Where Are the Solutions?

I don’t believe the general public or the political systems that serve them truly understand the complex nature of school reform.  Consider the following:

For over a decade, teachers have been dissuaded from using lecture as an instructional method...

…BUT, within the last two years, a large amount of press time and funding has gone toward the Khan Academy, which essentially follows the principle of lecture and practice instruction.

For over a decade, graduation requirements have increased in quality and quantity…

…We also expect more students to meet these demands without giving them more time to do so.

For over a decade, teachers and school systems have struggled to make sure that students aren’t crushed under an overburden of homework…

…Yet the “flipped” classroom model is touted as a new form of teaching that will change education, never mind it absolutely requires significant homework or it won’t work.

For over a decade, standards and tests have grown to dominate the curriculum of many school subjects.  School, and increasingly teacher effectiveness is judged largely on the results of this testing…

…While creativity and not “teaching to the test” are celebrated in rhetoric, the ever present reality remains: a drop in pass rates on the tests will result in negative publicity and potentially punitive measures.

For over a decade, choice has been promoted as a solution to increase the effectiveness of education by adding competition...

…Still, no one has solved the problem of effectively educating an entire population, some of whom would choose “no education” over “any education” if given that freedom of choice.

For over a decade, vocational education has taken a back seat to the ideal of “college and workforce” readiness...

…And in our public education system we’ve moved so much toward “student achievement” as the sole measure of performance that creativity, interpersonal skills, work ethic, motivation, and even positive behavior (all critical for both college and workforce readiness) are no longer reinforced.

For over a decade, we have tried to move education out of the twentieth century factory model of production…

…Now incentive structures, strict hierarchies of authority, standardization of teaching and testing applied to schools and teachers directly contradict this attitude.

So the men and women who directly commit their lives to working with children daily are simply self-interested.  While the men and women who engage in conference hopping, ladder climbing, and political back-scratching are putting Students First.  And those who profit from speaking engagements, consulting gigs, and high profile media exposure are in it for the kids.

"They" don't listen because they don't understand.

Do educational leaders know what's happening?
"Ground control to Major Education Leader"

In recent months many of "them" (influential figures affecting education) have become very vocal about the problems with NCLB as the looming 100% pass rate timeline approaches.  Compelled to do so out of fear that their school or division will be labeled as failing.  They've snapped up Race to the Top(RTTP) funds as an alternative but have honestly done little to affect the overall direction reform is headed.   Shame on them! Shame on them for not doing something sooner.

Shame on them for also being very vocal about bad teachers.  They seem either to not have a handle on what is occurring within schools or just don't care to listen.  Early on in my state there were countless warnings about NCLB  that went unheeded.  Many of those calls coming directly from the classroom.  Shame on them for not listening until "they" were affected.  Sure teachers are sometimes the reason a class or school is not as good as it should be.  Listening to many reformers out there it might seem bad teachers are the only reason.  RTTP funds are being used to sell out teachers and educators even more.  This "revision" might be less punitive than NCLB but it is no less harmful.

The call to strengthen and improve performance grows louder day after day.  The pressure to perform is crushing.  That is not a good thing for a learning environment.  Positive pressure is good.  An element of competition is good.  A benchmark for comparison is good.  What we are tolerating is bad.

A single indicator for success is not a sound approach.  How would parents and students respond if a teacher used the same approach to assign a grade?  Any criticism would be warranted.   It is worth remembering as leaders use accountability to justify action that schools and teachers are expected to educate every child regardless of achievement level, motivation, or behavior.   As we press for accountability the teacher and school are saddled increasingly with responsibility to make kids learn.    Lost in the shuffle of responsibility is the role students and parents must play in this partnership.  Sadly many students do not not get much if any support outside of school and do not appreciate the value of their education.  Some schools can't or don't do much to mitigate this reality.  The effects of such an environment are crippling.

