but the state legislature, not so much.

Relationships, Relevance and Rigor

Back before I joined the school board, my first education conference was Bill Daggett’s Model Schools Conference.  He made an impression on me, as did his mantra - which he still uses: “rigor, relevance and relationships”.  A recent interview in Education Weekly gave me reason to think about it again.

It’s hard to find an education ‘reformer’ today who isn’t advocating for greater ‘rigor’ in our education curriculum - everyone seems to be calling for “higher standards”.  (It’s no surprise that not many people are calling for “lower standards”.)  The problem is that most of the rhetoric has it backwards.

As Daggett reminds us in the interview, ”relevance makes rigor possible – when students find their studies relevant, teachers can increase the rigor to meet the needs of students.”

For generations (at least) we’ve heard calls to make education more relevant. But in the decade since I first heard Daggett, a fair amount of research has been produced that backs up Daggett’s thesis.  As pointed out by John Medina in “Brain Rules”, human beings do not pay attention to boring stuff.  Allow me to repeat that:  human beings (including kids) do not learn that which is not interesting to them.

And how do we know what is interesting to kids?  Daggett’s third R, relationships.  “It’s important for educators to know their students. Educators need to know what is interesting to them… those are the ways to engage students.”

So let’s make sure we have the horse before the cart: relationships first, then relevance and rigor.  Let’s emphasize the importance of building supportive relationships throughout our school communities. (And not just student to teacher – in order to have a vibrant educational community, everyone needs to be engaged and constantly learning.)

Out of those relationships we’ll figure out how to make school relevant.  And then we’ll really be on to something.