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Tom on Point: The Underpinning of Democracy

Tom on Point: The Underpinning of Democracy

http://bit.ly/2LUX7Rw

"Public education must be defended & renewed each generation. This is not about protecting

an institution for its own sake; the need for a strong system of public education remains

— assuming democracy still matters."

A 21st-century Model for Education

(published in the CDT in April 2017)

Every Pennsylvania high school student should graduate with the skills to be successful in the modern world. I expect we would all agree on that. But what would this actually look like, and how would it be different from what many, if not most, of our schools are doing now?

Fortunately, this wheel doesn’t need to be invented. Some years ago, I heard a conference speaker discuss the simple way his organization addressed the issue: they asked business leaders and university administrators, “what important skills do your first-year employees/students lack when they show up at your door?” Here is the collective response: the ability to think critically, communicate clearly, collaborate with others, and be creative problem-solvers (what the Partnership for 21^st-Century Skills calls the ‘4 Cs’).

So why isn’t every school doing this intentionally and consistently? These concepts aren’t new to educators.  One problem is that much of the public – and probably most of our policy-makers – is stuck with a mental vision of education based on when they went to school, often decades ago. (You know, with the desks all in neat rows.) As a result, we continue to implement so-called education ‘reforms’ – such as the PSSAs and the high school Keystone exams – that might have made sense in the middle of the last century when the United States was still an industrial economy.

Let’s begin with the obvious. For example, you can’t understand American history without knowing some facts; the basic chronology of events, for example. So it is still important to learn a certain amount of ‘stuff’. But you really don’t need to memorize the date of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (which I did, in 3^rd grade!) or the names of the fifty state capitols.

1.      If you really need to know, you can look it up on your phone; no trip to the library required.

2.      To the extent that the ‘memorize and regurgitate’ model still exists (and it does - it’s called “teaching to the test”) it consumes time and energy that could be spent on something more important.

3.      It truly misses the point! History, for example, isn’t really about ‘what’ happened, the true value is in understanding why it happened.

4.      This is the surest way to make any subject boring. (A truly indefensible disservice to our students.)                And perhaps most importantly:

5.      That system was designed to sort students into winners and losers, something we can no longer afford to do.

I think it’s fair to say that model no longer works. But as obsolete as it is now, this ‘sorting’ model actually worked pretty well as late as the 1970s.  If you were fortunate enough to attend a middle-class suburban high school - where it was expected that you would go to college - there’s a good chance that you went on to have a successful professional career. But even if you didn’t go to college (and the vast majority of students of that era didn’t) all you needed in order to have a middle-class life forty years ago was the ability to read, write, do some basic arithmetic, and follow instructions. And our educational system was pretty good at that.

There is another aspect of this obsolete model that we ought to consider. Are you curious about how it came to be that every student is required to pass a ‘Keystone’ exam in Biology in order to graduate high school?  Why Biology?  Why not a broad understanding of scientific principles (which might actually be useful)?  Well, a group of elite university presidents collectively decided that in order to gain  admission to college, a student must first complete a minimum number of ‘Carnegie’ credits, including three in the sciences: Biology, Chemistry and Physics. And thus we have the Biology Keystone exam! – as well as the basic structure of nearly every high school curriculum in the country.

But did I mention that this decision was made in 1906?  In 1906, America was still largely an agrarian society; relatively few students graduated from high school, and only the sons of the elite went to college. And so, a one-size-fits-all system built on memorization; that doesn’t ask students ‘what’s important to them?’; that doesn’t even ask ‘what does every student really need to know?’ perpetuates itself.

One thing on which policy-makers do seem to agree is the value of career and technical education for those students who are not ‘college-bound’. In other words, let’s allow students to spend the four years of high school focused on developing the skills and expertise that they see as useful and important to their future. But why aren’t we encouraging every student to do that?  Instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars of your parents’ money ‘figuring out who you are and what you want to do’ – which was the model when I went to college, when you could still afford to do that – why not help students begin to find a sense of direction and purpose while they are still in high school?   

So what’s the way forward?  First, let’s stop doing the obsolete and counter-productive, beginning with the time and effort that we waste on standardized testing. Then let’s be deliberate about doing what we need to do, and build the development of critical-thinking into everything that happens in school. Let’s make sure that our students know how to communicate beyond reading, and writing the five-paragraph essay: every student should know how to speak in public and engage an audience. (The arts will be more important than ever.)  Every student should have opportunities to collaborate with others on projects that are meaningful to them – and be able to relate to, and work with, people with experiences different from their own. (Because that’s the world they’ll be living in.) Every student should come to school thinking, “what problem do I want to solve today?” Or, perhaps, “what do I want to create”? And “what do I need to learn in order to do that”?

Perhaps most importantly, we should be equipping our students with the skills to be an effective and engaged citizens. (Fortunately, it’s the same set of skills!)

