Educate me on education reform

[jpgray]

If you can look into the seeds of time,
And tell which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak.

I can't. But since I'm suspicious of those who claim they can, I'm going to speak anyway.

I have always had a few problems with the main reformer push. I'll write them down as they occur to me:

1. Test scores as the primary means for evaluating teachers and schools. Under NCLB, this is essentially asking people to cheat, or maximize one factor at the expense of others. The scandals of VA, NY and other areas are an indication of what seems to me an overriding truth: if you tie success on some statistic to advancement and security for a group of people, that statistic will be maximized by those people with or without the hoped-for gains that inspired it as a measure in the first place. Think of a cop working rapes and homicides and a cop working narcotics--the former has a near-endless amount of challenging work to solve just one case, whereas the narc cop just has to drive by the corners and look in some pockets. All else being equal, if the bosses look to promote based on arrest stats, why would any ambitious, dedicated cop want to work homicides? The administrators and politicians want to point to improved statistics to bloat their claimed achievements. Just as surely as a pol will encourage the police to report a drop in violent crime by any means necessary, pols encourage the school system to report a jump in achievement scores. To meet this pressure, schools will encourage dropouts, change answers, push away the most needy students, etc.

2. Emphasis on private alternatives. I should really say "private" alternatives, because in reality public and charter schools are no strangers to state money. The massive write-offs for investment and the media glamor have attracted hundreds of millions from well-meaning celebrities, and of course some capitalists whose civic sensibility is less apparent. JP Morgan can drop a few hundred million on charter/private schools and Hugh Jackman can show up to fund-raise for a private/charter school, yet a public school can't hold a bake sale. The playing field isn't exactly level. Further, money has a tendency to flow into private "public service" institutions without necessary scrutiny. I remember a section-8 housing nonprofit where I used to live that charged its Somali tenants $650 to $1200 a month to live in poorly maintained buildings in the worst part of town. Never mind that this rent level is comparable to some of the nicest areas in the city and no sane person would choose to pay so much to live in these buildings--they have a captive client base whose rent is 90+% paid by the state, so why not jack things up? While scores of them couldn't get their deposits back for -years- and many went without heat or hot water for months, there were posh fundraisers galas catered by the finest chefs and a general toasting of all board members for their sense of charity. The statistics required by the state? Provided! The nonprofit ratings people? They think this group is great! Everyone has won, and all must have prizes, based on the statistics. But the Dodo bird is fucking wrong when it comes to everyone but the administrators--the Somalis are getting screwed and so are the donors and the government.

3. Focus on teachers above all else. This one really gets to me. Remember when you were a kid? Odds are when you were figuring out for yourself exactly how hard you were going to work at school, you didn't look expectantly up at your teachers, waiting for a miracle. Odds are you looked around at your peers, your parents, and your relatives. For myself, I was born in a middle class white area, and lived in such places most of my pre-secondary school life. There was a deep and clear track for me, dug by everyone I knew and everything I heard, that I felt I had to follow. To drop out at 17 or to study 6 hours a day seemed equally ridiculous to me--good teachers, bad teachers, native ambition, intelligence, aspirations--they all had nothing to do with setting me down in the vague track of "do okay, go to college, get good job." Now if you grow up in the inner city, that track isn't really there, no matter how good your teachers are. Everything else is telling you that to hope for some white-collar success is ridiculous. Half or more of the adults you know are unemployed. No peers of yours are signing up for AP classes, and some of your best pals are cutting school and doing something far more exciting. There are few or no books in your parents' home, if you're lucky enough to have a home and parents. A Mexican illegal has a better chance of gainful employment than you, because six of his cousins and acquaintances have dug out a track for him--everything around him has told him how to get the coyote, get across, and find a job. He might have a connection in a restaurant that can get him on the line. I had connections everywhere in middle class life--what would have happened without those? No teacher, no matter how bad or good, would have substantially changed my trajectory. How about yours? A kid born to hyper-rich parents by the same token has a track that leads to the Ivy League, essentially no matter how dumb, lazy or nasty he is.

