Fury

I get a news alert daily that rounds up stories for me that mention Arne Duncan. I get preemptively irritated upon seeing it arrive in my mailbox. And for good reason.

Ugh.

For a guy who's spent, well, zero time as a student in a teacher ed program and zero time as a teacher - the amount of teacher bashing he engages in is mind-bogglingly amazing.

There's always a year's worth of irony in any given speech Duncan gives.

Now the fact is that states, districts, and the federal government are also culpable for the persistence of weak teacher preparation programs. Most states routinely approve teacher education programs, and licensing exams typically measure basic skills and subject matter knowledge with paper-and-pencil tests without any real-world assessment of classroom readiness.

Somehow he seems to miss the fact that these tests he's criticizing, these standardized tests, (that, I might add most of us taking them recognize as essentially meaningless) - are no different than the tests he loves so much for our students. And! The solution! Link up those student test scores to teacher ed programs! Except in this case, these tests are apparently not "paper-and-pencil tests," but "student achievement data."

What Makes a Good Teacher?

In discussions of merit pay, teacher quality and assessment, I generally ask those I'm arguing with this question: Think of your Great Teachers - those handful of teachers who really made a difference, the ones you can usually count on one hand. What made them so great? Can you even explain it fully? And if you can, how do you quantify that on a massive scale?

I gave a presentation on this topic about a week ago or so to one of my graduate classes. To get started, the class brainstormed what makes a good teacher. On the various lists, composed by pre-service teachers and veteran teachers, elementary and secondary teachers, were characteristics like honesty, hopefulness, dedication, intelligence, patience, and so on. Things like "knowledgeable, engaging and inquisitive, aware of student knowledge, interests & abilities." I should add that nowhere did anyone mention "raises student test scores."

On the flip side, it's a tad difficult to decide what we want from teachers when we don't all agree on the purpose of education. Is it to impart content knowledge? Build character? Nourish development? Nurture lifelong learners? Inevitably, at the end of these types of lists, I say, "All of the above."

So I find myself irked when Cowboy Duncan comes along to vilify the teachers unions for opposing merit pay. Yes, yes, we know. Teachers unions are destroying education. Protecting the "status quo." Mmmhmm. Now, I don't exempt the unions from criticism. But it's been what, half a year now? And we keep hearing the same story. Merit pay good. Teacher unions bad. He pats himself on the back for the Chicago Teacher Performance Pay Plan. One good thing about that plan: it incorporates peer reviews, from what I've read. How they do it, I'm not entirely sure. Bad thing: it's centered around test gains.

So how about this, Arne. Instead of repeating yourself ad nauseum, tell me what this merit plan looks like in your mind. The research is out there. The problems with value-added models of teacher assessment (using gains in student test scores) are well-documented. Viable alternatives are also well-documented. What do you see as the purpose of teacher assessment? Is it only as a means to determine pay? Or tenure? Quality teacher assessments actually lead to better teachers. In the meantime, until we get some details, I'm not all that thrilled about the idea of merit pay either. (Don't get me wrong. I'd love to make more money. And I think I'll be a pretty good teacher. But in terms of the grand scheme of things, I remain unconvinced it's a good idea.)

From the article:

Duncan pointedly advocated using student test score data to assess teacher effectiveness. "It's time we all admit that just as our testing system is deeply flawed, so is our teacher evaluation system."

Am I the only one who laughed out loud at that? So the answer to this is to use our deeply flawed testing system to fix our deeply flawed evaluation system?

I finished Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year yesterday. One entry in particular struck me, for it highlighted the utter absurdity of this system.

"At this point Rowisha turned around and started pounding B.B. with both fists until he fell to the floor, right there in the hall. It reminded me of when Twanette was beaten in front of me....B.B. shrived and whined. She screamed about his behavior and gang involvement and how she's-not-even-going-to-think-about-it-I'll-just-have-your-ass-hauled-into-juvenile-next-time-you-do-any-such-bullshit. I pulled her off B.B. She stormed off, disappearing around a corner. B.B. was hysterical, so I picked him up and hugged him and kissed him on the forehead and stroked the top of his head and told him it was going to be alright. Then Rowisha came back and hollered, "Don't baby this son of a bitch, his stupid ass doesn't deserve it, " and punched him once more. I still tried to help him get it together. In ten minutes he was going to have the Iowa Standardized Test of Basic Skills administered to him."