In order to do this, we will have to work to create and maintain school environments that are not just physically, but also emotionally safe, where making mistakes is just part of learning; where students feel connected to their teachers and to each other, and where everyone feels respected and has a sense of ownership in ‘their’ school. 

This might not be the school that you or I attended, but it’s the school our students need.

The first Student Inquiry conference

On Thursday I was invited to attend the first ever State College PDS student inquiry conference, which was held at various elementary schools around the District. It is conceptually similar to the annual PDS intern conference, except that it is the students who are presenting the results of their research, based on their personal wonderings.

Here are a few of the ‘wonderings’ of Houserville’s fourth-graders:

·        Why do some people believe in mythical beings such as Spiderman?

·        Why do marshmallows swell up when they are heated?

·        How do we know which religion is true?

·        What happens when you breed an aggressive dog with a docile one? Why?

·        What does space sound like?

·        Why do we exist?

In some cases pursuing the answers to those questions will bring these students a deep understanding of the very concepts that we are trying to ‘teach’ them. Some of these questions could well fuel life-long passions.

A recent study noted that the number of questions that children ask peaks at about age three, and declines steadily from there. One of our PDS alums wondered why that might be, and asked her students. A couple of their responses:

·        If I ask too many questions, I’m afraid I will look dumb.

·        I’m too busy to ask questions.

It’s hard to imagine that there’s not a relationship between this and another recent study that measured ‘student engagement’ and found that it peaked in kindergarten and went steadily downhill from there. To state the obvious, that can’t be acceptable.

Other studies have discovered that emotion, far from being a distraction, is an essential component of human learning. (It has to mean something.) Yet another recent study has shown that we’re far more likely to remember something that we’ve learned if we think we’re going to need it in the future.

In the words of one 2^nd-grader, “if you don’t care about it, why would you do it?”

What if a portion of school time was set aside to allow students to pursue the questions that are most important to them? (Think the Google model.) Not just the ‘gifted’ student, but every student.  What would that do to student engagement?

At Easterly Parkway we heard from a class of second-graders whose wonderings lead to research, which lead to proposed actions. One of those actions was a well-written letter to the school board, suggesting that we install solar panels in our schools. As the students explained their research, some of the words that I heard used correctly were anecdotal, paraphrasing and life-experience. I am not making this up.

At the end of the day the teachers shared what they had observed over the course of the day: students brainstorming ways to change the world; students consistently ‘on task’; a sense of community – students asking questions of and supporting one another; students working on things they believe will impact others; the experiential scientific process.

Some of the things they found most inspiring: teachers taking risks, empowered students, conversations with colleagues, student-driven learning.

One of the teachers’ wonderings: How does the Inquiry process connect to what ‘has’ to be taught?  My answer: in every way imaginable.

These educators are building something powerful that could have an impact far beyond the boundaries of the State College Area School District. 

Thoughts on HB 805, the teacher furlough 'reform' bill

According to the reporting of Penn Live, Republicans in the state legislature are threatening to hold hostage next year’s state budget - due this June 30^th -  due to the Governor’s veto of House Bill 805, the so-called teacher furlough reform bill.  As if the budget doesn’t have enough problems already!

While I support giving school boards the option of furloughing professional staff for economic reasons, and while this legislation was marketed to appear reasonable (who doesn’t want to get rid of bad teachers?) this would have been terrible education policy and a disservice to students.

The key problem is that for the foreseeable future the authority to furlough teachers would have been tied to a deeply flawed evaluation system. A substantial portion of Pennsylvania's evaluation formula depends on standardized student test results that are neither statistically valid nor reliable, and which do a better job of measuring community wealth than student learning.

Let me repeat that: Pennsylvania's current teacher evaluation formula is currently tied to standardized student test results that are neither statistically valid nor reliable.

Furthermore, even the more 'valid' component of the evaluation system - principal observations - is still in its infancy. In many cases, evaluators have received only minimal training, and most still have very limited experience. Attaching 'high stakes' to these evaluations would have negated their potential value for improving overall teacher effectiveness. (Isn’t that the goal?)

And, by the way, we would also have inadvertently compounded the challenge of recruiting teachers in economically challenged districts. Why? Because part of the calculation of a teacher’s score is the overall school score. As a result, a teacher’s score is automatically lower if they teach in a struggling – i.e., poor – school. Which, in effect, reduces their job security.  I am not making this up.

There have been some proposals for tweaking the evaluation formula. But as long as the legislature is dug in on using these test scores – which were designed for completely different purposes - changing the mixture of the "garbage" that goes into the formula won't improve the validity of the result: garbage-in is still garbage-out. Claims that the public wants to use standardized tests scores to evaluate teachers is a belief not based in reality. Increasingly, the public wants no such thing, and the more they learn about it, the less they like it.