Kids can grow into entirely dependent learners and too many lose desire or interest to advance themselves academically.  They just don't like school.    Gone is a love for learning that is present in young wide eyed children.  They'd rather be elsewhere.  But they may pass the test.  So tests don't help. In fact these tests likely do more harm than anyone admits.  To ignore this and place all that burden disproportionately on the education system will never remedy the issue.  Geoffrey Canada has it right in this sense and what I admire most is he actually did something about it rather than just blame people.  Blaming schools, kids, parents or anyone is akin to treating the symptoms and not the illness. 

"The Lottery" is not a great date movie.

I recently watched the film "The Lottery" which chronicles the plight of inner city kids in NYC as they seek to gain admission into one of the Harlem Success schools.  It was excruciating to watch.  Not because I dislike charters.  Because I felt for the kids.  I disliked though how charters were portrayed and how they affect those not in or working in them. Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan and other non teaching reformers portray charters, vouchers and school choice as THE answer.   Those in the know more accurately think of them as only one of many potential medicines.  They are just schools afterall.  Schools freed from some of the buckling rules regular schools are forced to weather.  Different in many ways but also treated differently.  Do they work?  Some yes, some no...and that is about as scientific a response as you can find when you Google effectiveness of charter schools.   

Until you sit, immersed in a crowded room of young people unable to get them where they need to be, you'll never really get it.  Teachers do not hold exclusive private membership to good ideas on education but most do have good common sense stemming from time in the trenches.  Lack of complete success is part of the job and forces constant professional improvement. Any given lesson on any given day can be frustrating, inspiring, frightening, demoralizing among other things.  We know this because we work with people.  What we don't need is a bunch of higher ups pounding on us and making things worse.  Their efforts to design systems that will attract and retain the best teachers most of the time make me want to pack my bags. 

The higher up you are the less you see people and the more you see data.  The more you see systems and not people.  The more you think in terms of numbers and not kids.  I'd like to believe educational leaders are well intentioned but the more I read and hear I arrive at the reality they just don't care what teachers think.  Such a frame of mind has led us to where we are.  We are led to believe schools are beyond repair and we should shudder them and start over.  The people most able to functionally affect positive change feel demoralized, ignored and are leaving the teaching profession at an alarming rate.  The time has come to guide reform from the bottom up and not top down.  Anything else will mean a continuation of policy bereft of what is most essential to success,  buy in from teachers. 

What other landscape would generate the following comment?
“I would, if I had the ability – which nobody does really – to just design a system and say, ‘ex cathedra, this is what we’re going to do,’ you would cut the number of teachers in half, but you would double the compensation of them and you would weed out all the bad ones and just have good teachers. And double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students.” -Mayor Michael Bloomberg



Pistols at dawn Mr. Bloomberg?   (We haven't forgotten your Cathie Black appointment) Maybe if we both had figurative pistols(meaning teachers had any real power)  you and all the other "reformers" might listen.  I don't usually reference the UFT but when the Michael Mulgrew says "clearly the mayor has never taught," truer words were never spoken.  So I will count Bloomberg and many others among the "them" I referenced.  "They" are highly skilled at both patting us on the back with one hand and with the other saying and doing things that slap us in the face.  Until people at the top listen to educators opinions, insights and experience little will change for the better.


PS

If you know any of "them" recommend they read the TU.  Or any other frustrated educator's blog.   There are plenty out there.

Economists Prove Teachers Matter

The headline reads "Did You Have  Good Teacher? Expect to earn More as an Adult."

This conclusion was drawn from a research study conducted by three Harvard and Columbia economists that definitively connect career earnings to a student's access to a good teacher in grades 4-8.  So they have essentially proven something common sense says is true.  Teachers matter. 

Of course they do. There are good ones, and then there are some not so good.   Just as there are good ways to use research and some not so good.  The basic problem I have with this research is they define a good teacher by using student test scores alone.    If the same was done in my or any other school I am 100% certain that data would be misleading. We don't all teach the same level and thus not all the same kids with the same learning needs.  They might not have the same goal in mind.  By such logic it could be argued that to some degree, the students we teach define us as teachers.  So what remains unclear despite this study is how to best measure quality. 

