Public Education Meets Carrot and Stick: Kids Lose

The only advantage I can imagine to being stuck on the tarmack for 2 hours at Austin-Bergstrom Airport last week while the plane was being de-iced was that I got time to read Greg Anrig's excellent book, Beyond the Education Wars: Evidence that Collaboration Builds Effective Schools, which  has been sitting on my Kindle for a few months now. Anrig, is vice president, programs, at The Century Foundation, author of several books and a former journalist.

Anrig's book begins with a brief history of management theory, focusing on two dominant theories put forward by Frederick Winslow Taylor and W. Edwards Deming. Taylor's thoeries eminated from the idea that workers could not be trusted and so he designed a management style based on punishment and reward. Taylor determined how much a worker should be producing and set workers goals accordingly and then tied their pay to productivity. Modern exemplars of the Taylor approach are bill collecting agencies, customer service call centers and national retail chains (Walmart?).

Decades later, Deming, working in Japan after World War II, argued that long term business success required constant incremental progress, the kind that required workers and management to be deeply engaged in sharing information and ideas with each other. Modern day exemplars of the Deming model include Toyota, Sony, Southwest Airlines and Kaiser Permanente.

Clearly, as Anrig points out, the national political debate over education reform has been driven by the Taylor model of management. There is a direct line from the Taylor model to such reformy ideas as merit pay, standardized testing and tying teacher evaluations to test scores. In other words, education reformers have embraced Taylor's carrot and sticks management style of education that failed the American auto and steel industries and that is currently used for only the most low levels of employment.

Anrig shows that there is ample evidence that this carrot and stick method will not work in schools and plenty of evidence that a more collaborative approach, such as that endorsed by Deming, and used by many of the most successful corporations in the world, is a better way to go.

Anrig cites solid research reports starting in 1990 that support the concept of a collaborative design for school improvement. These studies include those done by the Consortium for Chicago Social Research, The National Center for Educational Achievement and Century Foundation fellow Gordon MacInnes all of which come down to two key findings, strong leadership matters and a strong culture of collaboration between teachers and school leadership matters most of all.

The studies found that change is slow and incremental, but it can be successful in any setting, including in high poverty areas, although change is even more challenging there.

Education reformers do not trust teachers. Because they do not trust teachers, just as Taylor did not trust industrial workers long ago, reformers put forward management plans that seek to control workers, rather than engage professionals in systematic improvement. Education reformers wish to motivate change with the carrot of merit pay and the stick of the highly flawed Value Added Measures (VAMs) tying teacher evaluation to student scores on standardized tests.

We know, and Anrig's book very persuasvley lays out, what works. Collaboration works. Teachers and principals working together to improve schools works. Having teachers compete for merit pay through flawed VAMs, not only will not work, but it will destroy the very collaboration that is so necessary for a highly functioning school culture.

We want teachers working together to share instructional ideas, to puzzle out solutions to persistent problems, to design authentic assessments for students. The concept of the professional learning community, where teachers meet to share ideas and solve problems holds great promise for the continuous improvement of teaching and learning. The test and punish model of the corporate education reformers will inevitably kill collegiality and cooperation and, ultimately, public education.

Concerted group action is the enemy of corporate education reform movement. That is why the reformers demonize teacher unions and support policies that will turn teacher against teacher. By driving a wedge through the profession, the education reformers hope to destroy public education and turn it to a for profit enterprise run like a widget factory. This is one way to distract the public from the real issue facing school improvement - poverty. And poverty is one thing the corporate education reformers do not want to touch. Really dealing with poverty would upset the status quo that is paying off so handsomely for the 1%.

In these times, it is more important than ever for teachers to stick together, not only in the sense of unions, but also in the sense of building and maintaining the kind of collegial culture in the every school  that reasearch has shown is the one true way to effect continuous improvement.

Reading Anrig's book will help arm all in the profession against the false narrative of the corporate education reform movement.

Anrig, Greg. (2013) Beyond the Education Wars: Evidence that Collaboration Builds Effective Schools. New York: The Century Foundation Press.

David Coleman’s Coup d’etat

Who is the most powerful man in public education?

In one of the first critiques of the “new” SAT rolled out by College Board President, David Coleman yesterday, Bob Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), a nonprofit group dedicated to ending the misuse of standardized test scores said, “The truth is no one needs the SAT, either ‘old’ or ‘new.’”

I don’t often disagree with anything Fair Test has to say, but in this case I know for certain of one person who needs the “new” SAT – David Coleman. With the rollout of the revised SAT, Coleman, now president of the College Board, completes the grand takeover of American public education from K-12 and beyond.

Coleman is, of course, the chief architect of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Coleman has often reminded us not to worry; the CCSS are just standards not curriculum. As you read this; however, two testing companies, PARCC and Smarter Balanced, are developing high stakes standardized tests that are tied to the CCSS. It has long been established that when curriculum is tied closely to high-stakes tests, the curriculum is inevitably narrowed to reflect what is on the test.

Coleman has also told us in the past that the CCSS do not tell teachers how to teach. But as Mike Petrilli, of the Common Core supporting Fordham Institute has said, “Of course we want to change the way teachers teach.” In fact Coleman has very publicly advocated for a teaching strategy called "close reading.