Perhaps our legislators can't be expected to understand this. Few of them have had any direct experience with public education since they were last in school, in most cases, decades ago. And like most Americans, few have a good grasp of the statistical concepts of reliability and validity. Even fewer would understand the real-life dilemmas a principal faces when considering whether to rate a teacher 'unsatisfactory' - such as, will the replacement be an improvement? 

This was another example of our legislature proposing a simplistic answer to a complex problem. The proposed legislation would have done nothing to improve teacher effectiveness. But ironically, there is actually a lot of potential in the relatively new Danielson observation model, particularly if it’s implemented in a climate of trust and greater peer-to-peer accountability. Just maybe we should give that a chance to work.

Mindfulness at the PDS conference - an idea whose time has come?

Plus, thoughts on block scheduling

Another session at last month’s PDS conference that I found particularly intriguing was the presentation on “Community Building through Mindfulness” by a ninth-grade English class intern.

What prompted Carissa’s inquiry was her concern about the level of stress that we know exists in our high school student population, evidenced in part by the disturbingly high percentage of our students who have entertained suicidal thoughts at one time or another.

Carissa’s research found that spending a few minutes at the beginning of each class on some simple yoga and mindfulness exercises reduced her students’ level of stress, and increased their ability to focus in class. Perhaps that is not surprising. (But it is useful, thank you!)

What, to me, was somewhat surprising was the degree to which this also created a greater sense of class cohesion and unity.  The ability to develop a sense of community in the classroom will be an increasingly important attribute of the classroom of the future.  (We make a point of this in elementary school – why not high school?)

What also struck me – at least in my view – is how much easier it is to implement this kind of innovation within the new 90-minute class block schedule.

Which lead me to further speculate: if we were designing our school structure from scratch, wouldn’t this be the logical thing to do? Who would design a system of 43-minute classes, at the end of which you jump up and run to the next class?  We now know from decades of brain research that 1) we need time to process the information we just received, and 2) the brain needs time to switch gears to the next task.

Certainly, this is how adults learn. I’ve never been to an educational conference in which the sessions were not at least 75 minutes long, with at least a 15-minute break in between. No adult would stand for the traditional 45-minute class, 5-minute break that is found in the typical high school. Why would we subject our students to that?

My Day with PDE

At the invitation of PDE, I spent Thursday morning in Harrisburg as they kicked off the first of their “Stakeholder Sessions” that will help inform the Department as they develop the regulations for the implementation of the recently passed ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act).

This was not at all unlike the recent study groups formed by PSBA (one of which I co-chaired) for essentially the same purpose - with the hope that we could get out in front of the issue before the new regulations get set in stone.

Introductions and an overview were followed by a panel discussion on the opportunities and challenges provided by the new law. Some concerns were expressed about possibility that we might now forget about the ‘achievement gap’, which prompted me to jot down a question on the provided notecard.

Among the pile of cards that were submitted, mine was the one that was picked.  My question: “We have known about the achievement gap for decades, long before No Child Left Behind. What are the proven strategies for reducing the achievement gap, and why aren’t we implementing them?” “Ooooooh,” murmured the crowd.

What prompted me to write the question is that education policy-makers have been trying to sell this nonsense for years. “At least NCLB told us that we had an achievement gap,” they say.

Bull. Anyone who was paying attention knew long before NCLB that we had an ‘achievement gap’. Yet schools were actually punished for failing to close the gap, which always struck me as deeply hypocritical, since no one at the U.S. Dept. of Ed, or PDE, had any suggestions for what to do about it!

The first three panelists responded to my question by mumbling something along the lines of “it’s complicated”, and then the last panelist said some interesting things, mentioning three issues: 1) Equity (noting that Pennsylvania has the least equitable public education funding mechanism in the country.)  2) School climate, and 3) the Cultural Competency of Teachers.

That got my attention, since it’s pretty close to what I might have said. In addition, I saw the last two items as central to any strategy for reducing the achievement gap in State College. (And yes, we have one.)

Then on to the breakout session on “assessment.” After having everyone in the room briefly describe their ideal of what good assessment should look like – and we were all pretty much in agreement - the facilitator asked for ideas. I pointed out that we had just heard that “computer adaptive tests” aligned to state standards were now permissible under ESSA; that many of us (including State College) were already using these tests to provide useful, immediate information to teachers, and that we could take that data, aggregate it and dis-aggregate it as need be, send it to PDE, and we would be done with it!  

We could fulfill the requirements of ESSA without doing anything we weren’t already doing! And we could toss the ridiculously inappropriate, expensive, useless and time-consuming PSSA exams in the trash.

The idea that the possibility of actually eliminating the dreaded PSSAs was within our grasp seemed to go over the head of most people in the room. Partly, I think, it was too-good-to-be-true, and partly people were stuck on the idea that they had to ask permission from PDE: “Tell us if we’re allowed to do this.”  But there were a few who seemed to get it, and I hope they carry the torch through the summer meetings.