Such an approach using testing to identify "good" teachers assumes cause and effect.  It is then parlayed into the dreaded Value Added Measurement of teacher effectiveness.   Nevermind all the other factors affecting kids during their incredibly complex development and education.   Consider if it is possible that students who already do better on tests are more likely to find success in school, get into a better college and eventually get a higher paying job.  Does evidence suggest students from higher socioeconomic levels do better on tests, thus better in school, thus generally earn more money than their peers?  Do the student goals differ?  College admission is a goal.  But who do we hold accountable when goals are not met? 

The TU asks why it is that economists have all this time to study education?  Might they be better served to study something closer matching their background...say, our struggling economy?  Maybe some educators should spend some time studying our economy and drawing some equally obvious conclusions and then suggest some changes.  Maybe they could even prove economists matter...?

The problem is not necessarily with the research itself, it is how it will probably be used.    I can foresee this evidence used as rationale or justification for an increased emphasis on the validity of Value-Added Teacher Evaluations.  And those teacher evaluations will rely disproportionately on student data from testing.    Decision makers and politicians beholden to the appearance of taking action and doing something in our perceived education crisis will likely fail to make reasonable changes from such research and instead use it to justify a call for kneejerk and potentially harmful changes. They do not mean harm they just lack sufficient understanding of all that is involved in education. 

Numerous videos are  included along with the New York Times article and they do much to reinforce the notion that our schools are failing.  I am increasingly frustrated by media and their lack of objectivity on education.  Instead of presenting a balanced view of reality, they(and NBC)  fall prey to the gloom and doom model to attract attention and readers.  This undermines public confidence in our schools and has become a self fulfilling prophecy.  The video at one point references the low grades the public assigned when asked to grade our public schools to illustrate this point.  

If using such data driven decisions were a sound approach then we should follow suit with other public institutions.  Shall we start with our political ones and remake them all in a flurry of reform?  I suspect that course would meet greater and more organized resistance and be deemed unwise.  The video continues on and mentions that among teachers  “there's growing frustration that those skills can't be measured by a test. standardized tests are an accurate reflection of a student's achievement. 60% say those tests determine what they teach.”   Subjective(using real people) as a component in measuring things isn't flawed enough to justify swinging the pendulum too far the other way.  Teachers know that.  If they didn't they'd make course recommendations solely based on how kids score on a test or only assign grades based on tests. 

The increasing role of data in teacher hiring, retention and evaluation does something that few other human endeavors do.  Rely on data more than people.  The problems with VAM(Value Added Models) in such a process is described as either smart or dumb by  Bruce Baker (a guy way smarter than anyone at TU)who said there were 3 main flaws with this approach.  You don't even need to understand what he's saying to figure out he seems to suggest flaws with VAM.

• The first error is a deterministic view of a complex and uncertain process. 
• The second common error becomes apparent once the need arises to concretely measure quality
• The third error is a belief that important traits are fixed rather than changeable 

Here are some things to consider which help put this study in proper perspective.