The “new” SAT is also, as Coleman insouciantly posited yesterday, tied closely to the CCSS. And so, voila’, David Coleman becomes the most powerful person in American public education.

It would seem important that we get to know the de facto leader of all public school students, administrators and teachers. Where has he come from and what makes him tick?

Some clues come from a hagiographic piece in the New York Times Magazine published today. Coleman has bachelor’s degrees in philosophy from Yale and English literature from Oxford, and a master’s degree in ancient philosophy from Cambridge. He wanted to be a teacher, but lacking qualifications to work in public school, he took a job with the global management consulting group, McKinsey & Company. At McKinsey, Coleman became “increasingly obsessed with evidence-based solutions.” It is interesting to note that for all Coleman’s obsession with “evidence”, he has provided no evidence that CCSS will work, or for that matter, that the SAT is worth the time or money for students and parents.

From McKinsey Coleman started the Grow Network, “which focused on assisting students and parents, including non-English-speaking families, in navigating an educational system that was increasingly dictated by standardized tests.” This experience led him to believe that the tests were based on standards that were too vague and needed to change. Coleman sold the Grow Network to McGraw-Hill and started Student Achievement Partners (SAP), which according to Wikipedia was “a nonprofit that assembled educators and researchers to design actions based on evidence to improve student outcomes.”  Coleman and other consultants at SAP wrote the CCSS.

Coleman also served as a founding board member and treasurer of Michelle Rhee’s  Students First, the anti-teacher, anti-union, anti-tenure, anti-seniority, anti-collective bargaining, highly profitable, non-profit. Could the most powerful man in education today be anti-teacher? Eventually he left both Student Achievement Partners and Students First to take over as president of the College Board.

Coleman’s obsession with evidence-based solutions has been made policy through the CCSS. Nearly every page of the standards in reading insists on the use of “textual evidence.” Coleman seems to believe that this was not a part of instruction until he wrote it all over the CCSS. Now we see this obsession carried over to the SAT, where a key feature will be “evidence-based reading and writing.”

It is also because of Coleman that the percentages of fiction vs. non-fiction have been prescribed in the core. Diane Ravitch has reported on Coleman’s disdain for fiction. Coleman himself has voiced his disdain for personal writing, saying that children will find in life, “Nobody gives a s**t about what you think and feel.”

Coleman has also graced us with evidence of how he would go about teaching a complex text; advice that teachers all over the country were clamoring for from this non-teaching architect of the CCSS. Still available on you tube here, is his “close reading” of Martin Luther King’s, “A Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Coleman employs a technique called “close reading”, that was popularized by English professors and the author Robert Penn Warren in the 1930s and 40s. After watching the video, I am sure you will be convinced that this instructional strategy is a key for 21^st century skills, no matter what we might have learned about engaging children in literature in the last 80 years. Just remember, it is not about how you think or how you feel.

So there it is, a brief primer on the most powerful man in education. A man with no teaching experience, an obsession with evidence only when it suits his purpose, a former board member of Michelle Rhee’s Students First, and a man who “doesn’t give a s**t what you feel or think.” This is the man who completed his coup d’tat yesterday by tying the CCSS to the SAT. Is it any wonder that some of us are worried about the future of public education?

An Anthem for the Opt Out Movement?

Back in the sixties when I was in my folk music stage, a song by singer Ed McCurdy was making the rounds of the coffee houses. The song was called Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream and it was a powerful anti-war anthem later recorded by Simon and Gafunkel, Pete Seeger, Johnny Cash and many others. If you want to hear it you can find it here.

For some reason, I could not get the song out of my head as I sat in a plane on the tarmack of Austin-Bergstrom Airport waiting to be de-iced (scary thought) for my flight home to Philly. The tune is very memorable and I thought it might be a good basis for a rallying cry for the anti-testing OPT OUT movement. Anyway, just for fun, here it is.

Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream (with apologies to Ed MCCurdy)

Last night I had the strangest dream,

The kind Bill Gates detests.

I dreamed the world had all agreed

To throw out standardized tests.

I dreamed I saw my old classroom

And the room was filled with joy.

Because the focus was on learning

For every girl and boy.

And when test booklets were destroyed

And placed into the shredder,

Parents and their children saw

Their lives changed for the better.

Then the children in the streets below

Were dancing round and round,

While #2 pencils and answer sheets

Were scattered on the ground

Last night I had the strangest dream,

The kind Bill Gates detests.

I dreamed the world had all agreed

To throw out standardized tests

Fighting Back at Standardized Tests: A Teacher’s Guide

              A guide for teachers who want to strike back at the over use of standardized tests

At the end of its first conference in Austin, Texas yesterday, the Network for Public Education and Board Member Diane Ravitch held a press conference to announce a call for a Congressional investigation into the “over-emphasis, misapplication, costs, and poor implementation of high-stakes standardized testing in the nation’s K-12 public schools.” Read the NPE’s letter to Congress here. As this was going on, teachers in two schools in Chicago were refusing to administer the ISAT, an Illinois state test that the teachers claim is a waste of time. Meanwhile testing OPT OUT movements are growing across the country and especially in New York State in response to the clumsy rollout of the Common Core and allied standardized tests by the NYDOE.

