More Ofsted Changes

I have been trying to decide when the best time to talk about this is. I have come to the conclusion that it is better that people become informed about the changes as soon as possible. So I will write a series of blogs over the coming weeks and I will produce some breakdowns of the criteria for use in schools over the summer holiday.

To be absolutely clear, there will quite a lot of changes to the criteria from the 1^st of September. This is not a subtle tweak but a radical review. To give you a taster, I thought that I would give you all of the criteria for “requires improvement” in each area. It won’t take long.

So, here we go!

Overall effectiveness:

·         The school requires improvement because one or more of the four key judgements requires improvement (grade 3) and/or there are weaknesses in the overall provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral and cultural development.

 Obviously, you will need to know criteria for the four key judgements so here they are.

 Achievement of pupils at the school:

·         Pupils’ achievement requires improvement because it is not good.

Quality of teaching in the school:

·         Teaching requires improvement because it is not good.

The behaviour and safety of pupils at the school:

·         Behaviour and safety require improvement as these aspects are not good.

Quality of leadership in, and management of, the school

·         Leadership and management require improvement because they are not good but are demonstrating the capacity to secure improvement in the school.

 If things are really bad in a school you will have to look at the inadequate criteria. You might think that the authors of the criteria would follow the same approach. You could have, “Teaching is inadequate because it is not even not good. In fact, it’s really, really bad. You won’t believe just how bad it is until you see it and it will take quite an effort to make it not good.”

 The criteria for inadequate in each area is actually detailed and clear, as is the criteria for good.

 More about this to follow..........................................

Do we really need to learn calculus in school?

I received a request from Frederick Koh, a JC maths tutor asking me to contribute a guest post on his blog, White Group Mathematics. My first reaction was maths? What do I know about maths?

He then clarified that I didn't actually have to write something on maths, just anything on education but the obsessive personality that I am thought a maths-related post would be more appropriate.

Objectively, I think I have enough of a logical brain to tackle basic maths. I coached both my kids in primary school maths and there's something about the puzzle-solving aspects of primary school maths that appeal to me. My personal experience with maths was generally positive too - I sailed through maths in primary school and E Maths at 'O' levels.

However, this led me to erroneously believe that I could manage Maths C at 'A' levels even though I hadn't studied Add Maths at 'O' levels. Boy, was I wrong. I sat in oblivion throughout the 2 years, despite my classmates' best efforts to help. The tutor practically gave up on me and skipped past me whenever he asked my classmates a question. In the end, by a miracle, I achieved a C grade, to which the tutor reacted epically - "You?? You got a C???"

There's just something about the strings of random numbers that baffle my mostly right brain. Sometimes, they're attached to letters, other times, with funny incomprehensible squiggles and notations. Worst still, sometimes the numbers don't even line up in the same row (miniature ones written above or below other numbers like they're an afterthought). It's like Morse code in an alien language.

I have a PRC friend and back in China, he was in the gifted programme for maths. He shared how in China, there are only gifted programmes for maths and science - such is the emphasis on what is commonly perceived as the pragmatic and "superior" subjects.

"What about China's great legacy of literature and the arts?" I asked. He explained that the government felt China's heritage in the arts caused the country's economic decline so they are now over-compensating. In fact, he told me that all the current China leaders have backgrounds in maths or science.

He feels that this complete neglect of the humanities is a great disservice to Chinese kids. He cites his own example where he wishes that he had learned more soft skills like communications, people management and so on so he can better function at work. He says up to today, he has yet to apply any of the calculus he'd studied (even though he once worked as an engineer).

As someone who's always been in the humanities underdog camp, it isn't hard for me to sympathise with him. But I got to thinking, there are actually two different controversies at work here.

The more obvious one is clearly the maths/science-humanities struggle. Which is more important? It would be easy for me to side with the humanities but my answer is both, and I'm not just trying to be politically correct. The maths and sciences set the foundation for logical thinking and deduction, there's no denying the importance of this. It's not enough just to be able to give customers the correct change or work out how much that bag of apples at the supermarket costs. That's why even though Lesley-Anne doesn't have the aptitude for maths, I tell her that having a good foundation of maths is important.

As for the humanities, well, it fosters critical thinking and deeper reflection into the intangibles, into human behaviour. Much in this world is different shades of grey, not black-and-white. Solutions often can't be calculated via a fixed formula or measured on a quantitative scale, and the humanities teach us how to wrap our minds around the fuzzy and give it meaning. In this connected world where people brashly push forth their arguments and opinions, it's more important than ever not to blindly believe what you read and to question everything with a critical mind. (Yes, including my post).

But beyond the superficial maths/science vs humanities conundrum lies another conflict in my friend's statement. He felt that the years he spent learning calculus would have been better spent learning skills like communication because he could use it in real life. It's this intrinsic belief that in education, what you learn must be usable to be considered useful.

Granted, if you're training to be a mechanic, I sure hope whatever you learn will be useful enough to enable you to fix my car. But this idea that education has to be practical is essentially another left brain argument. To me, it dilutes the value of education because it reduces education to yet another commodity.

It means that if you don't intend to draw, there's no point in learning art. By that same token, learning Chinese is needed only if we intend to do future business with China. I've always thought this moot point as I suspect all the enterprising Chinese entrepreneurs are mastering English as we speak, for the same pragmatic reasons.

Education is not the same as training, it has to have a higher purpose. That's been one of the main criticisms of the Singapore education system, that it doesn't educate individuals, it trains them. Beyond learning how to read and write, count apples and how gravity works, education should enable us to be more thinking versions of ourselves.

At every level, we should have this, to different degrees. At primary school, it could be as simple as asking questions about a science experiment. At secondary school, critical analysis of a social issue. At JC and university? Well, why not calculus?

Right upfront, I'll say the only thing I know about Calculus is that it's the name of a character in the Tintin comics. I looked at the universal authority on all things aka wikipedia and here's what it says: Calculus (Latin: a small stone used for counting) is a branch of mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals and infinite series.

Ahhhh... nope. Catch no ball.