I have more, but this is way too long already. As someone who scored high on every achievement test that ever existed, I'm unconvinced that such was a good measure of my teachers or even of me in any important sense. I'm a lazy bastard in many ways, and though I got almost twice the SAT score that Paul Wellstone did, if we must promote the teachers one of us had based on how we turned out, I'd much rather promote those that had a hand in producing Wellstone than those that produced little ol' me.

[Wickerman]

1. Excellent

I wish I could have nominated it more than once. No matter, its already been unrecc'ed. :eyes: I suppose someone will tell us what was wrong with your piece.

[seabeyond]

2. i want them to just leave kids education alone. every year they do one more thing to "fix"

it and they are continually fuckin it up.

[wtmusic]

3. Two of your assumptions are false.

1) Raw test scores are not considered for evaluating teachers and schools, but rather growth or change in these scores, as well as other factors:

"Student achievement means—
(a) For tested grades and subjects: (1) a student’s score on the State’s assessments under the ESEA;
and, as appropriate, (2) other measures of student learning, such as those described in paragraph (b) of this
definition, provided they are rigorous and comparable across classrooms.
(b) For non-tested grades and subjects: alternative measures of student learning and performance
such as student scores on pre-tests and end-of-course tests; student performance on English language
proficiency assessments; and other measures of student achievement that are rigorous and comparable across
classrooms.
Student growth means the change in student achievement (as defined in this notice) for an individual
student between two or more points in time. A State may also include other measures that are rigorous and
comparable across classrooms."

http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/executive-summary.pdf

Re: #2, we're in agreement. Charter schools should be off the table.

Re: #3, the idea that teachers are in focus above all else is a contrivance of the teachers' unions. It's virtually impossible to fire bad teachers in the largest school districts in the country (annual firings, Los Angeles: 11 out of 43,000; New York: 10 out of 55,000). This is not only a problem but a serious problem. Among many other serious problems, which are also addressed in DofE Race to the Top: incompetent administrators, poor data systems, etc etc etc. Bottom line: read the Executive Summary if you want facts and no spin.

[jpgray]

5. Let's say incomplete rather than false

Of course the focus on statistics is on change, not raw numbers. I wouldn't have mentioned NY, which has made its tests consistently easier to claim such progress, without keeping that in mind.

The idea that teachers are the focus comes from listening to the news media which are covering the issue. Note I didn't argue that the difficulty of firing teachers in some areas is some great and holy thing, or that no valid criticism of teachers can exist. But it's concerning that other factors, such as the revolving-door superintendent network or the massive gap in available funds between wealthy and impoverished districts/wards, don't get as much attention. I don't doubt there are problems with teachers for a moment, but it can hardly stand as the chief cause of decline and I see the goal of undermining the teacher's union as possibly validating the cynical view that mass firings and closings will be just a tool for some pol to claim a balanced budget and eduction reform as accomplishments in his next race.

So like I say, I'm suspicious. But I'm trying not to be closed-minded. :hi:

[wtmusic]

7. There are quite a few around here who are either misinformed

or disingenuous about the use of raw scores, and will insist that schools in impoverished areas have no chance of competing with that other part of town. No one doubts the added challenges which inner city teachers face. But IMO Duncan is genuinely trying to look for improvement - the people who are making students better than they were at the beginning of the year, if only by a little.

I'm an involved parent and I know a lot of teachers and a lot of administrators. I was on the Gifted and Talented program parent board for many years in our district. Most public school teachers I know work hard and are paid well, have excellent benefits and pensions, get the summer off, and deserve it. I've also met a few who deserve to be fired tomorrow and it's not happening, mostly because of unions taking the idea of due process and turning it into a nightmare of expense and bureaucracy. :hi:

[jpgray]

10. I'm not ready to assume bad faith easily in any case

I haven't decided I know everything there is to know about this, so I will actually listen to those who disagree with my thoughts. :)

Another concern of mine is that the charter school success stories that are less suspect (and they do exist) tend to ask a lot of teachers. Twelve hour days (at school), constant availability to parents, and high turnover for those who don't produce. None of this is necessarily a bad thing, but if it is to be used as a model for public schools, teachers held to that standard deserve higher pay. Since the motto of the states these days to public workers is "do more with less," from the police and fire departments to the park service and public schools, I'm wondering how that would ever happen. While compromise or minor changes wouldn't be a disaster, I would hate to see expectations rise exponentially while pay stays the same and job security plummets.