Most teachers are rightly concerned about the impact of standardized testing on students, on curriculum, and now on their own job security. Most also know that boycotting the proctoring of the test is not a viable option for them. How should a classroom teacher, tenured or untenured, respond to the overuse and misuse of standardized tests while maintaining a professional stance?

I suggest three steps for teachers to take.

1.    Get well informed about the legitimate uses and rampant abuses of standardized tests.

2.    Proactively demonstrate to parents, administrators and colleagues in your building that your in-class, daily assessment of your students is far superior to the information provided by standardized tests.

3.    Get active outside of school hours with groups that will support efforts to bring the message of standardized test abuse to the political powers and the general public.

Getting Informed

This will be by far the easiest step. The misuse of standardized tests has been well documented for many years, going back to before No Child Left Behind (NCLB). NCLB and Race to the Top (RTTT) have exacerbated the problems by ramping up the stakes involved in student performance on these tests.

Here is a summary of the issues related to standardized testing. To learn more, I suggest you consult the fact sheet put out by Fair Test that you can find here.

·         Standardized tests can be one part of a comprehensive assessment system. However, they offer just a small piece of the picture. Better methods of evaluating student needs and progress already exist. Careful observation and documentation of student work and behaviors by trained teachers is more helpful than a one-time test. Assessment based on student performance on real learning tasks is more useful and accurate for measuring achievement -- and provides more information for teaching -- than multiple-choice achievement tests (Fair Test 2012).

·         Standardized tests are not good enough to provide the primary source of information on student achievement.

·         Standardized tests are not good enough to provide the primary information on the achievement gap.

·         Standardized tests are not good enough to provide the primary information on school quality.

·         Standardized tests are not nearly good enough nor were they ever intended to provide the primary information on teacher effectiveness.

·         When standardized tests are used as a primary measure of student performance, students from low-income and minority-group backgrounds, English language learners, and students with disabilities, are more likely to be denied diplomas, retained in grade, placed in a lower track, or unnecessarily put in remedial education programs (Fair Test 2012).

·         The U.S. is the only economically advanced nation to rely heavily on multiple-choice tests. Other nations use performance-based assessment to evaluate students on the basis of real work such as essays, projects and activities (Fair Test 2012).

·         An emphasis on high-stakes standardized tests tends to narrow the curriculum to a focus on those things that will be tested.

·         An emphasis on multiple choice testing is not supportive of the development of more complex reading, writing and critical thinking abilities.

·         Standardized, fill in the bubble tests are wildly inappropriate for very young children.

·         The proliferation of standardized tests steals instructional time from teachers and learning time from children.

·         Standardized tests are generally not helpful for diagnostic purposes because the score reports come in long after the student takes the test and often without any item analysis of types of questions students had difficulty with.

Providing a Better Alternative

As classroom teachers we assess student learning daily in a much richer way than can be captured on a standardized test. We need to make our students and their parents aware of the rich assessment protocol that we follow and how that helps us get to know each student as a learner.

Formative Assessment  - As teachers we are constantly watching and interacting with our students to assess their understanding and to determine if they have achieved the objectives of a lesson. This formative assessment helps us adjust our lessons mid-stream and provides invaluable information for side conferences and small group instructional interventions that we might need to get all students to achieve the learning goals.

While much of this assessment happens quickly and informally while instruction is taking place, it is important that teachers document their observations for future reflection, planning and reporting. I have found that these “anecdotal notes” help me get a clear picture of the learner and provide me, not only with data to reframe instruction, but also with a knowledge of the individual child as a learner that I can then articulate to parents, administrators and to the student him or herself.

Summative Assessment – Occasional, well crafted, teacher created quizzes and tests that are based on the material taught in class are also part of the teacher’s toolbox in diagnosing learning and adjusting instruction. Occasional summative assessments have the added benefit of focusing student learning on the key ideas that they must grasp.

We can group both of these types of assessment as “authentic.” Formative assessment is authentic because it is tied to the actual student performance of learning tasks under the watchful eye of the teacher. Summative tests are authentic in the sense that they are tied to the actual material taught in the classroom.

Combining these two types of assessment allows the teacher to truly know each child as a learner. This knowledge is powerful in conversations with parents, administrators and colleagues. Nothing convinces parents that their child is in good hands better than a teacher who can look them in the eye and say, "This is what I see about Johnny as a learner and here is why I think so." Parents who get this type of information about a child will see that this kind of rich knowledge is not available from standardized tests.

Taking Action

Social media has made it possible for people of common interest to join together in concerted action as never before. Numerous parent and teacher groups have been formed around Facebook and other platforms to provide moral support, share information and create events. It is the responsibility of the concerned professional to find a way to support these groups, provide information and get involved in ani-test abuse actions. The groups out there right now include Opt Out of State Tests, Children are More than Test Scores, and Lace to the Top. Join these groups on Facebook and lend your voice to the cause.

The teaching profession has been taking unjustified hits for many years now. The corporate education reformers have stolen the narrative about public education, so that now the public thinks of “failure factories” and “bad teachers” and “school choice” and “accountability” as the story of American public education.  These corporate reformers are well-financed and they are on a mission. All of us must find a way to raise our voices to defend public education and represent the profession by taking action and by providing our clients, the parents and children, with the kind of high quality assessment data that only the professional educator in the classroom with the child every day can provide.