But despite my ignorance about calculus, I'm pretty certain that calculus does make you think deeper about certain concepts of maths. And as long as something you learn in school helps you exercise your brain in thinking deeper and more laterally, chances are, it's valuable. You just don't know it. The same way that many people think literature isn't useful cos nobody spouts poetry at work in real life. But literature helps you read between the lines, analyse human behaviour and appreciate the subtleties of the written word, all of which is important in life.

So I wouldn't write off calculus just yet. (Do I hear Frederick heave a sigh of relief?) As I've always advised parents, when your child has to choose his or her subject combinations, instead of saying, "take the most useful one" (which is only marginally better than "take the subjects you can score in" or "take the subjects that can earn you the most money"), tell them to take the subjects they're passionate about. Passion ignites learning and from there, they will have a better chance of extracting value from it and becoming more thinking individuals.

That's what education is all about.


This post was published on White Group Mathematics here.

The Final Countdown

This is always a funny time of the year. Everybody working in education is tired. Reports have to be finalised, transition arrangements have to be made, end of year shows needs to be produced and sports days have to be organised in the brief spells between rain showers. If you are particularly unlucky, you also have to appoint staff. A number of the schools that I work with have vacancies for teachers. Some are mopping up the last of the “good” NQTs and other are resorting to phone interviews for overseas trained teachers or sifting through CVs from agencies. If you are really, really unlucky you may also be waiting for an overdue inspection with all of the anxiety that uncertainty can bring.

 If you are an optimist, there are only ten more school days left until the summer break. If, on the other hand, you are a pessimist, there are only ten more school days until the start of the autumn term.  I prefer to be an optimist. Apart from having a rest, I will be watching the education news closely. I have no doubt that some new education policies will be announced when they think that no one is looking. I will endeavour to keep my blog updated so that we don’t miss anything.

What does Michael Gove really think about Governors?

He said that all to often a governing body is  "A sprawling committee and proliferating sub-committees.”

Governors are, “Local worthies who see being a governor as a badge of status not a job of work.”

Meetings have, "Discussions that ramble on about peripheral issues, influenced by fads and anecdote, not facts and analysis.”

He thinks that there is, "A failure to be rigorous about performance. A failure to challenge heads forensically and also, when heads are doing a good job, support them authoritatively."

 He also described good governance as being characterised by, "smaller governing bodies, where people are there because they have a skill, not because they represent some political constituency. They concentrate on essentials such as leadership, standards, teaching and behaviour.”

I will let you make your own mind up about these viewpoints.

Wishy-Washy Thoughts on Gates

I'm no Diane Ravitch.  If I were, I'd use this blog to bravely state my concerns about the direction the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is heading with educational policy. I'd follow her lead and ask hard, pointed questions about the role that people with money play in driving major decisions in a democracy.

But I won't.  Because while I'm tenured, I am still fearful.  I have receiving more than $1 million in support from the Gates Foundation for my research on financial aid, and I am grateful for it-- and in need of much more.  That's the honest truth.  It's harder and harder to find funding for research these days, and while my salary doesn't depend on it, getting the work done does.

So I won't say all that Diane just did.  Yet I have to say something, and as I wrote recently, I always attempt to do so.

Her questions deserve answers.  And they should be asked of the higher education agenda as well.  Why the huge investment in Complete College America, an outfit that is pushing an end to college remediation unsupported by the work of top scholars like Tom Bailey?  Why the growing resistance to funding basic research in key areas where massive federal and state investments persist absent evidence of effectiveness? Why sink $20 million into performance-based scholarships, based on a single tiny randomized trial in one site?

I'm sure there are good answers out there.  It's not the first time I've asked these questions.  And perhaps unlike Diane, the time I've spent with the Foundation has imbued me with some confidence that there are very smart, well-meaning people inside the place-- people I like quite a bit.  There's also a lot of turnover, and the outfit is a bit gangly in some areas, kinda like a teenager.

Actually, that's exactly it. The Foundation is one heck of a powerful adolescent.  And maybe that's ok, as long as it recognizes its stage in life, and continues to seek expert advice and wisdom.  Adolescents are good at asking questions and not so great at listening. That's something to work on. Places like the William T. Grant Foundation are full-fledged adult foundations who make smart and highly effective investments daily.  I'd love for Gates's ed portfolio to seek advice and hear from them.  It'd make a world of difference.

Have I just torpedoed my own chances for future support?  Well, I guess only time will tell....

I really didn’t expect to see that.......

You can always spot schools that have had the health and safety police in or that have an overly zealous governing body. They have lots and lots of signs. You know the ones, they have things like:

·         Walk on the Left

·         Walk on the Right

·         No Running in the Corridor

·         No Hot Drinks in the Corridor

·         Please Turn off your Mobile Phones

·         Beware the water in the hot tap is hot

·         Take care when breathing in so as not to damage your lungs.....

I was in a school recently where they also had a sign which said, “Dogs must be kept on a lead” which had been crossed out and a new sign placed next to it with the words, “No dogs allowed on the site” and standing next to that was a man.

With a cat.

On a lead. 

No sign though.

Yet!

Do we need SENCOs?

“Of course we do,” they all scream! Let’s think about this for a moment and analyse what they actually do and the impact it has. I can’t think of an example of a SENCO who is always busy doing stuff. I just think that a lot of what they do is not necessary and does not contribute to improving achievement. If we consider IEPs as an example, in many schools they are produced religiously each term. There is a major event where meetings are held. SENCOs chase teachers to meet deadlines and what happens after all of this is done? They are put in a file until the next review. Even if they are used regularly by support staff, they are rarely referred to in teacher’s planning.

The quality of IEPs varies greatly. Targets are often relevant for short periods of time and therefore are out of date quickly or they are not linked to targets or objectives to achieve the next level or sub level of attainment, meaning that the approach is disjointed.

I think we need a major change in the ways that SENCOs work. There should be a move away from the production of paperwork for the sake of producing paperwork and a move towards the provision of specialist advice that leads to the regular modification of learning in light of high quality assessment. This would enable the needs of children to be met and evidence of impact to be provided easily. It would also ensure that teachers were constantly focused on the needs of IEP children through high quality differentiation. Intervention would become the exception rather than the rule and there would be a lot less paper floating around that only serves the purpose of filling time that could be better used for something else.

