So far, Florida’s new state superintendent of education, Tony Bennett, is having what seems like an awfully good time. He’s head of one of the most pro-reform school systems in the nation. He’s got the support of both the governor, Rick Scott, who tapped him for the job, and a powerful business and reform community headed by former governor Jeb Bush.
A member of the reform-leaning state superintendents’ group Chiefs for Change, Bennett speaks with the rapid confidence of someone who has been a building and district administrator, a state education leader, and a classroom teacher.
But Bennett hasn’t been in his current position long. Just this past November, he was ousted from his spot as the head of public schools in Indiana—the position is an elected one and his policies had become controversial. Some of the same challenges will undoubtedly emerge in the Sunshine State, where administrators are pursuing an aggressive timeline for implementing the Common Core, and state lawmakers are considering a “parent trigger” that would allow parents to convert failing district schools into charters.
Click here to read the interview, which appears in the Summer 2013 edition of Scholastic Administrator, which sponsors this blog. Image via Scholastic.
Florida Plans Increased Scrutiny For Education Schools StateImpact: Nationally, education schools have been criticized for being far too easy and, as a result, pumping ill-equipped teachers into the system and harming student achievement. Schools across the country are trying to mitigate the criticism by changing curriculum or increasing the amount of field experience teachers receive.
Chicago Teachers Union re-elects Karen Lewis Tribune: Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, an often controversial figure who took on Mayor Rahm Emanuel by leading a seven-day strike last fall, was easily re-elected to a second three-year term Friday, according to unofficial results released by the district.
Obama Urges Morehouse Graduates to ‘Keep Setting an Example’ NYT: President Obama came to Morehouse College, the alma mater of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on Sunday to tell graduates, 50 years after Dr. King’s landmark “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, that “laws and hearts and minds have been changed to the point where someone who looks just like you can somehow come to serve as president of these United States.”
Schools Add to Test Load, Just to Assess the Questions NYT: As school districts across the country rush to draw up tests and lesson plans that conform to more rigorous standards, they are flocking to field tests — exams that exist solely to help testing companies fine-tune future questions.
There are numerous worthwhile speakers in this segment, but at rroughly the 22 minute mark, AEI's Rick Hess shows up onstage in his trademark cargo shorts and flipflops, and delivers a rushed, somewhat impassioned speech that hits a lot of critical points about the narrow reform agenda, the inadequate response to setbacks, the chronic refusal to converse with much less learn from critics.
"A young Houston couple is planning to give away $4 billion—but only to projects that prove they are worth it. Can they redefine the world of philanthropy?" The New Science Behind Philanthropy (WSJ via @mikepetrilli)
The Columbus Dispatch editorial, Another Blow to City Schools complains that the city's schools “scrubbed” 2.8 million attendance records since 2006. They allegedly marked some students with low scores as withdrawn so they wouldn’t be counted against the district.
Columbus schools are also facing criminal investigations for grade changing. Obviously, I have no idea whether Columbus schools are guilty and, if they are, whether they did something qualitatively different than accumulating millions of speeding tickets.
Statistical gamesmanship predated data-driven "reform," and those policies are not an excuse for cheating. They just create a "perfect storm" where the damage done by education's longstanding "culture of compliance," is combined with inherently destructive and punitive accountability schemes, and where all are made worse by the resulting malfeasance. I also know that I must be particularly careful with my words when addressing this tragedy.
"Juking the stats" is not limited to schools. It has long been said that the prime qualification for a policeman, for instance, is a course in creative writing. As it was cryptically explained in The Wire, our legal system could not function without the ability to "turn felonies into misdemeanors."
I suspect that the cumulative damage of manipulating the nation's withdrawals and grades, as well as other tricks for jacking up attendance rates, will dwarf the consequences of outright cheating scandals. But, the Ohio case prompts die-hard supporters of test-driven accountability, such as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Andrew Rotherham, to grasp at more straws. They seem to claim that because test-driven accountability has opened multiple doors to a wide variety of scandals that, somehow, their favored policies aren't to blame.
Read between the lines and there are lots of interesting tidbits in June Kronholz's Education Next piece (Still
Teaching for America) for both TFA fans and skeptics.
The piece takes a look at the much-discussed school reform organization as it goes through a key transition of leadership and size.