Dispatches from the Front 2

Notes from Day 2 of the Network Of Public Education Conference

Day 2 of the Network for Public Education Conference in Austin, TX began with people lining up in the aisles of the Lady Bird Johnson Auditorium to get Diane Ravitch to sign their copy of Reign of Error. Poor Anthony Cody struggled to get people into their seats to begin the first session. Teachers on a mission can be a non-compliant group. Finally the session, a panel discussion on the Common Core, began aboout 20 minutes late. It probably couldn't end soon enough for Randi Weingarten, the AFT President and Common Core supporter, who was given the lead position in the discussion and then had to sit uncomfortably as articulate and passionate opponents of the Core, Paul Horton, Geralyn McLaughlin, Mercedes Schneider and Jose Luis Vilson, took apart every positive point about the Core that Weingarten had presented.

Weingarten said the Common Core standards were not the problem, over-testing was the problem. The key points made by Common Core opponents included how the Common Core was a top down process that did not include teachers in the development in a meaningful way, that the Common Core is developmentally inappropriate for early childhood education, that the Common Core prescribes instruction that takes away teacher professional judgement and that the Common Core was a part of the effort to undermine teacher unions. To her credit, Weingarten received the criticism with equanimity and professionalism, but she couldn't convince this crowd.

Public education's Super Hero, Diane Ravitch, spoke next and offered red meat to the hungry wolves at the convention. Ravitch's theme was "Why We Will Win." She said that not one of the "reforms" advocated by the corporate privatizers was working. Not vouchers. Not merit pay. Not charter schools. Not value added teacher evaluation. Not improved student learning. She said that the reformers were losers. All of their ideas were failures. She called the charter school movement colonialism. She declared the US Department of Education an enemy to public education. At the end the crowd rose to applaud in appreciation of Diane's leadership and her indominable passion for public education done right.

Jonathan Pelto led a lunchtime session for education bloggers. Jon and other bloggers are working to develop a loosly joined organization that provides support in the form of research, webinars, editorial advice and wikis that will help bloggers get their messages out and grow their reading audiences. More than 100 bloggers and future bloggers attended the session.

Action planning sessions focused on the issue of organizing for further action. In the group I attended we discussed the need to recapture the narrative of public education that the corporate reform oligarchs have usurped. The difficulties of getting working teachers involved in the effort was another concern discussed. David Greene suggested that we all work in our individual states to join in the National Day of Action currently planned for New York and Milwaukee on May 17 - the 60th anniversary of Brown vs. The Board of Education.

As the conference closed, Anthony Cody and Diane Ravitch announced that the Network for Public Education would be calling for a Congressional investigation into the overuse of standardized testing in the country. This blog will have more on the topic in the near future. For now you can read the press release here.

All in all, a great conference. I put faces to the names of people I have been corresponding with over the past year, gained greater insight into the issues in the battle for public education and was energized to continue the battle. The lingering concern is that we members of the Network are spending too much of our time preaching to our own passionate choir and not enough time persuading potential allies to join us. Growing the movement will depend on getting the message to politicians, parents, teachers, students and taxpayers.

Dispatches from the Front

Russ on Reading goes to the Network for Public Education Conference in Austin, Texas

I am feeling so fortunate to be here in Austin with so many passionate advocates for public education. There is literally a public education hero around every corner. Today I met superstar superintendent John Kuhn, author of Test and Punish, which I reviewed here. In one session I sat next to Karen Lewis, charasmatic president of the Chicago Teachers Union. In another session I got to meet and talk for a few moments with long time child and school advocate Deborah Meier. I had a morning conversation with blogger and teacher Anthony Cody who writes the Living in Dialogue blog for Education Week. I traded tweets with the wonderfully witty blogger Edushyster.

I haven't been among a gathering of this many passionate progressives since I marched in the Moratorium Against Vietnam in 1969. 

The best quote of the day came from John Kuhn in his fiery keynote address: "Our kids education shouldn't be a sandbox for rich people." 

Kuhn's speech was full of such trenchant fare including, "The purpose of education isn't for children to become college and career ready, but life ready and capable of self-government." And "Anything that weakens public education weakens the nation."

Other sessions focused on using social media to get the message out (I was placed in the remedial tweeting group), how best to frame the message so people will listen, and a session where several successful bloggers shared the various pathways to success. In this session, I was especially impressed with the thoughtful and heartfelt presentation of New Jersey's own Darci Cimarusti, who blogs under the nom de plume Mother Crusader. Self described as "just a mom", Darci put a lie to those words as she brought tears to the eyes of many with the heroic story of how she drove education privatizers out of her own town and how she is making life miserable for charter school wannabes throughout the state.

A shout out also to Jonathan Pelto of the blog, Wait, What?, who uses his considerable experience in the political arena to hound public education enemies in Connecticut through campaign finance investigations and Freedom of Information Act requests. He was articulate and inspiring.

In my own session I facilitated the presentations of bloggers Lee Barrios (geauxteacher), Bob Sikes (Scathing Purple Musings) and Katie Lapham (TeachersLetters2BllGates and Critical Classrooms). Each is doing heroic work in their own states beating back parent trigger laws and defending the rights of children. I concluded the session with my satire The House that Gates Built and with the story of my growing disenchantment with the Common Core. The session seemed to be well received.