So do we need SENCOs? Yes, as specialists who enable teacher to adjust their daily approaches to teaching to meet the constantly changing needs of children who face the greatest challenges in our schools.

Getting Beyond Headlines

Data is powerful, and today's colleges and universities are learning that lesson the hard way.  As increasing amounts of information regarding their student outcomes become available, media outlets are taking advantage, running stories like this one, 11 Public Universities with the Worst Graduation Rates.  The clear intent is shame and disinvestment in public education, and it's working. One of my very talented and knowledgeable colleagues shared that story on Facebook, writing "Is there any way to understand these completion rates other than dismal?"

That's a good question. What I appreciate most about it is that it asks how we can understand it?  Not, "who is to blame?"  Too often that seems to be the goal of publishing numbers, as if the old adage about sunshine being a miracle cure would actually apply to problems involving human beings.

As I flipped through the slide show of the "11 Worst," looking at the often pretty campuses of those failing public universities, I was simultaneously struck by how normal they appear, and also how much like community colleges they really are. At Southern University of New Orleans, the average SAT score is 715, and that's after rejecting 52% of applicants. It's not much higher at Texas Southern (796) where they accept just 36% of students. Clearly there are plenty of students in these local areas seeking access without strong test abilities, which hardly makes them unqualified, but may mean they seek a 4-year degree rather than an associates.  Like community colleges, these universities are also incredibly diverse institutions-- for the most part, 50% or more of their students are on Pell--many times higher than at most publics.  But in three key ways, these "poor performers" are unlike their 2-year counterparts: (1) Their cost of attendance is much higher, (2) They mainly do not offer short-term degrees, so all success is measured relative to the BA, and (3) They are universities, not colleges, so most appear to be trying to do more than undergraduate teaching (i.e. also granting master's degrees).  If community colleges had those characteristics, I'd expect their completion rates to approximate those of these universities (take out all certificate and associates degree completions, raise costs, and throw in a large pool of students whose apparent degree ambitions are misaligned with their tested ability along with competition for resources from graduate education).

But wait, there's more. If you look beyond the headline, and wander over to College Insight for some more data, you'll also discover the real challenge these broad access universities face -- an utter lack of financial aid.  At Coppin State, just 5% of undergraduates have their demonstrated financial need met.  At Southern University in New Orleans, among full-time freshmen just 4% receive any state grants (compared to 48% statewide), and just 1% receive any institutional grants (compared to 23% statewide).  93% of students enrolled there are African-American (compared to 27% statewide), and many families appear to be turning down loans.  Something similar is happening at Cameron University, where the rate of loan-taking is half that of the statewide average.  Clearly, these institutions aren't forcing students to take on debt to finance institutional costs, as the for-profits are accused of doing. Isn't this a good thing? And yet, how do you succeed in college without enough money?

There you have it-- a much more complicated problem, too difficult for an easy headline. Yes, there are some harder-to-explain cases, like Kent State at East Liverpool, but overall even as they are faced with the condition of being dependent on public funding, these "poor performers" are serving large numbers of low-income students who apparently desire bachelor's degrees despite low tested abilities, have to charge tuition according to the inadequate state appropriations provided, and have little in the way of financial aid to offer other than loans, which are frequently declined.  And we are surprised when their outcomes don't look good?

If anything, it's we who ought to be ashamed.  State taxpayers have publicly supported the opening of these institutions and then starved them.  I'm all for 'no excuses' but that stance applies to institutions for whom being open is optional-– the for-profits.  Public institutions are democratic, we collectively create them to meet our needs, and we therefore hold collective responsibility for their success.

These are problems that should be fixed, and can be fixed because these are public institutions.  The troubled for-profits, we have far less say about (as we learned yesterday) and that's a shame, since far too many students wander into their traps without knowing that there's almost no public accountability for their behaviors.

Of course, I realize some people will view all of this as further evidence that the public system doesn't work, can't work, and that we ought to just shut these schools down and go home. To do so is to refute the naton's history, to forget the many revitalized public institutions that are succeeding now in ways they never did previously because of a renewed focus, commitment, and corresponding investment.  We have fabulous cities and public services in places that decades ago less optimistic people abandoned, while others stayed and fought for change.

The solutions for these public universities won't come from waving our hands about their bad outcomes, but from public outrage about the appalling trap we are creating for the people who work in these places and the students they educate.  We have not provided them with the conditions for success, which we increasingly reserve for public flagships.   Instead of shaking our heads in anger or disgust, we should get busy putting our priorities and investments in order, taking care of our public institutions so they can succeed in meeting our needs.

Phonics Screening 4

As the dust settles on the first round of screening, one last task remains. The guidance for the tests says that parents must be informed of the outcome. This has created a dilemma for some headteachers. How do you tell a parent that although their child has only been at school for five and a half terms, they are a failure? I have heard responses which range from, “I’m just not doing it!” to, “They need to know, it might kick them into action!”  Of course, the result of the test is often as much about the quality of the school’s provision as it is about the ability of the children and based upon the results that I know there are massive variations in results between schools in very similar contexts. This worries me because it suggests that the outcomes of the screening may be unreliable.

Renewing the Commitment

This piece is cross-posted from the Chronicle of Higher Education, where it originally appeared as part of a forum on higher education and inequality. I highly recommend reading the full set of posts contained on the COHE website.

In 1947 the historic Truman Commission called for national investments in higher education to promote democracy by enabling all people to earn college degrees. Subsequent expansion of community colleges, adult education, and federal aid occurred not in the name of economic stimulation but to reduce inequality and further active citizenship.

Those ambitions have been steadily corrupted. Today the Tea Party casts the college-educated as snobbish and fundamentally disconnected. Many four-year colleges and universities reinforce that perception by focusing on rankings and alumni satisfaction rather than affordability and national service. Educators speak about business objectives, maximizing revenue through models that charge high tuition and give high aid to needy students, and using a meritocracy narrative that denies the strong role played by a family's ability to pay. The results are stark: Among high-achieving students, just 44 percent of those whose families are in the bottom 25 percent of annual income attend college, compared with 80 percent of those whose families are in the top 25 percent.