• •  The difference cited in a lifetime amounts to $4,600.  Over 20 years that's about $225 a year, $19 a month, $4.75 a week, or less than a dollar a day.   What if a student had a great teacher but chose a more service oriented profession with less potential for earnings...hmmm?  Let's take for example...maybe a job like...TEACHING!  Economists would be the ones to qualify worth solely by income.  Hearts of stone those folks. 
  • Kids with good teachers have a .5% greater chance of going to college.  So if a bad teacher taught 200 kids and an good teacher taught 200 kids, the good teacher would send 1 more on to college. 
  • A classroom with $266,000 increase in career earnings.  If I taught a class of 30 kids who worked for 30 years that'd be about $295 difference for each of them. 
  • Robert H. Meyer of the Value-Added Research Center  is quoted as saying “That test scores help you get more education, and that more education has an earnings effect — that makes sense to a lot of people.”  The problem with that is clear to an educator.  A system that relies too heavily on testing in determining the fate of our kids.  Most of the nations(Finland for example) that outperform the United States on international tests do not share this test heavy approach. 
  • The link between teacher performance and student test scores while statistically proven, is not ironclad.  Using this data in such a way has the potential to undermine the collegial and supportive professional environment among teachers and disrupt and discourage peer support.  The effect would hurt all students and counteract any gains, real or perceived.  In short it won't matter who you hire, it will undermine our profession.
  • “The message is to fire people sooner rather than later,” Professor Friedman said.  WTF?  So a new teacher with less experience who needs time to develop as a professional and master their craft should be fired?  What about the teacher who is asked to teach a different curriculum each year?  One who is stricken with illness for a lengthy period of time health problems?  That seems like sound reasoning... huh?  The way to strengthen education is to fire people.  Did you hear that message?  In other words...blame the teachers. 
  • Is it possible as suggested by someone who questions the validity of such research that value added is simply the only financially practical way to tell the difference between teachers?  "Observations or videotapes of classroom practice, teacher interviews, and artifacts such as lesson plans, assignments, and samples of student work" are all financially prohibitive as they'd take too much time and money to effectively implement.  To me it is simple...you know a good teacher when you walk in their room...and yes that is a subjective measure.  But so is measuring learning.  Standardized tests are more objective but we'd be foolish to place any more weight on them than we do already.
  • There is another group who has growing influence on education policy I am wary of, Pyschometricians. They contend that a test is only valid if it actually measures what they are supposed to.  I haven’t seen a test, nor would I want to, that can measure how good a teacher someone is. 
  • Whether it is John Keynes or Adam Smith, economics is a "dismal science" that essentially amounts to theory.  Kinda like education theory. I read some of the comments on the article and they seemed more soundly based on the real world.
  • Are similar data heavy measures applied to similar things?  Like:  Our curriculum, online classes, charter schools, would they be welcome in private schools since education is education ...public or private?  Or could the same conclusion be drawn from how far back a kid sits in a classroom, how fast they finish a test, or whether or not they're a student-athlete? 
  • "But controlling for numerous factors, including students’ backgrounds, the researchers found that the value-added scores consistently identified some teachers as better than others, even if individual teachers’ value-added scores varied from year to year."  Anyone bother asking why it varied?  

  
  The study simply confirms what we already knew.  The question before us is how or if that is useful.  Let me be the 10,000th person to tell you that over-representing the value(pun intended) of Value Added is unwise.  We have begun to employ this approach across the nation in a sweeping tide that shows little sign of turning back.  We've seen the damage such a tide can do when it advances too far unchecked. What is even more frustrating is we seem to be spending more time, money and resources to develop, justify and advance  these methods all for what at can at best be described as a minimal return.   Thus pushing the tide even farther and doing untold damage.

  
  

  So the study found out that teachers matter.   Teachers matter a lot and all this data shouldn't.  Perhaps a study showing parents matter would be equally useful.  Allow me to briefly respond to the research after what has grown into a lengthy post.  "Well ...Duh!"  I'll restate what I find the most fault with about all of this, it is that data driven reform attempts to replace what throughout history has been the skilled art of teaching with some sort of exact science.  In our effort to continually educate and develop the human mind we are forgetting we still dealing with people and we cannot do the job alone.  Funny thing about people and their behavior is that more often than not they find ways to defy scientific explanation.  

  
  

  Value-added is an oxymoron if ever there was one. 

Reform: For Our Kids...right?

Can anyone oppose what's "good for kids?"

While perusing the Interweb the other day, wading past the funny cat videos, I stumbled onto an interesting article dealing with the word "reform".


 Reform Is Not a Dirty Word:  The real meaning of school reform by Kayla McGannon.  This commentary posted by the Interim Executive Director of Stand for Children Colorado, dealt with the the recent election of the Denver school board and its larger implications.  A year ago I'd have commended this organization for their efforts to make things better but now I am more reserved about whether what they are advocating actually makes things better.  I am also more than a little confused about the title of the article and what this organization really does or who they are. 


As a product of the pre-reform failing public schools, I dug deeper.  Constantly frustrated by special interest veils and networks of vagueness it can be tough to tell what people or groups support.   A brief peek at their Board of Directors and I started to get a more complete picture.   I digress as this post is not about that group, corporate involvement in education or seemingly anything at this point. Back to the article. 