My work done there,J, I slid into the tail end of the “accountability” breakout group. I was there just long enough to support someone who was pointing out that our primary ‘accountability’ is to the people in our community. (Who else is there?)  Then another person sitting nearby asked whether there were tools available to accurately measure ‘school climate’. Apparently, there had been a lot of concern expressed that school climate – now an approved measure of accountability under ESSA – was not concrete enough to measure accurately.

This gave me the opportunity, as a member of the National School Climate Council, to inform the group that yes, good tools had been developed for measuring school climate. (Examples: the level of student engagement, the degree to which teachers feel respected, whether parents feel connected, etc..)  The issue of whether it is appropriate to incorporate school climate as a component of ‘accountability’ was left to another day.  

“Examining Racial Consciousness” at the PDS conference

For me, one of the highlights of being a school board member is the opportunity to attend the annual Professional Development School (PDS) conference each April.

The PDS is a nationally-honored collaboration between the State College Area school district and Penn State’s College of Education. The College provides us with full-year (August-June) teacher-interns to learn and work alongside our classroom teacher/mentors. It’s a wonderful model for the development of new teachers, and it deserves to be replicated nationwide.

Part of each intern’s year-long assignment is a research project based on a personal ‘wondering’: I wonder what would be the result if, as a teacher, I tried this or did that?  The conference is the opportunity to talk about that research –the quality of which is often as good as you might hear at a state or national conference. (By the way, this is a great model for ongoing teacher professional development.)

One session that I attended, “Examining Racial Consciousness through Literature Selections” struck me as having the potential to impact the entire State College school community.  Amy’s idea was simple: in her advanced English 11 class, she replaced one of the standard texts from the so-called “canon” (which, as you know, was written primarily by dead white guys) with “a raisin in the sun”. 

The impact on her students, as reflected in their end-of-unit reflections, was eye-opening. Here are a couple of their comments: “As a middle class, privileged, white child growing up in a suburban town, I have a very narrow view of life outside of my own, save from stories I have been told.” And, “I'm not really affected by a lot of issues, because I am a ... white male in a stable home in a nice community...”

And this, from an African-American student: "... most minorities who move to State College will eventually have to figure out how to (assimilate into) the white culture… Otherwise, he or she will be an outcast."

The students also began to reexamine their historical assumptions; challenging, for example, the idea that racism had ended in the northern states long before the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

Amy’s students came to these insights almost entirely on their own, through their conversations with one another. This strikes me as exactly the conversations our students need to have, and we need to provide them with the space for those conversations to occur. Apparently, minor tweaks to the District’s approach to curriculum could make a real difference in helping our students better understand themselves and the world they live in.

I have not done justice to Amy’s presentation, but here is a conclusion of hers that I think is worth noting:  “I want to teach African American Literature as a part of an inclusive classroom canon, not as a separate course.” I couldn’t agree more.

The Test Scores Did NOT go down

The results of the PSSA exams that were taken last April by all Pennsylvania students in grades 3-8 were recently released to great consternation across the Commonwealth. To its credit, the recent CDT article was considerably more nuanced, but almost universally, the headlines have been something along the lines of “PA Math test scores drop.”

This is actually not a true statement. What is true is that test results have been released from entirely new exams, covering new material, using new resources (that have been unevenly distributed), taught largely for the first time by teachers who have received varying levels of professional preparation.

It is as if we decided this year to measure ‘fruit production’ by counting oranges, when in past years we counted apples; the results are not comparable. Schools and teachers are now being evaluated in part by how many oranges they produce, and since there happens to be fewer oranges than apples, it gives the false impression that schools and teachers aren’t ‘performing’ as well as in past years. The cynical side of me wonders whether this was not intentional.

And by the way, we count the oranges before the harvest is even complete!  Of course, this problem has existed for years. The PSSA exams are given in mid-April, barely 80% into the school year. So every year, schools face a dilemma: do they try to cram a year’s worth of material into eight months, or just accept the fact that students will be tested on material they have yet to see?  Who would design such a system?

The other important thing to know, especially for parents, is that these scores are not a good indication of how well your child is doing in school. First, they attempt to measure only a very narrow range of what is important in your child’s education. Your child’s teacher has far better tools at her disposal – including her own observations - to help you understand how well your child is doing.

Part of the reason this is true - and this may seem hard to believe – is that these exams were not designed for the purpose of evaluating individual students! (And certainly not their teachers) The tests were designed to give us an indication of how well schools are doing in the aggregate, as part of the federal mandate under No Child Left Behind. One indication of the unreliability of these scores is that your child’s teacher will tell you that your child’s score “falls within a range” - which is actually quite large.  Given the better alternatives, I consider that even sharing the results of these tests with individual students and parents borders on educational mal-practice. But that’s just me.

Ironically, all this testing has told us little that we didn’t already know if we were paying attention. Has anyone been surprised to discover that a particular school is struggling? All you really had to do was look up the zip code and know the community’s median income.