Tomorrow: Diane Ravitch

The Common Core: Devils and Details

I have the honor of speaking on a panel with other education bloggers at the Network for Public Education Conference in Austin, TX this weekend. Here is some of what I will say.

When I began my journey addressing the Common Core State Standards in my blog one year ago, I was quite naïve. I assumed that the Common Core, for better or worse, was a fait accompli and so I focused on ways to help teachers address the standards without sacrificing what I knew to be exemplary practice in literacy education. As I dug more deeply into the Common Core itself and as I heard statements about close reading, ignoring the role of background knowledge and David Coleman’s famous decree that “nobody gives a shit” about how you think and feel when reading, I began to see how fundamentally flawed the Common Core was.

I investigated the people who wrote the Common Core and the process they followed for implementation and my blog turned from criticism of the standards themselves to concern that people who knew nothing about literacy were telling professionals how to do their job. Finally, with the invaluable help of my fellow bloggers, and after reading books like Reign of Error, by Diane Ravitch and Test and Punish by John Kuhn, I came to the realization that the Common Core is not merely a flawed document that needed to be tweaked, not just a flawed process that now required a step back for educators to weigh-in,  but a coordinated effort to coerce states to adopt national standards that are tied to standardized testing of children and teacher evaluation based on those test scores. The Common Core is a vital cog in the corporate education reformers efforts to privatize public education.

The Common Core is wrong about literacy in many ways. The call for greater text complexity ignores what we know about developing fluency, especially in the early grades. As Hiebert and Sluys (2013) have pointed out, text complexity is based on the erroneous notion that we must ramp up text difficulty beginning in third grade in order to achieve “college and career readiness.” Kylene Beers and Robert Probst excellent book, Notice and Note, worries that “text dependent questions” in close reading will lead to student disengagement in reading. Having students do cold reads of material without efforts to activate prior knowledge flies in the face of decades of solid research in literacy. Finally, the Common Core pushes overly academic instruction down to the kindergarten where Fiano (2013) has shown that the elimination of work/play stations may harm the development of oral language so vital for these young learners.

The Common Core is wrong in process. No classroom teachers were included in the drafting process. When classroom professionals were invited to provide feedback, the feedback was used to make minor changes, but the Common Core pushers failed to make any substantive revisions. No early childhood experts were consulted, with the resultant problems that I outlined above. The Alliance for Childhood, in fact, drafted a letter of concern about the Common Core while it was still in draft form. The statement said in part, the standards “conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades.”

But finally, we must see the greatest flaw in the Common Core and its greatest threat is that it is tied closely to the corporate education reformers agenda. The Common Core development was funded in large part by the Gates Foundation. The public relations effort to get the public, the business community and educators behind the Common Core is being funded by the Gates Foundation. The Common Core is inextricably tied to the burgeoning testing industry and the attack on teachers through value added models of teacher evaluation, again promoted with money from the Gates Foundation. In the minds of the corporate privatizers, there is no separating Common Core from standardized tests and from the degradation of the teaching profession through spurious evaluation designs and attacks on tenure and seniority.

The Common Core is of one with the corporate privatizers efforts to destroy public education.

All Kinds of Kinds: Evaluating a Teacher

               Evaluating a teacher demands nuance, not numbers.

The Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter, Don Henry, has a song with a refrain that says, “Ever since the beginning to keep the world spinning, it takes all kinds of kinds.” I think the same is true when we look at the teaching profession.  

As a student in elementary school, secondary school, college and graduate school, I have had a few great teachers, many good teachers, and a poor teacher or two. I remember my third grade teacher, Ms. Miyamoto. Ms. Miyamoto was from Hawaii. She taught us to dance the Hula, how to prepare and eat poi, and other basics of Hawaiian language and culture. I remember mostly how she was unfailingly kind. For an 8 year-old-boy in 1955, her classroom was a valuable lesson in diversity and respect for other cultures. Ms. Miyamoto was a new teacher and she had her challenges with what we now call “classroom management.” I am not sure how she would be rated as a teacher today, but for me she was a good teacher indeed.

In sixth grade I had Mrs. Stout. I can say without equivocation that Mrs. Stout was a great teacher. I don’t know how she did it, but Mrs. Stout made every child in the classroom, including the class clown (moi), believe that they were intelligent and destined for great success. The one thing I remember that Mrs. Stout taught us was how to outline. She said we would need it in high school and college. She always assumed we were going to college, even in this working class suburban neighborhood in 1958 where college was far from a bygone conclusion. She made us all feel good about our potential.

In eighth grade history, I had Mr. Laidacker. I doubt that Mr. Laidacker was any administrator’s idea of a great teacher, but he was for me. Mr. Laidacker was strict (some said mean), aloof and totally involved with himself. He ignored the 8^th grade curriculum (American History) and spent nearly the entire year teaching about his passion, The Civil War. And I mean passion. Mr. Laidacker knew more about the Civil War than Abraham Lincoln. And he could tell stories about the war that lit up the mind of at least one 13 year-old in that class. I can still remember in detail the report I did for him on Civil War medicine. Mr. Laidacker was not liked by most of the students in the school, but he is one major reason I became a history teacher. That passion was infectious for me.

I am sure that anyone reading this can name teachers who had similar ompact on them. The point is that teachers who were good for us, as individuals, may not have been good for other kids. But it takes all kinds of kinds in this world and all kinds of teachers to educate a child. Because of this evaluating a teacher demands nuance, not numbers.