In this new world, market-based solutions increase inequality by design. As David F. Labaree documented in Someone Has to Fail, credentialing has replaced learning, and as a result, many students are derided for being what the authors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa dismiss as Academically Adrift.

The current model ensures that private returns in the form of high-paying jobs accrue only to some, and it justifies minimal public investment in education.

Corporations act as gatekeepers, insisting that only degrees from elite colleges matter, while refusing to pay higher taxes to adequately support public higher education. It is to their advantage: They benefit financially from the for-profit colleges that are filling a void they helped create. The reality is cruel: Many families now dream the same college dream families always have, but run in place in their efforts to achieve it. Heavy debt even drags some backwards.

Colleges and universities vigorously participate in this process. As they lose state support, public flagships turn inward rather than to their communities, focusing on the self-preservation and pursuit of prestige that led them astray. Private universities help their public counterparts fail by promoting idealistic standards of "quality" and practices (such as offering grants rather than loans) that the public institutions simply can't afford. Too many leaders of public universities make common cause with elite private colleges rather than with their public brethren.

Underneath it all resides a fear-driven backlash against educational and economic opportunities for people of color and the working class. Since the civil-rights movement, and especially during President Ronald Reagan's tenure, a focus on private rights and personal responsibilities has replaced concern for social welfare. Remarkably, Reagan convinced the nation that individuals should pay to achieve the American dream. No president since has managed to combat that narrative. In today's focus on paying for performance and metrics, we hear echoes of President Bill Clinton's efforts to reform welfare by telling poor mothers to work for it.

Such rhetoric is fundamentally un-American. As John Dewey reminded us, sustaining democracy requires that we collectively provide for all children what we want for our own children. Anything else simply isn't fair. The politics of austerity have resulted in a paucity of active citizens pursuing democratic ideals by maintaining and expanding public investments. In that climate, New York State stands out for bucking the trend and promoting public higher education with limited reliance on tuition. So, too, do the university presidents urging President Obama to put into effect maintenance-of-effort requirements—requiring states to finance public colleges at a minimum level—to renew the social compact on which our great higher-education system was built. They are bravely rejecting the claim that private markets hold the key to great public needs. In doing so, those leaders may help bring the country back together.

Have your cake and eat it

Our family meals tend to be eat-and-go events, even when we're at a nice restaurant. I not sure why but somehow, we're unable to dine at a leisurely pace.

Last week, we were at Coffee Club and the minute the waiter placed our dessert order on the table, three forks swiftly moved into position, waiting to pounce.

"Can we at least try to make this last more than 5 minutes?" I propositioned.

"Why?" asked my impatient comrades as they attacked the cake with relish.

At the next table, I saw a similar dessert sitting pristinely on the table, hardly touched as three family members casually chatted. I pointed this out to my two kids who were seemingly trying to devour the cake in record time. "See how civilised other people are?"

Lesley-Anne retorted, "They will never survive in the wild. These are the Hunger Games."

Without skipping a beat, Andre declared as he polished off the last bite, "May the odds be ever in your flavour."

Savages. I'm raising savages.

Word Verification

I'm sorry. I just can't take it anymore!

As I was reading through blogs a few weeks ago, I saw several posts about blog pet peeves. The one that topped almost everyone's list was having word verification on comments. I checked my blog to see if mine had that. Sure enough, it did! So I changed the settings and took it off.

Well, today I reinstated the word verification on my blog because I've learned MY top blog pet peeve! Opening up e-mail and seeing a number of anonymous comments that link to buying term papers, overseas stocks, adult toys,videos and medications, etc. Granted many of these went to my blog spam and didn't actually get published, but quite a few of them slipped through. I've deleted more comments in the last few weeks than I think I have on the whole blog!

So I'm sorry, I'll be annoying many of you by keeping the word verification active, but I just really don't want to continue deleting comments that I don't deem appropriate for this blog's purpose.

The Education Policy Blog has been permanently closed.

Because the authors of this blog have found other outlets for their writing, and because it has become an impossible task to keep up with the spam that has filled the comments of the blog, as of August 11, 2011, Education Policy Blog is permanently closed.  We will keep the existing posts here indefinitely.  However, comments by anyone other than the authors have been disabled.

In the meantime, we hope you'll visit one of the blogs in our list of "Other Blogs" (most of which are written by one of us or a group that includes one of us).

May the determination of Education Policy some day be the result of careful democratic discourse that takes into account both the findings of research and a core set of shared beliefs about the importance of education for the cultivation of a democratic public.

--The Authors

There’s a role for our college as WSU plans take off in Everett

(cross posted from my dean's blog)

I didn’t expect to spend the Thursday before the Independence Day holiday traveling to Western Washington. Especially not in a four-seater charter plane out of Pullman-Moscow International in the company of President Elson S. Floyd and Murrow College Dean Larry Pintak. But when the university president invites you to a meeting and offers you a ride …

When we landed at Paine Field, our plane was dwarfed by Boeing jets stacked up, awaiting insignia painting for many countries around the world. From there, we drove to three meetings with stakeholders in WSU’s initiative to operate the present University Center in Everett, starting in 2014.

We met in the lovely new convention center in Everett’s harbor area, joined by several other WSU deans and partner institution officials. Also present was WSU Spokane Chancellor Brian Pitcher, whose Riverpoint campus is seen as a model for what WSU’s effort in Everett could become.

WSU’s first order of business in Everett will be to establish mechanical and electrical engineering programs, modeled on what we already offer in Bremerton. The programs will involve a clinical faculty member, distance education via video, and summer study in Pullman. But the stakeholders in Everett — including the mayor, Chamber of Commerce representatives, and state legislators — also want programs in nursing, media arts and, importantly, education. At the meeting, I shared my eagerness for the College of Education to provide educational opportunities to local school administrators, and to teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Western Washington University has traditionally provided education course work in Everett, and I look forward to working with them.

President Floyd said it is premature to think of Everett as being the fifth WSU campus. For now, we are exploring the opportunity and learning how we can collaborate. An advisory board and planning committee are already at work.

I am proud that the College of Education is so well represented in the leadership of this initiative. Paul Pitre of our Vancouver faculty will oversee WSU’s developments at Everett in the coming year. Joan Kingrey, our academic director in Spokane, led the discussions at the Everett meeting. And President Floyd has his faculty appointment in our college.