Also - and this is deeply ironic - if the purpose of these exams is to measure how well schools are doing in the aggregate, all this testing is unnecessary! Has no one heard of statistical sampling? You could get the same results by testing a small percentage of randomly selected students, without the fortress-like test security, the tears of special ed students being tested two grades levels about their IEP, and without disrupting a full twelve days on the school calendar. Instead of every student taking nine 2-hour tests, you could randomly divide the students into nine groups, and have each student take one 2-hour test.

The bottom line: the education of our children is important. These tests aren’t. Take the results with a grain of salt.

P.S. The answer to the above question is our unelected State Board of Education, which appears to be firmly entrenched in an educational philosophy that would have been more appropriate in the middle of the last century.

P.P.S. I wrote this last April, but forgot to publish it.  oops...

Board visit to Park Forest Elementary

One of the more enlightening things that we get to do as school board members is to visit our schools. Recently, we had the opportunity to visit Park Forrest Elementary. 

One of the first things that you notice as you enter the school’s main hallway is the “Park Forest Elementary School Constitution”. PFE is a democratic school, meaning that the entire school community – including, and especially the students – establishes the rules and standards by which the school will be governed. The actual constitution, written by students (with some adult guidance) is posted below. 

Not a bad place to go to school, right? One of the things worth noting is that adult leaders would be hard-pressed to come up with a better set of school-wide rules. (Which is how it’s typically done.) But there are significant benefits to having students so involved in the process, the most important of which is that it provides them with an opportunity to begin to take responsibility for their own education, starting with their school environment. 

It seems unlikely that these will become the kind of students who spend thirteen years simply doing what they’re told (also known as “playing school”) and then suddenly wondering what they’re supposed to do with their lives. (Assuming, of course, that we allow them to expand on their experience throughout their middle and high school years.) Hopefully, they will develop the sense that they have a measure of control in their own lives (“agency” is the educational vernacular), as well the knowledge that they can make a difference in the community around them - and eventually the community beyond that. 

This has potentially significant implications. This sense of agency will be an essential disposition in a world in which the path to ‘success’ is not clearly laid out (as it was for many of my generation); in which they will have to create their own jobs, based on their particular set of skills and interests. 

But beyond that, the current state of our fractured democracy is due in large part, I believe, from our society’s move away from Ben Franklin’s vision that public education would be the vehicle through which we “create citizens who could make wise political decisions.” The learning of democratic skills cannot wait until after our students have graduated. That’s too late. 


Another thing I noticed was the poster on the door to the counselor’s office: Mindful Breathing with Yoda (my favorite Star Wars character). Yoda is the school symbol for the set of skills that students learn as a way of maintaining their equilibrium and staying focused in class. Obviously, this is particularly important for the students who don’t stop to think before they act, or who struggle with being emotionally overwhelmed and the ‘inappropriate’ behavior that often follows. 

Sit Comfortably - Close Your Eyes - Breathe In With Your Nose - Breathe Out With Your Mouth - Focus Your Mind On Your Breathing - If Your Mind Wanders, Bring It Back To Your Breathing - Breathe In / Breathe Out - Practice Makes Perfect 

This is the kind of practice that provides ‘space’ to think before you react. But here’s why I think this is particularly important: these are skills students will still be able to use twenty years from now. (Unlike say, when one receives a “prize” for good behavior. As any psychologist will tell you, when the external motivation for a particular behavior ceases, the behavior ceases shortly thereafter.) 

While I would concede that the ‘prize’ model could have value in addressing a chaotic situation, that’s not what we have here. So if we’re going to make the effort to address occasionally problematic behavior in school – which we should – we might as well teach the students something useful while we’re at it.

Schools for Wisdom

The only thing I would add to David Brooks’ insightful column is that relationships are not the end-game, they are the foundation. To paraphrase Bill Daggett, who started talking about the ‘3 Rs’ (rigor, relevance and relationships) over a decade ago: relationships form the basis for relevance. (You cannot know what is relevant to a student, without first knowing him or her as a person.) In turn, ‘relevance’ leads to rigor, by providing the intrinsic motivation to do the hard work needed to become competent.

The other point to be made is that while ‘knowing stuff’ will continue to be important, typically that’s not what’s lacking in those just entering their professions. According to a wide spectrum of business executives (university folks, too) what’s largely missing in new hires is the ability to collaborate with others, to think critically and creatively, and to communicate clearly.  That’s why education needs to intentionally work on developing those skills in students - and that can only happen in an educational environment that is emotionally supportive and encourages risk-taking.

Thoughts on the Budget deal

This may yet be premature, but…the fact that we once again appear to be close to a budget deal in Harrisburg is bringing tentative sighs of relief across the Commonwealth. However, there is a lot that should be said about the deal and the process before we move onto the next thing. So, before we forget…

We came uncomfortably close to enacting a so-called ‘back-end referendum’ which would have required voter approval for all school tax increases. While the idea has an intrinsic appeal, few taxpayers understand what the potential consequences of such legislation would have been.