Memo to The Economist.

"IT IS hard to find anybody with a bad word to say about Arne Duncan, Barack Obama’s young education secretary."

Look harder.

The Problem with National Standards.

Duncan wants national curricular standards, to avoid the patchwork of state and local standards schools work on now.  Theoretically, I think this is a good idea.  Practically, it gets a lot tricker.  

Because everyone wants a piece of the pie.  Article in HuffPo proposes "national ecological literacy standards."  I don't particularly oppose this idea, but look: how many different areas of learning can we get into here?  Theoretically, I think kids should learn about reading and writing and American history and world history and world religions and anthropology and sociology and technology and math and ecology and biology and...

You see where I'm going with this.  

This has always been the problem with focusing on content in the curriculum.  Again, I'm not saying the goal of education isn't partly for kids to learn the content.  But a lot of it has to be skills.  Because...simply...we can't cover it all.  Humanly impossible.  

E.D. Hirsch, proponent of cultural literacy, has long been an advocate of the content-specific curriculum.  Skills are learned in the process, but he has laid out, in much of his Core Knowledge curriculum, the content knowledge he thinks is essential for students to learn - the theory behind this being that students and people in general need a certain level of common knowledge to communicate, read, grow.  Like a foundation.  Which, again, theoretically - I agree with.  

But take a look at what he specifies as what should be included.  See anything missing?  I do.  Lots.  So how do you decide?  How do you determine what's important and what's not? (I have thoughts on the answer to that question.  But I'll refrain for now.)

Why CEOs Shouldn't Run Education.

It almost pains me now to read interviews from Arne Duncan.  Seriously, I cringe at generally somewhere around the second sentence.  If not earlier.

So not all that surprising from the latest.  But one part jumped out at me in particular.

In response to the question, "Regular folks don't get the distinction between certified teachers and  qualified teachers - why the teachers' union wouldn't let Einstein teach physics to high school students because he wasn't certified," Duncan responded, "Isn't all that matters that our children learn?  That teachers give students knowledge?[emphasis mine]"

A couple of things that made my blood boil here.  One, the question is a total red herring.  (For many reasons.)  Two, the answer reflects a complete lack of understanding about how children learn and what makes a great [i.e. "qualified"] teacher.  As it happens, I just finished reading a study, Effects of Teachers' Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching on Student Achievement from Hill, Rowan & Ball that shows that the most significant predictor of student achievement isn't teacher's knowledge of mathematical content, but their knowledge of the pedagogy of teaching math - as they put it, "mathematical knowledge for teaching."  In other words, we have to know not just what we're going to teach, but how to do it.  

Which brings me to my next point.  "...teachers give students knowledge..."  Mr. Duncan.  Tabula Rasa is so 17th century.

Perhaps it's not all that surprising that Duncan likens education to Pavlovian experiments.  Students = Dogs?  Sure.  Why not.

?

7 days a week?  Lunacy.

What I Learned on Summer Vacation.

How to catch frogs. (By watching my brothers do it, and then running away when they tried to touch me with them.) That the north sides of trees and rocks have moss on them. How to build a fort. How to capture the flag. That crayfish lived in the crick behind the house. How not to make a profit at the lemonade stand. How to make a profit at a carnival my best friend and I planned for my backyard. What giving to a cause felt like. (We donated half the proceeds to the MS foundation.) How to make compost. How to grow impatiens from seed, and then impatiently wait for them to sprout seed pods we could pop. That those “frogs” were actually toads, and couldn’t swim so well. That a snake can be eating a frog [toad] while it is still croaking and alive. (Freaky. I think I might have cried.)

How to take pictures. Fill water balloons without getting blisters on my fingers. How to find those little crabs that burrow in the sand after the wave washes up on shore. What happens when you hit your neighbor with a large stick because he snuck in and destroyed your fort.

That some people are mean. And some aren’t. And I’d rather spend time with the ones who are nice, and make you laugh.

How to write a play. And pretend. How to swing on vines. How far we could ride our bikes. How many times I could fall and break open the same wounds on my knees. How to grow a vegetable garden, and not get too upset when most of it died. That no matter how hard I try, I can’t catch a rabbit.

One of the best things I learned on summer vacation is that if you go back to the woods with a blanket, your brothers and sister, and some suntan lotion, spread that lotion around the blanket to “attract the animals”, and sit quietly, a deer will come right up to you. So close you could touch. And stay there. Until your mom yells for dinner, you don’t answer, and she gets louder.