Our plane took off from Paine Field just before 5 p.m. I rode shotgun. Heading east, we flew above a blanket of clouds over the Cascades, with Mount Rainier peeking above that, off the right wing. A half hour later, I could see in the distance lush green fields, and Kamiak and Steptoe buttes. It was thrilling to see Pullman edge closer as we sped home. It was a fun and inspiring day.

War on Teachers?

Cross-posted from JDS Social Issues:

From my inbox almost two months ago:

So, where did this war on teachers, and other public employees come from? I certainly didn't see that coming.

A former colleague (a faculty member in a humanities department) was responding directly to word that Pennsylvania was cutting P-12 funding and slashing state support for public higher education. But her consciousness was framed by events in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

So I have been paying attention to the news in a new way. Is my colleague right? Is there a “war on teachers”? I think she may right that there is a “war” going on but I’m having a little more difficulty determining just what it is we are fighting about and fighting for. Are teachers the target? Or are teachers collateral damage in a larger struggle –because teachers (and their students) don’t fight back and because everybody feels entitled to an “expert” opinion about educational matters generally?

I hope to think more about this over the summer and invite any readers to join in with news items, anecdotes and analyses that help us all figure out where we want to stand in what is clearly a struggle for the social, economic, political and educational terrain within our own communities and our nation.

Here are a couple for starters:

· Randy Turner, commenting on the Huffington Post about new education legislation in Missouri, asks whether public school teachers are an “endangered species”? His question is motivated by regulatory proposals that seem to suggest that all teachers are lazy perverts.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randy-turner/public-school-teachers-ar_b_861407.html

· Paul Mucci, a fifth grade NBPTS certified teacher, asks

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2011/may/16/paul-mucci-since-when-did-teachers-become-the/

“since when did teachers become the bad guys?” Mucci is in Florida where education is rapidly being “reformed” on the backs of teachers: “elimination of teacher tenure, teacher pay based on student performance, increasing teacher contributions to the Florida Retirement System, raising the retirement age/years of service, increasing student testing and reducing the number of "core" classes to name a few.”

He conveys his demoralization clearly:

“More important, gone is the respect teachers once had. The steady erosion of respect is palpable in parent conferences, in line at the grocery store and in politicians' statements in the media.

As one legislator said to me, ‘The public deserves accountability they deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent.’ In one respect, he is right, but what good are numbers and test results if we lose our integrity, our compassion, our humanity along the way?”

Mucci notes that it is ironic that the rhetoric is all about “good teachers” but in the process they are destroying any chance of respect [for teachers].

· Bill Haslam, Governor of my new home state of Tennessee apparently hasn’t met any Paul Mucci type teachers. Last week he rejected the Tennessee Education Association’s claim that “teacher morale is flagging,” despite passing measures that limit collective bargaining and proposing others that would end any licensure for educational professionals. (More on events in Tennessee in the days to come.)

http://www.dnj.com/article/20110527/NEWS01/110526017/Haslam-rejects-claims-teacher-morale-flagging

As someone who spends a fair amount of time cultivating partnerships with public schools so that we can jointly (university/school) provide substantive and challenging but guided practical experience for teacher candidates, my sense is that teacher morale is fragile at best. Neither principals nor teachers – no matter how accomplished --generally feel free to take on novice teacher candidates. Even when they can identify the value of teaching collaboratively with a young person with energy and ideas, they are hesitant, even fearful, about jeopardizing their compensation and even their jobs (based largely on student test scores). Everybody is looking over both shoulders at once.

What do these snippets suggest?

Whether or not there is a war on teachers, teachers are feeling under siege. And the march of legislation that targets the teaching profession is undeniable. But the point of the legislation is harder to tease out. Limiting collective bargaining might be a cost-cutting measure. It might be an undercut-the-unions measure (my favorite theory with thanks to Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow). The undercut-the-unions theory is supported by proposals in Tennessee to get rid of teacher licensure all together. Put this together with the appointment of a new Commissioner of Education with a Teach for America and charter school background and it does appear that the war is not on “teachers” per se but on the public school “establishment” (whatever that is).

The point then is an utterly free market for education? (Odd that we would seek a free market for the development of human capital when we have no such truly free market for any other commodity – oil subsidies, farm subsidies, interstate highway systems anyone?)

But this is a kaleidoscopic phenomenon, I think, and this particular ideological interpretation is just today’s turn of the barrel. What does it look like to you? What will it look like tomorrow?

Scholarship winners, life's winners

(cross posted from my dean's blog)

Forty-seven percent. Within that statistic is news both wonderful and sobering.

Nearly half of all of the graduate students who received College of Education scholarships for 2011-12 are the first in their families to go to college. That’s the wonderful part. Those future educators are realizing the American dream of self-improvement. But the number also speaks to the need for financial support, which is especially acute for first-generation students and their families.

This spring, faculty and staff volunteers reviewed the scholarship applications. They weighed the students’ accomplishments and goals and stretched the contributions of our generous donors to award 96 scholarships totaling $171,150. The average per student was $1,782.

Amy Cox of our development team, who coordinates the scholarship selection effort, provided those statistics. Others that might interest you:

In all, 98 graduate students and 453 undergraduates applied for scholarship assistance.
Scholarships were awarded to 24 juniors, 31 seniors, and 41 master’s and doctoral degree candidates.
Twenty-eight percent of the scholarship winners are minority students. The largest groups represented were Hispanic/Latin America (seven) and Asian Pacific American (five).
Seventy percent of scholarship winners are women.
Seventy-six are enrolled in Pullman, six in Vancouver, eight in Tri-Cities.

More compelling than the numbers, of course, are the people they represent. Here are two examples:

Israel Martinez of Walla Walla starts our Master in Teaching program this summer.  Israel, the first in his family to get a college degree, wrote in his application: “It has taken a lot of hard work and dedication, such as working two part-time jobs while being a full-time student, working overtime in the orchards during the summers to save enough money to stay in school.”

Kelly Frio’s home town is Brush Prairie, Washington. That’s near Vancouver, where she is working on an undergraduate teaching degree. She has a perfect 4.0 grade point average. One of her goals, she wrote, is to instill an appreciation of the elderly in her own children and those she works with. “The wealth and skills and knowledge that our senior citizens possess is often not only unappreciated, but dismissed.”