For example, most of the public wouldn’t know that school districts and their boards have little control over the main drivers of property tax increases: health care, special education, and the pension liability, the last two being state mandates. Without the ability to raise taxes when necessary, each year fewer funds would be available for the education of students.  This is particularly problematic for districts that must raise the lion's share of their revenue from local taxes. It’s hard not to see this as an attack on the idea of public education, itself. 

As we know from experience, passing a referendum is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do, further compounded by the fact that this requirement would have made school taxes the only tax that people get to vote on directly. Passing a referendum requires considerable administrative time and effort – time and effort that would be taken away from the more important task of educating students. Due to the uncertainty involved, two budgets would have to be prepared, one for each scenario, and you can pretty much forget about multi-year budget planning. And, of course, you never know what you’re going to get from the state, since they generally can’t pass a budget on time.

Ironically, besides being bad policy, the concept of referendum is also deeply undemocratic. There already exists a time-honored and often-used mechanism for affecting school board actions you don’t agree with. They’re called elections! There is no evidence to support the idea that state legislators are somehow in a better position than locally elected school boards to determine what is in the best interest of local schools and communities.

We also came perilously close to eliminating the property tax altogether. While this idea is certainly worth considering – the reliance on the property tax is one of the main drivers of education funding inequities - this is not the sort of change one should make in the middle of the night behind closed doors, with no public discussion!

One thing that can be said in favor of the property tax is that it is relatively progressive: on average, wealthier people pay more, and allowances can be made for retired people on fixed incomes. Another thing that can be said is that, unlike sales and income taxes, property taxes are relatively stable and predictable. Was any consideration given to what would happen to education funding in an economic downturn?  Or how education funds would now be distributed?

Which brings me to my larger point: it is the job of our legislators to be aware of the consequences of the legislation they pass. Isn’t that what they’re being paid to do? Otherwise, who needs a legislature? We could have the public vote directly on everything.

Here’s one more example of what struck me as questionable process: tying the budget negotiations to pension ‘reform’.  Unless changes to the pension system would have significantly impacted next year’s budget - something the current proposal doesn’t do - the merits of making changes to the public pension system really deserves its own conversation. And that conversation ought to include any potential impact on public schools.

However, it should be noted that the hybrid pension proposal is not half-bad as these things go; it’s actually pretty close to what was proposed by PSBA over eight years ago. But the House initially voted it down by an astonishing 149-52. On one side, legislators insisted on keeping the system as it is; on the other, they wanted to eliminate the public pension system altogether. Only 26% of our legislators were willing to accept the compromise. Both then and now, it’s amazing how many people are willing to hold out for what they see as the ‘perfect’ solution, rather than accept that which is merely ‘good’.

Finally, on to the budget itself…  It’s also astonishing to me that we're still willing to subsidize the Marcellus Shale industry. Instead of enacting a reasonable extraction tax, we’re raising sales taxes - which are by nature regressive, having the greatest impact on those with the least ability to pay.

Incredibly, you actually heard Shale industry defenders saying that were we to enact an extraction tax, the Shale drillers would go elsewhere. Like, where else were they going to go??  The gas is here, in Pennsylvania!  Further, most of the jobs that have been produced by the shale boom are short-term in nature, and they’re being filled by people with experience from out-of-state. By far, the greatest potential benefit to the citizens of Pennsylvania of Marcellus Shale lies in taxing it, which so far, we have refused to do.  

Between the refusal to tax Marcellus shale, or to enact common-sense modifications to the charter school law (which currently subsidizes for-profit charter schools to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars per year), legislators are leaving on the table in the neighborhood of a billion dollars a year. Why? Because they won’t stand up to the special interest groups that fund many of their election campaigns.  It’s really as outrageous as it sounds.

So while I’m relieved that Pennsylvania (once again) appears to be on the verge of a budget deal, I can’t say I’m really happy about it. We could have done a lot better.

Educating for Citizenship

It may seem hard to believe, but until fairly recently in our history, the main purpose of public education was preparing the next generation for the responsibilities of citizenship. In fact, initially, citizenship was the entire point of a public education.  When, in the 1740s, Ben Franklin first proposed the creation of public schools in Pennsylvania, it was to the end of “creating citizens who could make wise political decisions.”

For many years, citizenship education was prominently acknowledged as a core part of the State College Area School District’s mission. “A responsible and involved citizen” was listed at the very top of the aspirational Ten Characteristics of a State High Graduate. That list, by the way, also included attributes such as respect for self and others, personal financial acumen, environmental stewardship, participation in the arts, and competence with technology. In other words, a well-rounded person.

But in recent years, the national conversation on education has focused almost entirely on preparing students for success in the workforce. While that is important, the ability to make a living at something one enjoys is only one component of being a successful citizen. In fact, the core skills of citizenship – the ability to think critically, to communicate clearly and to collaborate with others - are precisely the skills most sought after by employers in the modern economy. (By the way, those skills are also on that list of ‘ten characteristics’.)