The title seems to lead one to conclude that there are only 2 groups of people out there. "Those who support positive change or "reform" in our schools, and those who oppose such measures in favor of the status quo.  The staus quo is unacceptable by the way.  This group endorsed 3 candidates and I question what that term reformer actually means. 


Later we are introduced to the idea that there is a third group emerging.  The "posers" who claim to be reformers and use phrases like "real reform".  Huh?  In the end 2 of the 3 candidates the group supported won election.  The campaign message seemed to be "for our kids"  or "what's best for kids."   Lacking an enumerated list of what reforms this might involve it is hard to disagree.  Any effort proposed to "fix" the problems linked to the idea of what's best for kids gains traction quickly.  Maybe too quickly.  


The article later sought to bring us all together "After all, if we are all reformers, we are all accountable for the quality of our public schools." A laudable goal but one that is rarely achieved in the divisive environment of reform.  I was more than a bit disappointed in that I only found common buzz words in the campaign messages.  Likely the outgrowth of a focus group meeting to identify phrases that garner support.   I am coming to feel this approach is reshaping our educational landscape in a way that is not beneficial.   That is not rhetoric without forethought.  You can read the article for yourself but I am increasingly wary of who and what is really driving change. 

So where is momentum driving reform originating?  From the people close to the schools affected by them every day who don't use these buzz words.  It would be tough to support the idea these people in schools are not for kids.  Or is the push from someone else working for foundations that have an agenda?   Normally it is the diversity of opinion on these complex issues that eventually bear real fruit.  It is difficult to hear much diverse opinion from many powerful reformers. In fact it is alarmingly uniform.  Any concern expressed about change overshadowed by well crafted "for the kids" language.

Before you bite an Apple, know where it comes from

After searching for more information on the Stand group I came across their publications page.  Even a cursory review led me to some conclusions that seem common when finding things about education online.   There is an agenda out there and a great deal of effort to bring more and more people on board with that agenda.  Nothing wrong with that I suppose.  But there is if you disagree with that agenda and don't feel it is actually best for all kids, schools, parents, teachers, our economy, education or America as a whole.  Further if that agenda includes an effort to suppress dissent.  The online comments following the article were polemical but also very also interesting.  Here are a few samples: 


Isn't Stand for Children a front for corporate "education reform" which is in the process of destroying America's public education system?........ Colorado "reform" is a great example of the damage Eli Broad and Bill Gates are doing and Stand for Children is an example of how their billions are being employed to take away local control.
 --------------
You're article reads like an extended propaganda piece with a transparent agenda that in no way actually benefits children. In fact, after reading your blog, I was amazed and appalled at how blithely you could recount as reforms the measures that are clearly contra most of the research. I pity the children and their teachers who work in your state.
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I agree that the word "reform" has been tainted. A word which once meant bettering education for children has now been warped into attacking teachers through faulty evaluations and then punishing and firing them in a blatant attempt to weaken their unions. It has become the worship of meaningless test scores. It is now the cold pursuit of failure in order to close neighborhood schools thus privatizing education and allowing the takeover of public institutions by corporate interests.REAL reform has to do with equity in funding and services, a well-trained and experienced teaching force, the autonomy and freedom for teachers to use progressive non test-prep practices, and the desire to address the gross inequalities and devastating effects of poverty we allow children to grow up in. Real reform addresses children and the people who work with them in humane, supportive ways.
I am sick of having to write the word "reform" in quotes. I want my language back.
Your organization stands for greed, not children. So please sit down.
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As a parent with a child in a public school, and a former member and local leader of a Stand for Children chapter, I never imagined that "ed reform" would be a dirty word.
Later, when Stand for Children had begun receiving huge donations from corporate funders and foundations, and had turned away from grass roots work, reform had less and less to do with the problems I wanted to see addressed in my daughter's school (primarily lack of resources).
Now, when I hear groups like Stand for Children speak of "reform", I hear an ideologically coded message promoting privitization of public education. Here reform has little to do with evidence or feasibility, and nothing to do with my own schools' needs--Stand's reform exploits and cultivates the prevailing loss of confidence in and cynicism towards public institutions, and self-governance.
Stand's "reform" is a dirty word indeed. 
------------ 


So is all this what's best for kids?  It would be nice to be included in that conversation.  I'll close with is quote from the article:"Long into the future, no one will remember who supported which policy. What they will remember is whether those policies actually made a difference. "   I would simply point out that there are a frighteningly small number of actual educators who support these reforms.  That ought to mean something and maybe provide some insight into what is best for kids.