Two new co-CEOs have taken over from founder Wendy Kopp, and the annual budget that in 2012 was $320 million is expected to go up to half a billion dollars within the next three years.
Kronholz boils the organization's successful growth (if not large-scale impact on educational outcomes) on things like regional innovations (Houston's content coaches, Jacksonville's localized summer institute, South Dakota's rural principal leadership incubator), and its willingness to create and scrap ideas that don't pan out.
As has become increasingly common in recent years, TFA's new leaders are focusing as much on what alumni do as what they accomplish in the classroom:
"Kramer also paints
a vision of TFA as an instigator of change, producing alumni that TFA
expects—just expects—will become the sort of shake-up-the-beast leaders who will “do
something radically different” for the schools."
However, TFA won't share its specific leadership goals. And the organization is hampered by the need for more local and regional EDs, says Kronholz. Four of the regions were empty earlier this year, and plans to expand to two new (unnamed) cities) were scrapped for lack of management talent. How interesting that an organization with such a surplus of applications for initial teaching spots is having trouble finding enough qualified candidates to staff its own expansion.
Steve Jobs’s Widow Sets Philanthropy Goals NYT: Laurene Powell Jobs has tiptoed into the public sphere, pushing her agenda in education as well as global conservation, nutrition and immigration policy.
Money contines to pours, unevenly, into LA Unified school board race KPCC: As election day looms for this year's remaining undecided seat for the L.A. Unified's board, outside groups continue to pour money into the race -- all of it for her opponent, political newcomer Antonio Sanchez.
Would Arne Duncan Consider Calling for Pause in Common Core Stakes?Education Week: So I asked Education Department press secretary Daren Briscoe about whether Arne Duncan would echo these calls for pausing stakes tied to common core, and take relevant action at the federal level.
Tennessee to Offer Teacher-Transfer BonusesTeacher Beat: Using its share of federal School Improvement Grant funds, the state will give $7,000 signing bonuses to teachers from nonpriority schools who transfer, and agree to stay for two years, in the priority schools. It will also give $5,000 retention bonuses to high-performing teachers already working in such schools.
Arthur Levine’s Education Week Commentary The Plight of Teacher' Unions offers a disheartened, broad brush account of America’s social, political, and economic institutions.
He then presents a narrow, and impoverished, vision of public education -- and in particular, teachers unions.
Levine apparently expects everyone to accept the fate that many policymakers are planning to impose on us. He seems to argue that our focus on teaching will be replaced by a focus on outcomes, but he does not seem upset at the prospect of teaching being tossed on the ash pile of history. Most of all, Levine is factually incorrect when he writes that all of our institutions are trapped in the industrial era.
Los Angeles Schools Re-Think Suspension WSJ: This week, the Los Angeles Unified School District—the second-largest in the nation—decided to end the practice of suspending or expelling students for "willful defiance," starting this fall. District officials said the practice disproportionately affects minority students' education and leads to more disciplinary problems for students down the line.
Chicago Teachers Union Files Civil-Rights Lawsuit on Closings Sun-Times: Attorneys backed by the Chicago Teachers Union filed two federal class action lawsuits Wednesday charging that the closing of 53 public schools in September will violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Illinois Civil Rights Act.
Former Education Official Faces Federal Investigation WSJ: Federal investigators are probing whether a former top Education Department official violated the law by allegedly sharing information inappropriately about new regulations with an advocacy group he founded. Newly released court documents show that federal prosecutors believe the Education Department's former deputy undersecretary, Robert Shireman, might have violated executive-branch ethics laws.
Diplomas Elusive for Many Students With Learning Disabilities EdWeek: A state-by-state analysis of the most recent data on graduation rates for students with learning disabilities shows that while more of those students have been leaving high school with a standard diploma, many states are struggling to reach the national graduation rate average of 68 percent for students in that disability category.
Apparently there's a vague but threatening epidemic of younger kids cheating. As always, I blame NCLB. From the WSJ: Why More Young Kids Cheat at School
OK, it was a director of medical education, not a public school teacher evaluator, who made that affirmation. New Yorker's Every Disease on Earth,by Rivka Galchen, profiles Dr. Joseph Lieber and his ability to teach doctors in training. Dr. Lieber brushes off the lower salary and less respect devoted to those who educate doctors, "Oh, people are always giving teachers a hard time. Look at the way they write about public school teachers in the Post."