The current mania for weeding out “bad teachers” and evaluating teacher effectiveness through student standardized test scores is wrong headed in the extreme. Teaching is one part art, one part science, and one part mystery. One child’s favorite teacher may be the wrong teacher for another child. Evaluating a teacher is a complex process, that certainly includes evidence of student learning, but it also includes many, many more things. This evaluation cannot be reduced to a number on a standardized test or on a rubric. This type of reductionism does a disservice to the complexity of the enterprise.

The evaluation of a teacher requires a knowledge of and sensitivity to this complexity. That is why I consider teacher evaluation to itself be part science, part art, and part mystery. The science is the easy part. Was the lesson well-planned? Were the students engaged? Did the teacher answer questions thoughtfully? Was the objective achieved? Did the students learn?

The art is more difficult. Was the lesson made relevant? Was it differentiated appropriately? Did children feel safe taking risks in this classroom? Did small groups function well? Were routine matters handled briskly? How effectively were problems handled? What is being learned in this classroom beyond the subject of the instruction?

The mystery is even more difficult. Did magic happen in this class? Did students feel cared for in this classroom? Was there an atmosphere of mutual respect? Does the teacher’s passion come through? What students might be inspired by this teacher? Was the joy of leaning evident?

I like to think of the act of evaluating a teacher as informed impressionism. Just as the impressionist painter, Claude Monet, used thousands of brush strokes to form the whole of a painting of a garden, so the skilled evaluator looks through multiple lenses to gain an impression of the whole of a teacher. This evaluation should be informed by student learning data, but that data is only one part of multi-faceted picture. It must also be informed by multiple observations of teachers working with children and working with colleagues. It is the product of the review of lesson plans, but also the product of conversations with the teacher that probe decision making and the ability to improve through reflection.

In other words, teacher evaluation is not easy and it requires considerable resources in personnel, time and money. The current calls for judging the complex act of teaching through reductionist and faulty value added models and theoretical rubrics are an insult to the complexity of the profession. If we are really serious about understanding and improving the evaluation of teachers, then let’s get serious about just how difficult that task is.

Pearson Announces the Education Reformer Starter Kit

Pearson International, bullish on the profit potential of the education reform movement, has decided to branch out beyond the development of Common Core aligned tests and curriculum materials and is now offering The Education Reformer Starter Kit, designed for those venture capitalists, Wall Street Financial Analysts, and former sports stars who wish to get into the lucrative business of privatizing public education.

Pearson spokesperson, Phillip (Flip) Emoff, said the starter kit is custom made for the aspiring entrepreneur looking for new opportunities to tap into public funds for personal profit. "The public coffers may be the last frontier for big business," said Emoff, "and our starter kit will provide all the young Ivy League grad will need to tap into that market."

The Education Reformer Starter Kit will contain the following:

• The All Occasion Reformy Phrase Book - Contains all purpose phrases designed to resonate with politicians and journalists and deflect real questions from parents and teachers. Some of the phrases include: We're in it for the kids; Work Hard, Be Nice; No Excuses; Poverty is not destiny; Zip Codes should not determine opportunity; unions protect bad teachers; and many more.
• A completed application, ready for signature, for a grant from The Gates Foundation
• A letter of recommendation from Jeb Bush and Educators for Excellence
• A lifetime membership in Chiefs for Change
• A Teaching Certificate approved by the United States Senate
• A Common Core Decoder Ring
• A DVD of David Coleman's close readings of iconic American texts
• A framed 8 by 10 glossy of Michelle Rhee suitable for hanging
• A "Get Out of School Free Card" (for use after 2 years)
• An Arne Duncan Action Figure
• A gift certificate for dance lessons with Mike Petrilli
• A "Teach Like a Champion" lapel pin
• An all purpose PARCC Standardized Test with gold plated number 2 pencil
• A Charter School co-location divining rod
• A "No Excuses" coffee mug
• A Diane Ravitch voodoo doll

Spokesperson Emoff said the kit will be in stores this spring at a list price of $99.99. Expect discounted prices at Walmart.

Churn in New Jersey: Education Commissioner Chris Cerf Leaves to Flog Software

After spending three years doing his level best to destroy public education in New Jersey, Christopher Cerf, Chris Christie's handpicked Education Commissioner, is leaving to take a job flogging software to public schools as the CEO of Amplify Insight, a division of Amplify, Inc. He'll be working for his old boss, former New York City Schools Chancellor and fellow reformer Joel Klein. One thing you must admire about education reformers, they not only say they believe in "churn", they live it. Cerf has churned himself into a highly paid CEO position where he can make lots of money selling software to support his vision of churning over the public schools to privatizers who are promoting online learning as "individualized."

Cerf is a graduate of that reformer breeding ground, the Broad Urban Superintendent's Academy and like every other graduate of that "school" Cerf is in it "for the kids." Does this quote sound familiar? "As Commissioner of Education in New Jersey, I represent only one constituency – our students.  Too often in education reform, we focus on adult interests at the expense of children’s interests." In a video on Big Think, Cerf also says that he thinks consensus and collaboration are the enemy of progress. He's not interested in collaboration, of course, because he is in it for the kids. Let's take a look at what Chris Cerf has done for the kids of New Jersey.