My congratulations to all of our scholarship winners and my thanks to those who support our scholarships. We only wish we could do more, for more. If you would like to help, look here for information.

When Engagement is Not Enough

One of my goals as a dean of a school of education has been to expand the notion of what teacher preparation includes. To that end, I have been strongly pushing for the development of community engagement courses and academic programs in my own school and across the college. This is grounded in my ongoing academic research and in my belief that one cannot be a good teacher, administrator or staff in a PreK-12 school without realizing (on academic, experiential, and conceptual levels) that schools are deeply embedded within and an important part of their local communities. To that end, I have been working on series of pieces that expands on the notion of community engagement as much more than just service, service-learning, or experiential education. This is the first part of this series.

***

The community engagement movement – after a generation of activism and research and immense energy and effort – has reached an “engagement ceiling.” It is now time to plot the second wave.

This movement – composed of a loosely inter-related set of programs, practices, and philosophies such as service-learning, civic and community engagement, public scholarship, and community-based research – has become an assumed and expected part of the higher education landscape. More than half of all faculty, according to UCLA’s ongoing American College Teacher surveys, believe that instilling a commitment to community service is a very important or essential aspect of undergraduate education; NSSE data suggest that service-learning is one of very few “high impact practices” that deepen undergraduates’ learning; and the Carnegie Foundation recently released its third round of colleges and universities selected as worthy of the “community engagement” classification, whose membership now numbers over three hundred such institutions.

Yet even as the public face of community engagement becomes ever more embraced, there are troubling signs of its internal malaise. Key groups and scholars have begun to openly talk of a movement that has “stalled.” Strong research suggests that co-curricular engagement continues to be a more meaningful variable than singular curricular service-learning courses in fostering a range of key student outcomes. And the plethora of programs, centers, and practices that intermix community service, service-learning, and civic engagement contributes to frustratingly opaque notions of even basic definitions, categories, and hoped-for outcomes in the field.

The trouble is not that service-learning and its ilk have not been successful enough. The problem, I suggest, is that they have been too successful. Too successful, that is, at positioning themselves as a social movement for the transformation of higher education to reclaim and rediscover its civic purpose and meaningful engagement with, for, and in their local communities. But in so doing, in becoming a movement that attempted to reach everyone across the academy, the community engagement movement has become unmoored from some basic precepts. There is neither a core vision nor an overarching network able to guide or link the disparate centers, groups, scholarly communities, national organizations and activists all attempting to, ironically enough, foster an engaged campus and community. The gap between the rhetoric and reality of the “engaged campus” is ever increasing.

The reasons for this are complex, intertwined, and not easily changeable given the long-term economic retrenchment sweeping across the academy: the expanding demographics of “non-traditional” part-time commuting students; the outsourcing of labor to contingent and adjunct faculty; and the “wickedly” complex and contested problem of engaging with (much less solving) community issues enmeshed within multiple racial, political, economic, social, and historical realities. If the goal of the first generation of scholars and activists was to transform higher education, the real issue is who is transforming whom.

I am not suggesting that we wipe our hands, shut the classroom door, and walk away from the pressing societal problems that colleges and universities must indeed be a part of solving. Rather, we must reframe how we think about the engaged campus: namely, community engagement must become an intellectual movement. If the next generation of scholars, students, and community members are to have a chance in fostering a deep, sustained, and ultimately powerful campus and community collaborations, then we must embrace a second wave of criticality towards civic and community engagement in the academy.

By this I mean what other movements, such as Women’s Studies and Black Studies, have accomplished in the last thirty years. They have created, through majors and minors and interdisciplinary concentrations and research centers, a means to influence and impact the knowledge production and dissemination of their respective areas of study. They have succeeded in the impressive accomplishment that it is no longer possible to speak simply or “obviously” about what feminism or blackness “is,” either within their respective fields, across the academy, or, for that matter, in the larger world.

Interestingly enough, academic programs (such as majors and minors) focused on community engagement have indeed begun to spring up helter skelter across the academy. I helped organize a research institute this past summer for academics interested in developing or expanding such academic programs. We expected twenty or thirty people to show up. Instead, we had to stop registration at ninety, as scholars, administrators, and doctoral students poured in from across the country, as well as a few from Canada, Mexico, and even Ireland. We have now documented over sixty academic programs at varying stages of development across the United States and will be hosting another institute this summer to continue to deepen this dialogue and support such program development.

There are longstanding and deeply impressive programs, such as Providence College’s major in Public and Community Service Studies and UC-Santa Cruz’s department of Community Studies. There is the newly developed Civic Engagement minor at Mary Baldwin College, and the Department of Justice and Policy Studies at Guilford College. In each case, there are dedicated faculty members attached to each program, doing the deliberate, careful, and critical work that is necessary for any successful academic program: advising students, creating introductory courses, questioning the quality of the capstone experience, reaching out to colleagues across the institution and community members outside of it for perspective and feedback and collaboration, advocating for additional tenure-track lines, and questioning whether what they do is ultimately of value and relevance to its critical stakeholders.

This, then, is the face of the next generation of the scholarship of engagement. It is the critical work that cannot take for granted the practice and philosophy of community engagement. For community engagement is a complex and contested practice that claims to engage in “border crossing” and as such engages issues of power, race, and class. It is a practice that has real-world ethical, legal, and political implications as to what our undergraduates actually do out in the world. And it is a philosophy of practice that is seemingly at the heart of a liberal arts education. As such, what we do with, for, and in the community must be open to the same type of scrutiny as any other legitimate academic practice. It needs to be done in academic spaces that foster and strengthen the very qualities we are looking for in the community partnerships we espouse: deep, sustained, and impactful reflection, engagement, and action. That is an intellectual movement.

In the end, of course, this is not an either/or proposition. The academy must embrace both the community engagement and the critical academic spaces. To have engagement without the criticality is to succumb ultimately to a cheerleading mentality of a social movement with thin skin unable to withstand the critique of the academy. To have disciplined academic inquiry without a deep and sustained experiential community-based component is to succumb to an ineffectual model of “hallway activists” where theory and practice are disjoined and disjointed and where the thick skin of academic debate cannot feel or see the needs of the community all around it. But without the next stage, without the second wave of critique within academic spaces, the next generation of the engaged campus will be ever more imperiled.