[wtmusic]

11. I really can't see any bright future for charters.

As the meme du jour it's getting a lot of focus because in some situations it has made things better (mostly in situations where there was nowhere to go but up). But who can argue that in general the disparity between good/bad areas will only get worse?

Imagine 20 different companies running a city's bus lines, fire departments, police departments, and you start to see the impossibility of coordinating the level of quality and synchronization in such a system.

Other than that, IMO, the Dept. of Education's approach is spot on. Right now there is too much job security in education, to the point where it's being exploited. I'm a union member and have seen both sides - my union has helped me and it has really mucked things up when they've gotten too powerful, when they tend to become just like a big corporation. Some interpret that as an anti-union message, and it's why I've been Ignored by many Education activists (one may be on this thread right now). What it is is a pro-competition message, not that we have to grind our workers into the ground, but hey - when the economy sucks teachers might have to make do with less, just like everyone else.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. All states are lowering their standards when reporting test scores

It's the only way they can meet the 100% proficient mandate by 2014.

Under NCLB, which Obama has put on steroids rather than reforming, 100% of the students in a school must score at a proficient level in both Reading and Math in order for the school to make AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress). It doesn't take a degree in education, statistics or rocket science to understand that basic human biology says 100% of our kids will never be proficient. Life is a bell curve. Some kids will be average, some above average and some below average.

But since this ridiculous mandate will not be going away, states are lowering the minimum scores on their tests to make it look like more of their kids are proficient.

It's a dirty little secret that every teacher in America is aware of but can't make the rest of the country understand.

[Spike89]

4. Well, we avoid the real reforms

I agree with everything you say in the OP. Sadly, politicians not only don't really care about real education reform, most of them seem to have bought the whole "we spend too much and get too little" lie. We don't spend enough and despite problems, we get an incredible bang for our buck. Keep starving schools and focusing on politically motivated standardized scoring metrics and that will surely change.

There are some big changes we should and must make. We need to make college (and technical/trade schools) much, much more affordable. Punishing students with onerous debt, especially in a tough job market not only gives us a generation of bitter degree-holding baristas (who will not be so quick to encourage their children to get a degree), it stops promising lower-income students from even applying to college. Now, with unions and traditional apprenticeship programs being strained, and for-profit tech schools out of reach (not to mention often worthless) for many, we're offering no path for students.

We all gripe about off-shoring, but unless we fix secondary education, we're simply not going to have a workforce that can compete. American workers have always been competitive, even against low wage populations, because of our educational system, but that isn't a given for the future.

There are lots of other things we need to do in education, but they aren't going to matter much if we don't address the simple question--"so, what are you going to do with that high school diploma?"

[jpgray]

6. Yep. And it's even worse than that

It's not like there is a vast demand for workers that goes unfilled every year here because we don't have an educated populace. The truth is a larger and larger portion of the populace is simply unnecessary to the economy. In this recession, labor quality isn't the chief concern for employers, it's sales. There needs to be adequate demand for full employment to be possible, and many of the "growth jobs" are not exactly conducive to increasing this demand (wasn't janitor the top growing job recently?). Japan aces the shit out of achievement tests, but how is their economy doing? Why are so many young Japanese living at home and derided as grass-eaters? How is it the educated fellow's fault in India that there are 100+ applicants for a white-collar opening that requires a degree? It isn't a matter of teaching people Excel making everything fine--there are systemic problems in our institution that are big and scary and not amenable to simplistic, pleasing, platitude-style solutions. And I'm not sure there are many (if any) politicians that are willing to deal with them.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. You don't need to be educated

You have most of it figured out.