• Along with 45 other state education leaders, accepted federal Race to the Top bribes to implement the untested Common Core State Standards, PARCC testing and teacher accountability based on test scores.
• Turned the public schools of Newark over to a crony from New York, Cami Anderson, with limited educational experience and an apparent disdain for the wants, needs and desires of children and parents in Newark.
• Turned the public schools in Camden over to another New York crony, a 32 year-old Wall Street financial analyst, who oversaw the unpopular charter school co-locations in New York City, before working with Cami Anderson in Newark on the unpopular One Newark Plan. Camden parents should get ready for the One Camden plan soon.
• Accepted a Broad Foundation grant for the public schools of Newark contingent on the re-election of Christie and the increase in charter schools in that community.
• Showed he cared about kids by making sure they are subject to more standardized tests, including new tests for 2015 for which the students have not been prepared.
• Pushed through a teacher evaluation plan unsupported by research and wildly unpopular with the teachers who will be the targets of the plan and the administrators who will use it.
• Continued a policy of zero growth in the budget for administration of schools despite the call for more and more teacher observations in the new accountability design. 
• Attacked teacher job security through attacks on due process.
• Destroyed teacher morale in a state that is among the highest achieving in the nation.
• Pushed a failed reform agenda of charter schools and vouchers, while ignoring the very real problems of poverty and segregation plaguing urban public schools in New Jersey.

Chris Cerf was in it for the kids for his 3 years in New Jersey. Apparently the teachers of New Jersey, who have made a career commitment to work with the children of New Jersey.were not sufficiently "in it for the kids." They needed to be chastised in the press, victimized by a clearly flawed evaluation system, and marginalized by an administration who did not want to collaborate with those on the front lines of public education. 

So Commissioner Cerf, best of luck to you as you go to your new job as the CEO of a company selling software "for the kids." The teachers, parents and students of New Jersey will stay right here trying to make the best of the mess you've made. Don't let your golden parachute land on the New Jersey Turnpike.

The House That Gates Built

When I taught in the primary grades, I loved to read aloud to children cumulative story books like There was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly, The Napping House, and The House that Jack Built. Here is a reformy version of that last title. If you want to read the original you can find it here.

The House that Gates Built

This is the house that Gates built.

This is the money that lay in the house that Gates built.

These are core standards that were bought with the money that lay in the house that Gates built.

These are the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

These are the children all forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

These are the teachers all tattered and torn

Who are judged by test scores of children forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

These are the TFAs newly shaven and shorn

Who replace the teachers all tattered and torn

Who are judged by test scores of children forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

These are the reformers smearing teachers with scorn

Who hire the TFAs newly shaven and shorn

Who replace the teachers all tattered and torn

Who are judged by test scores of children forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

This is the Secretary, apparently sworn

To defend reformers smearing teachers with scorn

Who hire TFAs newly shaven and shorn

Who replace the teachers tattered and torn

Who are judged by test scores of children forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

This is the President, champion of reform,

Who appointed the Secretary, apparently sworn        

To defend the reformers heaping teachers with scorn

Who hire the TFAs newly shaven and shorn

Who replace the teachers tattered and torn

Who are judged by test scores of children forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

The Common Core: Is “College and Career Ready” the Right Target?

Why "college and career ready?" Could it be because this fits the corporate reform agenda?

The designers of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) determined that the purpose of a K-12 education was to insure that children were “college and career ready” by the time they completed high school. Having determined that our students were not “college and career ready”, they looked at what would be required of a graduate in the areas of literacy and mathematics to be deemed ready and built the standards backwards from high school through middle school to elementary school to provide stepping stones that would lead to that final goal. Holding aside for a moment whether this design construct makes any sense, can we say that “college and career ready” is the appropriate target for public education? And further, if it is not the appropriate target, why have the developers of the Common Core put so much stake in it?

Who could be against standards designed to make children “college and career ready?” It sounds wonderful doesn’t it? Perhaps I have become too cynical. Whenever I hear a slogan that sounds too perfect, I get suspect and go into my Orwellian doublespeak mode. A great example of this is the Bush era “Healthy Forests” Act. The Healthy Forests Act was nothing more than a handout to the lumber industry allowing them to cut down trees and earn profits in areas where this had not been allowed before. It is telling that the “Healthy Forests” Act was opposed by every legitimate environmental group in the country, but supported by Bush’s big business friends. Is “college and career ready” nothing more than a gift to the education privatizers and wealthy corporations who are eager to support the CCSS?

For me “college and career ready” is too narrow a goal for public education. The problem with narrow goals is that you may find ways to achieve them and you may even find ways to demonstrate that you have achieved them, but because your goal was too narrow, you never achieve the larger goals necessary. For example, you may set a goal to have children learn to decode words. You may focus on that goal and you may, and likely will, achieve some measurable success. The problem is that you spent so much time teaching decoding, that you failed to focus on the real purpose of reading, and so you have created kids who have improved in decoding, but still can’t read. Getting meaning from reading is the true goal, not decoding. In public education, an informed and participatory citizenry is the goal. Does “college and career ready” get us there?

I would propose a broader target for public education. It is a target that I believe most of us would easily say “amen” to and yet we have watched as the goals for public education have been narrowed to something “measurable.” To my thinking the education of any human being has four dimensions.