 Sometimes it takes someone more articulate than yourself to make a point. 
In the current national discussion about education reform, the loudest voices are not necessarily those of the people who are directly affected by what happens in our schools – the students, parents, teachers and school communities themselves.

Watching Chaos

I admit my attention span is short and I'm tired of hearing or using the word Occupy.  But I don't tire as easily when discussing or informing my views on education.  It is in this context that the following video becomes relevant.  Imagine if you will entering a classroom where the teacher is disengaged, irrelevant and unresponsive to student needs.  Then compare that to what occurred at a Panel for Educational Policy(PEP) meeting in New York recently.

Is what we are watching a response by a public that sees leaders as disengaged, irrelevant and unresponsive?   Has education reform become too reliant on Top Down decisions in pursuit of desired outcomes?  How are these top down decisions being perceived by stakeholders?     Are the few creating a process that ignores the voices of many that could affect lasting and positive change?    Will this closed process engender support or further alienate decision makers?   Is this approach consistent with the ideals of democracy?  Shouldn't we expect more from our leaders?  





Love to hear some comments after watching.

Fixing Education

“Either fix our schools or get used to failure”

News stands across the country will feature that statement top and center on the November 14 edition of Time magazine this week. To accompany the piece, its author, Fareed Zakaria, hosted a CNN GPS special “Fixing Education” on Sunday evening. In a sick economy, I suppose that another attack on education sells magazines and draws ratings at least, and lessens the economic downturn for someone. Of course in this case, that might be just fine. It turns out that the author has found the magic bullet for building an excellent system of education and turning the American economy around. Quite profound actually, here is the solution:

“work harder and get better teachers”

Why didn’t anyone think of that already? Well, according to the author the answer is very clear. Half of American teachers graduated in the bottom third of their college class. I guess there aren’t enough smart people in education to figure out the “work hard and get better teachers” formula. Mr. Zakaria arrived at this articulate solution to the education problem by looking overseas toward nations that seem to get education right.

He first points to South Korea. American school children spend less time in school than in South Korea (and many other Asian nations.) He uses the 10,000 hour rule described by Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers” as proof-- 10,000 hours engaged in a task for one's skill set to reach 'expert' status. In a stroke of genius, he suggests that if American students just spent more time in school, we would see dramatic improvements in the system.

The second “global lesson” comes from Finland. These sneaky Scandinavians managed to stay under our radar while they built an education empire by selectively hiring the best and brightest as teachers. On top of that, they pay them well and treat them with the same professional respect as doctors and lawyers. They emphasize creative work and shun tests for most of the year according to Zakaria. That’s the second variable in our formula for excellent schools—find better teachers.

This article is so ground-breaking, its impact could spark a revolution. Why stop at education. Imagine the possibilities if this model were applied to other professions. The NFL- if we just find the best coaches and make them practice longer with the team we’ll win the super bowl every year. Investments- if we just find the best and smartest portfolio managers and make them work long hours we’ll get the best returns. Retail- if we just hire the best salespeople and have them put in lots of hours, our profits will skyrocket. Or what about industry- if we just hire the most productive workers and increase their hours, our profits will hit the roof. Maybe our government could even function better if we would just elect the best officials and make them spend more time in session.

I doubt I’ve been too successful in my attempt at humor, but honestly, this article had quite the opposite effect of making me laugh.

Further Reading on the burden
of schooling many children face.



Let’s look first at time. Most American school children spend thirteen years in school, one-hundred eighty days a year, at least six hours a day. Over 14,000 hours in class (not counting homework). This far surpasses the 10,000 hour rule. Personally, my children are involved in athletics that probably account for between 3-5 hours per week averaged over the year. My middle school son just began a weekly commitment to Destination Imagination and I’m sure that as he and my elementary aged daughter get older, their athletic and extra-curricular involvement will increase. They also have church related commitments that equal 3-5 hours a week. My family values each of these commitments as much as education and I don’t expect my children’s “earning potential” to suffer because they don’t spend enough time in school. I would actually think that my children would suffer from requirements that they spend additional time in school beyond what is currently required.