The bottom line for Dr. Lieber is "You have to love what you do."
According to the article's conclusion, Lieber is a great diagnostician, but his distinctive quality as a teacher is being "always nice."-JT (@drjohnthompson) Image via.
There
are predictable disagreements about how hard to make any new preservice
exam—and whether to encourage or even require specific elements, or to
rely entirely on outcomes such as longevity, evaluation, and
effectiveness.
And the question remains: Will the higher
education community—as well as state policymakers and the powerful
national associations—block or water down the current momentum as they
have in the past?
But for the first time in a long time there is activity—and with it, at least, the possibility of substantial progress.
From PBS NewsHour: "In India, an educational group called Pratham aims to change the perception of school as a solemn enterprise and to offer instead a love of learning to the youngest -- and poorest -- students."
Head Start Centers Feeling 'Sequester' Pain EdWeek: "These are, by far, the most serious cuts I've experienced," said Ms. Molloy, who has been involved for 40 years with Head Start, which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The reduction in the number of children served through the program for low-income children will have a direct effect on schools, she believes."The emphasis on increased academic readiness for kindergarten is huge," Ms. Molloy said.
New Jersey Task force may look at full-day kindergarten in all districts Star-Ledger: A proposal to explore the idea of bringing full-day kindergarten to schools statewide advanced in a state Assembly committee Monday. While most of New Jersey’s elementary school districts offer full-day kindergarten, at least 114 districts still offer half-day only, according to the state Department of Education. The Assembly Education Committee approved a bill that would create a task force to explore full-day options.
Latino High School Grads Enter College At Record Rate NPR: Seven in 10 Latino high school graduates in the class of 2012 went to college, according to a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center. That's a record-high college enrollment rate for Latinos, and it's the first time Latinos have surpassed white and black students, even as they lag behind Asian-Americans. The Latino high school dropout rate has fallen by half over the past decade — from 28 percent in 2000 to 14 percent in 2011.
Lawmakers Vote to Boost STEM Education in Immigration Bill PoliticsK12: Good news for STEM fans: There's even more federal resources for science, mathematics, engineering and technology in the big, comprehensive, bipartisan immigration bill making its way through the U.S. Senate. The Senate Judiciary committee, which is holding a markup of the bill today, voted unanimously to take money collected on fees for labor certifications under the bill and direct the money towards STEM education at the U.S. Department of Education.
Discipline concerns flare in Denver schools EdNewsColorado: The aim of the discipline policy, revised in recent years, is to reduce in-school or out-of-school suspensions and expulsions so that students can continue to be in a learning environment. It also aims to erase the longstanding disparity between white students and students of color in terms of consequences for student misbehavior.
How Could a Sweet Third-Grader Just Cheat on That School Exam? WSJ: The line between right and wrong in the classroom is often hazy for young children, and shaping the moral compass of children whose brains are still developing can be one of the trickiest jobs a parent faces. Many parents overreact or misread the motivations of small children, say researchers and educators, when it is actually more important to explore the underlying cause.
I'm glad to see Michael Petrilli doing a guest stint over at Bridging Differences and I'm especially glad he dedicates some of his first column inches to defending the importance of knowledge in schools, even for very young children.
Unfortunately, he also commits an all-too-common error, conflating increasing absolute levels of academic achievement with closing achievement gaps between subgroups of students.
It is probably true, as Petrilli says, that it is important to expose even very young students to a broad, knowledge-rich curriculum. Knowledge deficits, including vocabulary deficits, play a major role in suppressing the achievement of many of the least fortunate students.
It is also quite possibly the case that schools serving the least-privileged students are especially likely to lower their standards for students (e.g., by using hand-wavy explanations about what is "developmentally appropriate") or otherwise cut subjects like science and history out of the curriculum.
So far so good. Read on to see where I think Petrilli goes wrong.