1.    The life of the citizen

2.    The life of the mind

3.    The life of the body

4.    The spiritual life

The spiritual life is, and should be, outside of the purview of public education, but all three others are necessary targets of schooling.

The United States of America is the world’s greatest experiment in democracy. In order for that experiment to sustain itself, an informed populace is necessary. This is, of course, the original purpose behind public education since the days of Horace Mann. This has not changed. In a world where “news” organizations have become little more than political organizations flogging partisan viewpoints 24/7 and where all sorts of unsubstantiated opinions (like this one) are readily available on the internet, it is as important as ever to prepare children for informed participation in our democracy. Of course this preparation will include many of the abilities discussed in the Common Core, including critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills. It would also include empathy for fellow citizens or citizens who are less fortunate. Despite CCSS author David Coleman’s disdain for “how you feel or how you think”, how you feel and how you think are critical components of being a contributing member of a democracy.

Despite what appear to be longer and longer work days for many Americans, we can safely say that most Americans will spend at least 1/3 of their waking lives at leisure. The quality of how that 1/3 of a lifetime will be spent is determined, at least in part, by our education. One target of public education, then, should be developing the habit of mind that leads a person to be a lifelong learner. Lifelong learners spend their leisure time in a variety of pursuits, not one of which is the “right” one. The key is how rich and rewarding these pursuits are for the individual.

That is one reason why in public education a dynamic arts program is critical. Despite President Obama’s view of art history majors, the arts are at the center of a quality public education. Children need exposure to all the rich visual and performing arts, the chance to participate in a chorus or a band or a dramatic production. They need to develop the teamwork that is a part of these activities. They need the chance to experiment with a variety of artistic expressions and they need to get a sense of the history of the arts. We are failing our children and our country if we do not provide them with opportunities that will allow them to have a lifetime of continued learning and the joy that comes from being an informed witness or participant in artistic performance. Public education should prepare our children, then, for the life of the mind.

Finally, there is the life of the body. Strong public education includes strong physical education programs and strong sports programs. It includes health education and nutrition education. One of the consequences I have seen from the three decade long push for higher standardized test scores is the continued diminution of the importance physical education programs and recess in schools. I recently visited a school where the children get one forty-minute physical education class a week and recess is a part of a 25-minute lunch that barely gives the kids time to get their lunches and eat. This is not acceptable, but unfortunately it is also not unusual. Children need plenty of opportunities for directed physical education and unstructured play during the school day. In addition the public school should provide organized sports programs, not only for talented varsity level athletes, but intramural programs for all children who only wish to participate in organized sports.

I am reasonably sure that these goals for public education are shared by most Americans. Some might rightly point out that the architects of the Common Core recognized that “particularly in the early grades social, emotional, and physical development are important considerations (CCSS).” Unfortunately, despite such qualifiers as this, with the CCSS tied so closely to standardized tests and teacher evaluation, they are bound to become the defacto curriculum for public schools.

It appears that the authors of the CCSS recognized that there was more to a public education than these standards. Why then the focus on the narrow goal of “college and career ready?” I think the explanation can best be understood if we look at who has funded the CCSS, who are the biggest boosters and what other initiatives the Common Core is tied to.

The development, roll-out and promotion of the Common Core was underwritten to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by Bill Gates and The Gates Foundation. Why would this captain of industry want to spend so much money on these standards? If you asked him, I am sure Gates would tell you that he was looking for a way to do good with all his money and this was the way he thought he could do it best. The problem is, of course, that this means the CCSS is representative of Gates’ world view. That world view is colored by his status as a wealthy “self-made” man. What was good for Gates would be good for all America’s children. So we get corporate, privatized education designed to produce a bright and compliant supply of employees for our multi-national corporations.

The true goal of the Common Core State Standards also cannot be understood without viewing them as a part of a total package that includes standardized testing and teacher evaluation. The CCSS had to be narrowly cast because student achievement of the standards was to be subject to standardized testing. It is very difficult to measure empathy, artistic appreciation and physical well-being with a standardized, fill in the bubble test. The CCSS gets rid of all that messiness by simply focusing on narrow, testable standards. Learning is complex and measuring learning is a complex activity that often must be done on the local level; that is, in the classroom, by the teacher who knows the children. The CCSS and the standardized tests they are tied to cannot capture the complexity of teaching and learning.

Why are the standardized tests necessary? Well, one reason is to gauge student progress, but the other reason is to evaluate teachers. The CCSS cannot be separated from the desire to quantify teacher performance. The Common Core leads to standardized tests of children, which leads to “value added” measures of teacher effectiveness. Despite the overwhelming evidence of the fallacious nature of “value added” measures, value added teacher evaluation remains a part of the reform agenda and are inextricably linked to the Common Core. Teachers who like the Common Core, but abhor all the testing and test driven accountability need to recognize that these are all a package.

So, why “college and career ready?” Why design standards that are “standardized test ready?” Why evaluate teachers with a widely discredited value added statistical model? Why take the easy road of an easily quantifiable set of standards that ignores the complexity of learning in all its messiness, all its potential and all its beauty? Why? Because these “reforms” serve the agenda of the corporate privatizers who wish to eliminate the bothersome democratizing impact of public education.