"Quite a Lot, Really . . ."

Been meaning to write something substantive, but then I found this as part of a review of a book on Wittgenstein and couldn't resist:

Then there is the question of the role of the endnotes in Klagge's study: some are simply references, some elucidations, and yet others mini-essays almost. They constitute some two-fifths of the book, which seems quite a lot really, as Monty Python put it with respect to the amount of rat in the tart.

Now that's what academic writing should aspire to. :)

From H-Net.

No Child Left Behind: What Lies Ahead?

(Crossposted from my dean's blog)

In March, the Obama administration announced its plans to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The last time the act was reauthorized, in 2001, it was called No Child Left Behind and became the cornerstone of the Bush administration’s education efforts. NCLB brought with it an increased focus upon testing and accountability in schools.

What have we learned from the act during the past decade? What changes would improve it? In my own search for answers, I asked faculty members from various education specialties for their views, which I share here.

Professor David Slavit on accountability

Right now Secretary Duncan talks about NCLB as being too punitive and prescriptive because of its accountability measures. Why do we have accountability? Because we don’t trust people to do their jobs.

Surveys show that most people think their own children’s teachers are quite good, but that teachers in general are not. This says a great deal about the kind of negative messaging people receive in this country about teachers, and the political harm this has been doing to teachers for the past decades. The basis of any reauthorization needs to assume one thing: Teachers are professionals deserving of trust and respect. The many teachers whom I visit on a regular basis are some of the hardest working people I know. And certainly some of the most caring.

Associate Professor Judy Morrison on science education

Under the NCLB, science education has not received the same attention that reading and mathematics have, because the law did not require yearly science assessments.

Though not necessarily advocating for yearly assessments, science educators would like to see students taking more science courses and being exposed to the reality of science in their science courses. There also needs to be an ongoing conversation about which important scientific knowledge and skills our students should be exposed to so that they become scientifically literate citizens. We need to open their eyes to the development, meaning, value, and limitations of scientific knowledge. As students engage in more authentic science in their K-12 science courses, they will be exposed to the creativity and innovation that science involves, strengthening their passion and causing them to consider careers in science.

If higher standards and more assessments can produce more opportunities for students to receive quality science instruction, then these certainly should be a part of the ESEA revisions involving science education.

Clinical Associate Professor Gay Selby on support for teachers, leaders

There is much about No Child Left Behind that I personally support—most important to me is that it requires schools to examine data, including student achievement data, high school graduation rates, and the qualifications of teachers as to teaching assignments. These areas of examination have “shined a light” on important areas that all too often prior to NCLB were not well examined.

I believe most teachers and principals today are intentional in their efforts to address the learning needs of all students and to improve high school graduation rates. Many teachers have changed how they work together and many innovative programs have emerged to provide the needed support to students. The role of principals also has changed from one of manager to leader—an instructional leader focused on assisting teachers with their classroom practice and student needs.

The downsides of NCLB are the heavy reliance on standardized tests data to determine how well a school is doing and the use of test results to punish teachers and principals as a means of motivating them. It is my hope that a reauthorized NCLB will focus on targeted support for teachers and principals.

The public and policy makers have every right to expect high performance from their schools and every right to hold teachers and principals accountable, but should be realistic about the challenges schools face and recognize that schools need authentic support in their efforts to improve. Only after such efforts should punitive measures be taken.

Assistant Professor Janet Frost on the intent of the law

I greet reauthorization of the act with mixed feelings. The intentions of actually meeting the educational needs of all children were noble, and the federal funding provided the opportunity for extensive professional development work my colleagues and I do that seems to be making a difference for teachers and students. However, the means of accountability and implementation of NCLB seemed misguided.

Most teachers and administrators with whom I have worked have felt that this legislation forced them to take steps that seemed educationally bizarre and the opposite of the legislation’s intent. They learned to focus their efforts on those students whose scores were just below passing, cutting back attention for lower or higher students. Schools reduced or eliminated time for science, social studies, the arts, and physical education — all areas of study that engage students who may be less interested or successful in mathematics or literacy learning. Teachers’ emotional energy became so focused on meeting Adequate Yearly Progress that they were less aware or considerate of their impact on students. I learned of students who couldn’t sleep the night before the high-stakes tests because their teachers had told them they were responsible for the school’s score and future. Some principals couldn’t be bothered with improving grade 11-12 students’ preparation for college success because yearly progress was focused on grade 10 scores.

Associate Professor Brian French on achievement testing

The attention given to achievement testing will not wane with reauthorization. It will only increase as common standards are applied to schools nationwide. First, there is the challenge of producing high quality assessments. The timeline and budget may not be sufficient to ensure proper development and implementation of tests.

Second, the magnitude of the common core project is almost overwhelming to the states and organizations charged with implementing the assessment system. For example, changing from paper-and-pencil tests to computer adaptive assessments sounds simple. However, having enough adequate working computers is a major barrier to implementation. Plus, there is a heavy bet being placed on technology for success for this system–technology that may not yet exist.

Third, achievement tests are designed for measuring individual student progress. However, the scores are put to many other uses (such as promotion, grades, teacher effectiveness, program accountability) with no assurance that they are valid measurements for those purposes.

Fourth, teachers will be asked, if not required, to make use of assessment scores to modify instruction, see and understand individual student mistakes, and convey student progress to parents. The challenge is to ensure they are prepared to do so.

Miracle schools, vouchers and all that educational flim-flam

is the title of this piece by Diane Ravitch. It appeared at the website of Nieman Watchdog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, as part of the "Ask This" which is subtitled "Questions the Press Should Ask." Oh if only reporters and writers on education were knowledgeable enough about education to ask questions such as those posed by Ravitch, perhaps we could cut through all the misleading and inaccurate information, the attempts to manipulate the public discourse on education to exclude the voices of those - including both Ravitch (a personal friend) and myself - who say that our supposed pattern of educational "reform" is like the emperor's new clothes - there is no there there, as Gertrude Stein once opined of Oakland.