Then what about these “exceptional teachers.” In other contexts, just take sports for example, an exceptional athlete may never reach their potential until placed in the proper situation. Teaching doesn’t take place in a bubble. Current systems for measuring teacher quality focus almost entirely on how well they affect student achievement on standardized tests. Looking to Finland without addressing the fact that children in Finland are taken care of in a near socialist fashion fails to recognize that the highly qualified teachers of the nation are dealing with students who are highly prepared for school by a government system that fully addresses issues of poverty, health care, and safety that are left to the schools to deal with in the United States. In the United States, we’re labeling effective teachers by student test scores. In Finland, they are labeling effective teachers by their training and efforts.

Putting the two together, Zakaria interviewed Bill Gates for the article and news special. Gates and others assert that experience doesn’t have an impact on teacher quality. It would seem that if Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule was so strict, a teacher would have to practice for ten years before making it to “expert” status.

Mr. Zakaria, I appreciate that you are concerned about the public education system in the United States, but I worry that articles and news broadcasts such as yours do more damage than good. You have limited exposure to the reality of day-to-day education in the United States and your simplistic view of what we can do to fix it reveals the danger of the “arm-chair” administrator to our system.

I teach in a school district with average SAT scores of 556/554/544 (Reading/Math/Verbal). Eighty-Three percent of our graduates pursue higher education. Ninety-three percent of our students graduate on time. The College Board recently recognized us for efforts at increasing access to the AP curriculum while increasing the percentage of students scoring a three or higher on the exams. (81%) Of those, I taught AP to nearly 150 students last year with 90% scoring a three or higher. As an individual teacher and a district, we're doing pretty well.  We also recognize that status quo is not an option and consistently work to improve our effort on behalf of students.

The constant fixation on aggregate numbers paired with stories of great success and great failure at the expense of the commonplace paints an entirely unrealistic picture of what goes on in our nation’s schools every day. It also creates an unnecessary urgency for uniform dramatic change that will kill the success of systems such as mine while attempting to fix the problem of underperforming urban districts. The tagline on the cover of Time—fix our schools or get used to failure—unfairly labels a school such as mine, already demonstrating success and consistently moving toward improvement, as a problem. Instead of recognizing our efforts, we’re scapegoated as the primary obstacle to our nation’s recovery from an economic crisis.

Thanks for the quick fix, we’ll get started on it tomorrow and tell you how it goes. Unless of course you’d like to open real dialogue and acknowledge the diversity of the education systems in the United States and figure out how we target the areas that are failing, develop innovative solutions to consistent problems, and sustain and nurture the systems and teachers who continue to effectively prepare the next generation for a productive life in a global society.

NCLB Waivers-Thanks for the flexibility to do only what you want us to do

The link below takes you to a recent NY Times article someone sent me that shows the ground level impact of NCLB.  It comes from New Hampshire, a state not usually on the radar of education reform.  Too bad above average schools like Oyster River are now labeled as failing and must completely redesign their approach to instruction and learning.  Think it is not your problem?  Your division is different?  Your local leadership will make things right?  Think again. Arne Duncan and the neo-reform NCLB folks know better than the thousands of educators and are acting like it. Want waivers from NCLB?  Let's make a deal. 


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/education/no-child-left-behind-catches-up-with-new-hampshire-school.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&hpw


"Ms. Rief fears that public schools where teachers are trusted to make learning fun are on the way out. Ms. Rief understands that packaged curriculums and standardized assessments offer schools an economy of scale that she and her kind cannot compete with."

 Is this the system we want?  
This is a quick clip that summarizes what they are telling you to do...I mean choose to do.


"The kind of progress we want to see"
"States are going to have to embrace the kind of reform that we believe is necessary to move our education system forward"
"Accountability will remain one of the  bellwethers of our administration"  


Thanks for letting us do what you want us to do.