Furthermore, citizenship education, done well, ought not to be one just more thing that our schools ‘have to do’.  Rather, the development of these skills should be embedded into the very fabric of how our schools operate. At the earliest age possible our students should be given every opportunity to take ownership of their education and to be active participants in creating a school and classroom environment that is conducive to quality learning.

Just as education is moving away from the rote memorization of facts that can be instantaneously ‘Googled’, citizenship education should be less about memorizing the names and dates of dead presidents, and more about developing the civic skills students will need and use for the rest of their lives. As David Brooks said recently in the NY Times, “Politics is the process of making decisions amid diverse opinions. It involves conversation, calm deliberation, self-discipline, the capacity to listen to other points of view and balancing valid but competing ideas and interests.”

I have long argued that one explanation for our current political inefficacy, particularly at the national and state levels, is that many of our current politicians never had the opportunity to develop those skills. Because schools began to shy away from controversy back in the 1970s, few modern politicians have had the experience of wrestling with a controversial issue in a high school social studies class. Certainly few had the experience of working with others to impact their school environment. (The rules were handed down from the teacher in the front of the room, and that was that.) But we can do better. 

Finally – my apologies for the hyperbole – I firmly believe that the future of the American experiment of democracy depends on whether we do. 

This sounds reasonable, but it's not

re: Arizona Students to Take Required Civics Test in 8th Grade

How so, you ask? Let me count the ways.

First, is Arizona suggesting that the typical 14-year-old who has passed their civics exam is now prepared to vote and be an active participant in a democratic society?  If not, what exactly does this civics test measure?

Almost certainly, this test measures a student’s ability to memorize a list of dates (1776, 1860, 1941…) names (the usual suspects: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln), and the three branches of government - almost all of which can be looked up on the internet in a matter of minutes.

Second, if we were to assume for a moment that this test actually measures something useful - a bit of a leap, I know, but bear with me - what Arizona appears to be saying is that it’s perfectly ok for their students to memorize this stuff, and then forget it all by the time they turn fifteen. (Thereby making room in their heads for other ‘stuff’, thereby reinforcing a model of education more appropriate for the 1950’s - as well as the idea that school is just something that one ‘has to do’.)

Third, since it’s apparently ok for students to memorize, and then forget this ‘stuff’, it implies that civics has no particular relevance to the students’ future.  (Again: it’s just one more hoop they have to jump through to get to the finish line.)

I will note that Pennsylvania has applied the same logic to the notorious Keystone exams.  Keep in mind that whether or not students still remember this stuff when they graduate - according the explicit intent of this legislation - is not important!

Fourth, does this test require that students demonstrate an ability to apply this ‘knowledge’ in any meaningful way?  You know, like being able to see multiple sides of a complex issue? To hear and understand different perspectives, and work towards a solution everyone can live with? Unfortunately, no. That might be useful!

It’s sadly ironic to think that long before Sandra Day O’Connor became a Supreme Court Justice and a dedicated advocate for meaningful civics education, she served two terms in the Arizona state senate.

So Much Reform, So Little Change: part 5

The Way Forward

The reality is that the students who need the most help tend to be in lower-quality schools, with larger classes, fewer resources, and with less-prepared and less-experienced teachers. Given the complexity of the problem, where should we begin?

A good place to start would be to recognize that in a low-performing school, everyone is working below capacity. These aren’t necessarily bad teachers, bad administrators or bad students. Everyone is dragged down by – as well as a contributor to - an organizational culture that expects little and is deeply resistant to change.

(As Payne points out, this concept of working below capacity also includes the attitude towards time. The typical view is that there’s never enough of it, but he argues that there should be a lot more discussion in policy circles on making better use of the time we already have.)

So, while there are a few interventions that have demonstrated some success regardless – for example, formative assessments for diagnosing student learning problems, and smaller class sizes, particularly in the early years – it appears that the best approach to school reform is to focus on interventions that are “tools for increasing district capacity”.

What that means is that, in bottom-tier schools, the first year or two of a new initiative should be more about building organizational infrastructure than about trying to implement anything specific. (Besides, the search for the one best educational model is probably a lost cause. Even if such a model exists, these schools lack the organizational capacity to implement any model with reasonable fidelity.)

First, you need a superintendent who understands organizational dynamics, ideally someone with experience in public education (including experience in the classroom!) Then, as Jim Collins might say, it’s about ‘getting the right people on the bus.’ How do we do that?  

It should be obvious that you begin by paying teachers a living wage. But more importantly, the focus should be on trying to create an environment that is attractive to the kind of teacher that you want in your school: a culture that respects and values teacher contribution; that provides opportunities for collaboration and meaningful professional development; in which teachers are supported by administration; and in which the needs of students are placed above the needs of the adults.