You should read Ravitch's piece. To whet your appetite, let me offer Diane's first paragraph here, and then explore a bit more below the fold:

Be skeptical of miracle schools. Sometimes their dramatic gains disappear in a year or two or three. Most such claims rely on cheating or gaming the system or on intensive test prep that involves teaching children how to answer test questions. These same children, having learned to take tests, may actually be very poorly educated, even in the subjects where their scores were rising.

Please keep reading.

Diane offers some very tough questions to consider. Understand that as an educational historian and as someone very involved in policy questions, the questions she poses are derived from the record, from extensive reading/research into the information that is actually available. For example:

When a charter school reports miraculous results, be sure to ask about the attrition rate. Some highly successful charters push out low-performing kids and their enrollment falls over the years (and the departing students are not replaced). Recently Arne Duncan hailed a “miracle” school in Chicago—Urban Prep—where all the students who graduated were accepted into college. But 150 students started and only 107 graduated. The 107 graduates had much lower test scores than the average for Chicago public school students. The school did a good job of getting the students into college (perhaps that was a miracle) but they were not better educated than students in the regular public schools.

In another instance, one of the “amazing” schools singled out by the 2010 documentary “Waiting for Superman” admits 140 students, but only 34 graduated. That’s a 75 per cent attrition rate. Some miracle.

Or try the brief paragraph before what I just quoted:

Whenever a district has a dramatic increase in test scores, look for cheating, gaming the system, intensive investment in test prep. Testing is NOT instruction. It is meant to assess instruction, not to substitute for it.

Take this points one at a time

cheating - explore the recent USA Today examination of test results in DC public schools under Michelle Rhee

gaming - the so-called Texas miracle on their state tests, given in tenth grade, was accomplished by holding back lower performing kids in 9th grade. Some were held back several times until they dropped out, and if they said they MIGHT get a GED, they were listed at having transferred to an alternative educational program, not as dropouts. Or perhaps after having been held back one year they were skipped to 11th on the grounds they had made so much progress. In either case, they were not tested. All this was documented BEFORE No Child Left Behind was passed into law, and people in Congress cannot say they were unaware. Walt Haney of Lynch College of Education at Boston College wrote about it, as did others, and a number of us passed on the literature to key people in Congress. Yet somehow Rod Paige won a superintendent's award and got promoted to Secretary of Education, in part because of a claimed 90% graduation rate in Houston schools, when in reality only a bit over 40% of those entering 7th grade graduated with their cohorts.

intensive investment in test prep - these seems to be the pattern in a number of charter schools and some public schools claiming significant gains. But what evidence there is that the "gains" on tests are not maintained in subsequent grades, and students as they ascend the educational grades arrive less and less prepared to do the kind of work necessary to be successful even in a high school course of students, to say nothing of what is necessary in colleges, which is why post-secondary institutions have had to expand the number of places in remediation courses.

Ravitch remind us - at least those of us who have been paying attention - that improving pass rates on state tests may mean merely that states are manipulating their cut scores. It is possible to pass some state tests with less than half the questions answered correctly. Since all that are published are scaled scores, converted from raw scores, unless one can see the conversion formula, the scaled scores are subject to manipulation for all kinds of reasons, including the state (or school district for district wide tests) wanting to be able to show "success" or to avoid the politically unacceptable prospect of large numbers of students not being promoted or not graduating from high school.

Not all "studies" are peer-reviewed by independent scholars. Some are not even rigorous, as Ravitch points out about the claim by Carolyn Hoxby that students who spent 9 years in a NYC charter could close the achievement gap differential between, say, Harlem in inner city NY and Scarsdale, perhaps the wealthiest of the New York suburbs. As Ravitch writes:

The press gave that study huge attention and credibility, but no one noticed that there were very few students who had attended a charter in NYC for nine years or that Hoxby did not provide a number for the students who had closed the gap. It appears that her study was an extrapolation, and it was an extrapolation based on NYC and NY state’s inflated and unreliable test scores (see above). When NYC’s charter scores are reported, they range widely from very abysmal (a six per cent pass rate) to exceptional (100 per cent pass rate).

Ravitch also reminds us of the wisdom of the words spoken by Hal Holbrook in "All the President's Men" - Follow the Money. In the case of education, we have the likes of Philip Anschutz, a billionaire who advocates for free market solutions (and for whom, I might mention, Michael Bennet worked before becoming Superintendent in Denver, and then a US Senator, and now apparently the successor in waiting to Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education). He was a funder of "Waiting for Superman" as was a man "previously CEO of a string of for-profit postsecondary institutions." Similarly, the so-called Democrats for Education Reform has a board full of Wall St. hedge fund managers and big real estate moguls. Ravitch suggests asking why they are so interested in charters, and how they are connected with other 'reform' groups such as" Education Reform Now, Stand for Children, the state CAN organizations (e.g., ConnCAN), and a host of other groups promoting privatization and de-professionalization?" She also reminds us, as she did in her book, about the influence of the 'billionaire boys' club" of foundations such as Gates, Broad and Walton.

No high performing nations, as Ravitch reminds us, are pursuing the kinds of approaches we are seeing advocated by such groups and foundations, and unfortunately by the Obama administration. She challenges the administration with a number of questions, on continuing Bush administration accountability problems, on school choice, on merit pay (which lacks any supportive research base in education or in industry, and has clearly been shown to have no effect on test scores, which of course are the measurement of choice of the so-called reformers). Given the President's recent remarks at Bell Multicultural High School in the District, in response to a question from a student, it is worth noting this question from Ravitch:

Why does the president publicly say he is against standardized testing at the same time that his administration is demanding more emphasis on standardized testing?

Read Ravitch. Perhaps pass on the article to the editors, editorialists, and reporters dealing with education at your publication of choice.

Ravitch concludes her piece with simple statement:

Principles for reporters: Be skeptical; don’t believe in miracles; follow the money.

Perhaps were these principles followed, we might actually be able to have a meaningful public discussion on how to address the real needs and issues confronting our schools and our students.


Perhaps were these principles followed, we might actually be able to have a meaningful public discussion on how to address the real needs and issues confronting our schools and our students.