He makes a number of valid statements about how classrooms across America need to change, and we view this as an opportunity to have more conversations about transforming our schools to better meet the needs of our students. - Duncanville Independent School District spokesperson
Buena Vista School District Officially Closes For Year, Offers 'Skills Camp' HuffPostEdu: It's official. For the 400 or so students in Buena Vista, Mich., school is over, even though the academic year isn't supposed to end until the middle of June.
Instead, they will likely attend "skills camp." If the school board
approves the advancement of students -- despite not finishing out the
year -- students will be able to attend "skills camp," a voluntary
substitute for school, the district announced Monday at a press
conference.
Pa. official: Charter schools flout public-records law PhiladelphiaInquirer: Pennsylvania's 180 charter schools routinely ignore the state's
Right-To-Know Law even though as publicly funded institutions they are
bound to comply with it, the chief of the state's Office of Open Records
told a Senate committee on Monday.
Seattle high schools can omit MAP exams SeattleTimes: Teachers protesting the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) tests in
Seattle won a big victory Monday, as Superintendent José Banda
announced that high schools don’t have to give the tests after this
spring. The decision will be up to each high school’s leadership team, Banda said in a letter to staff.
Amid Common Core Fights, Indiana Remember Race to Top Promises PoliticsK12: College- and career-ready standards are intertwined in the U.S.
Department of Education's most prized initiatives—No Child Left Behind
Act waivers and Race to the Top. That's why Indiana and federal officials are talking about how the Hoosier State's common core "pause" might affect its waiver.
Common core per se has never been required by the feds for any grant or
waiver, but it's the most direct route to proving standards are
college- and career-ready. (The other approved way is to have a state's
higher education institutions certify them as such.)
Ed. Funders Giving More to Same Few, Studies Show EdWeek: As more and more foundation money floods into K-12 education, it is
being channeled to fewer and fewer groups, according to new research
presented at the American Educational Research Association meeting here last week. Researchers also found that foundation money is moving away
from traditional public schools and toward "challengers to the
system"—primarily charter schools—and that the funders in general are
becoming much more active in shaping how those challengers develop.
This is a guest post from MSU professor Sarah Reckhow:
A new
article in the Stanford Social
Innovation Review presents a quantitative framework to help philanthropists
assess
their advocacy grants. The authors all work with Redstone Strategy Group, a
consulting agency that “helps philanthropies, non-profits, and governments
solve the world’s most urgent social problems.”
Policy advocacy is a growing area of foundation giving,
particularly in education. So it is not surprising that funders who view
themselves as strategic or venture philanthropists would be eager to find ways
to assess a “return on investment” for advocacy.
Unfortunately, this framework is based on a simplistic view of
the policy process and it appears to overvalue short-term returns on
investments.
The framework draws on a list of things that advocates, PR firms,
political operatives, and philanthropists think work; it is not based on
current evidence from political science or policy research.
Utilizing this
framework could encourage philanthropists to continue making wasteful
investments in short-lived advocacy campaigns.
In Ariz., Latino students achieve success (NBC News) "In Ariz., Latino students achieve success The Hispanic population has the lowest college graduation rate of any other group, but that is not the case in Arizona."
Obama administration seeks return of state education funds Hattiesburg American: Those funds served in lieu of the collection of local property taxes and subsidized schools, roads and first-responder services around the country — despite the fact that the local governments receiving the payments have long questioned the equity of taking the federal timber payments in lieu of property taxes.
“We Need To Be Wildly Successful” Says Arne Duncan In Detroit CBS Local: U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan spent the day in Detroit, visiting a DPS school and an EAA school with Governor Rick Snyder. Duncan says the organization, invested in turning around failing schools, is doing good work.
Nation's Top Educator Visits Mission District Classrooms Kitsap Sun: “In some places, there's over-testing,” Daren Briscoe, press secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, told Mission Local. “But we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Briscoe added, referring to Duncan's view that certain elements of ...
NYC Leadership Academy Takes National Stage EdWeek: The NYC Leadership Academy is a nonprofit that works to develop effective student-focused school leadership, particularly for high-needs schools. Today, one in six of New York City's principals is an academy graduate.
LAUSD fighting for zero-tolerance on teacher cheating Los Angeles Times: The school district says a decision by a state panel — determining there was test-score cheating but the teacher shouldn't be fired — sends the wrong message.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in This Week In Education are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Scholastic, Inc.