Once you have the right people on the bus, there are some things we have learned – or should have learned - from decades of reform efforts.  (The central problem in struggling schools appears to be an historic lack of adult learning.) Research findings from nearly 40 years ago told us that:

•  training should be practical (not theoretical), teacher-driven and extended                    
• one-shot, drive-by teacher training doesn’t work
•  teachers should be provided with assistance in the classroom
•  teachers should have opportunities to observe similar project in other schools
•  teacher agency is strongly related to outcome
•  there should be regular meetings focused on practical problems 
• Principals should be active participants in the training.

In addition, research has shown that good implantation is more likely to occur:

• in smaller (i.e., “manageable”) schools;
• in schools where the focus is on strengths, not weaknesses (such as discipline problems, lack of student skills or parental support, etc.);
• where there is a stable team of consultants providing whole school support.

Finally, here’s a key insight that we ignore at our peril: all of this takes time. Organizational reform can’t be rushed. In fact, when people who have led reform efforts were asked what one thing they would do differently, the most common answer was “take more time” – for planning, for training, for reflection. The unfortunate paradox is that time is something the children don’t have.

So Much Reform, So Little Change, part 4

The Dynamics of Organizational Change

Payne challenges the idea that it is possible to change these schools without making anyone do anything they don’t want to do. As he sees it, the fallacy of this idea is based on an assumption of a ‘rational’ organization; that is, if you show the education professionals a better way to do something, they will naturally adopt it. But this ignores the fact that once hopelessness takes root in an organization, the organization ceases to function rationally.

Observing this dynamic at work, it’s easy to label it as resistance to change, but Payne argues that this is not entirely accurate, either. It’s more skepticism than actual resistance, and it manifests itself in predictable ways. Veteran teachers – who have seen reforms come and go - are more likely to be uncooperative than newer teachers. It’s also not uncommon for relatively successful teachers to be resistant, because they’re already doing well, and they don’t need some outsider telling them what to do!

A common scenario looks like this: there’s one group of successful teachers who are split about a given reform, another group of younger teachers who are pro-reform, but who have little political clout within the system. (These are often elementary teachers who seem to have a genetic predisposition to accept change.) And then there’s a group of older, high-status teachers who are adamantly opposed. This last group often has disproportionate influence as to whether any change will be adopted, and they give legitimacy to the doubters.        

Another issue with the implementation of education research lies in the mindset of the university researchers who develop the model. Because they spend much of their time in the ivory tower, they often have little understanding of the real-world demands on teachers and principals. Worse, a deeply ingrained cultural assumption that places the university at the top of the educational food chain often leads to a sense of superiority, unjustified confidence in the reform model, and a lack of interest in practitioner knowledge! A former superintendent in New Jersey once commented that not one of the university developers he had worked with over the years had felt it necessary to strategize with school leaders before starting work.

A quality superintendent is essential to the success of any proposed reform. Unfortunately, the tenure of most urban superintendents is less than three years, which is not nearly long enough for a significant organizational change to take root, and certainly not long enough to actually begin to make a difference - which further reinforces the ‘this too shall pass’ organizational mindset. Also unfortunately, the next guy typically has no interest in building on the work of his predecessor; he’s got limited time to establish his own reputation!

This ignores research that indicates it typically takes about five years for a comprehensive school reform to produce sustainable results. What typically happens is that a new intervention shows some early promise (which gets everyone excited), and then there’s a slight dip as the initial enthusiasm wears off. Then just about the time everyone is getting on the same page and becomes comfortable with what they’re doing, there’s a change in administration, and we’re on to something else.

The other scenario (particularly when there’s serious grant money involved) is that under relatively ideal conditions, a new intervention shows promise. Under pressure from funders, the reform is then ‘brought to scale’ under less ideal conditions, with diluted support and, predictably, less impressive results - and the plug gets pulled. (Unless the funders are of an ideological bent, in which case evidence, or the lack thereof, isn’t important.)

An interesting factoid: in the year before Katrina wiped away the deeply dysfunctional New Orleans school district, said district had posted its best test scores ever.

On that note, Payne offers some interesting insight into how the ground was prepared for the Michelle Rhee reign of terror in Washington, D. C.  In addition to pervasive outright corruption, the best description of the school district prior to her administration was this outside analysis: “the district hasn’t done anything to improve student achievement.” When there’s nowhere to go but up, it engenders a willingness try anything.

This mentality of ‘anything would be an improvement’ can easily lead to investments in the simplistic and untested: closing of neighborhood schools, massive change-overs to charter schools, teacher evaluations via student test scores, etc..  Another manifestation of the ‘try anything’ mentality is the willingness to look for educational leadership anywhere except among educators! 

Unfortunately, this allows us to avoid thinking about the hard questions of instruction, human capital, and school culture - and it leaves us with a false choice between the entrenched politicized bureaucracy and ‘bold, radical’ transformation.