We need to rethink education in this country. Most of us know that. Some have suggested year round, or at least longer-year, schools. If, by that, they mean to make the kids what they do now the whole damn year, well, I can’t think of a worse idea. Some of the research supports it. Some doesn’t. Most measure “learning” in reading and math anyway, so what the hell do they know what I learned about crayfish and deer on those bubble tests. Not much.

But I’ve seen how cramped the style of learning has become. Teach to the test, get them up to standards. Building time for exploration and inquiry and critical thought is most definitely possible, but it takes work and I’ve seen too many who either don’t have the will to do it or the knowledge to know how.

I’d like to start with summer. Free from standardized tests, curriculum standards, and walls. Almost like we could start from scratch. I don’t want to take away that freedom and joy of summer. But then, not all kids today get that time. They stay inside, playing video games, or watching TV, which both have their place, but have nothing on the woods. Why can’t we create a summer school that provides that? Opportunities for kids to explore their interests and be hands-on and drive learning.

Only let’s not call it school. School’s got a bad rap in kid circles. Call it a club, or a guild, or whatever. Take the involuntary connotation out of it.

Take high school. Kids can sign up for the clubs of their choice during the year. Upper classes get first pick. They can choose from say, Photography Club and Biology Club and the Guild of Naturalists and the Junior Archaeologists and the Music Club [only more types of music, let the kids pick, have a garage band if it suits their fancy], and Art and History and Genealogy and Drama and Anthro and Activism and Business Club and whatever. I could keep going. You get the idea.

Almost every day, either when I’m dropping Jack off at school or on my way to my own, I hear this song. I can’t help but think someone’s trying to tell me something.

*Cross posted at Annals of the Hive.* Image by Flickr User adwriter, Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic.

Money for Nothing?

So the stimulus plan allocates $650 million to America's public schools for educational technology.  Is it enough?  Is it ever?

This money needs to be spent effectively and intelligently.  I worry it won't be.  (Nothing new in educational spending.)  There's a little over 95,000 public schools in this country.  The funds aren't distributed to states or school districts equally, but let's just pretend they are for a second - that's about $6,800 per school.  Not that it's chump change, but technology and its implementation is expensive.

For one, part of the money is to be spent on "data systems that track student achievement."  

Arne Duncan "said he wants states to use other funds allocated in the stimulus package to adopt accountability-oriented reforms along the lines of some recent New York City initiatives, such as the creation of a comprehensive data system, called ARIS, and the introduction of a program that gives some teachers bonuses based on their students’ test scores. The city Department of Education said in a press release...that it might try to use some of its stimulus money to expand those initiatives."

ARIS, or the Achievement Reporting and Innovation System, "gives educators access in one place to critical information about their students – ranging from enrollment history, diagnostic assessment information, credits accumulated towards graduation, and test scores to special education status and family contact information. ARIS combines this information with an online library of instructional resources and with collaboration and social networking tools that allow users to share ideas and successes with other educators in their school and across the City.".

Doesn't sound bad, right?  How about at the bargain price of $80 million dollars for five years?  It's also used to "to give each school a letter grade, A to F, and will show whether principals are meeting their performance targets."  And, no surprise, it's been plagued with many of the problems that always plague the launch of these technological behemoths.  Elizabeth Green has a lot of good stuff on ARIS over at Gotham Schools, if you're interested.

Sigh.  Can someone please just give me the budget and the red pen?  Money doesn't grow on trees.  If it did, I wouldn't care about this "investment."  But $80 million dollars?  In one city?  For data mining?  Are you kidding?  This is precisely why I have a problem with non-educators running the show.  Almost all of the things that ARIS supposedly does could have been done with existing systems - at a much lower cost.  When I think about what that 80 mil could have been spent on...

And now we're stuck with a Secretary of Education who wants to repeat that on a nationwide scale.  Excellent.

I didn't initially plan to write this rant on data collection in schools, but that's where it went.  The part I originally planned to focus on was the computer lab part - I think it's an ineffective and un-integrated way of adding technology to schools.  I think computers and technology should be in the classroom, not down the hall.  Personally, I'd be happier with one or two computers in my room.  I understand, due to budgets and resources, that's not always possible, but I still see it set up that way in the "wealthy" school districts and I think it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the right way to integrate technology.