Virginia's Candidates for Governor on Education

If you’re unfamiliar with the 2013 race for Virginia Governor, this statement from Larry Sabato sums up why this election is so peculiar:

“These two are running against the only people they could beat”

No doubt, we’ve got two terrible choices. All politics aside, we’ve decided to look at both candidates' education platform. I could never endorse either of these two as a candidate, but there are significant differences in their plans for education.

Ken Cuccinelli

Cuccinelli’s plan begins by pointing out the obvious. Despite a history of success in Virginia schools, our biggest problem lies in racial, economic, and geographic disparities in student outcomes. His plan is based on four principles described below.

1) Empowerment

In order to ensure all of our students have the best possible education, we must empower

parents with the option to determine the best academic setting for their child’s education.

One could argue we already do this. Parents can discern from many rankings (including the states A-F rating) what schools are good. Once they’ve done so, they simply move into that district. Yes, that is ludicrous, but only in its extreme from the idea that parents can simply choose a good school. Factors of economics and parent involvement will still keep disadvantaged kids, well, disadvantaged. What about the goal of providing every parent’s child with the best academic setting?

2) Excellence

We need to always remember that teachers are the backbone of our education system. Study after study proves there is no more important variable in terms of determining a student’s long-term success and financial security than teachers.

Anyone propagating this falsehood has zero credibility. It is a statement meant to promote an agenda and a disservice rather than a complement to good teachers. Some studies show that teachers are the most important IN SCHOOL VARIABLE determining student success. This lets policy makers off the hook in addressing the most important variables that happen out of school. It also provides an easy target when reforms don’t work.

3) Opportunity

All children, regardless of who they are or where they live, deserve the opportunity to attend a quality school and learn from motivated teachers.

The obvious fix, provide support and resources to make every school a quality school. The reform fix, punish bad schools and reward the good. Create more disparity and place the outcome for children in the hands of whether or not their parents make the right choices.

4) Accountability

If we care about our students’ progress, we must implement real and verifiable measures

that allow our education system to replicate success and remedy failure.

Several decades of “accountability” haven’t moved us very far. Instead of starting over to find something that works, we keep tinkering with the tests. The best question to ask is “to whom are teachers accountable.” In today’s testing climate we are accountable to “big government” to borrow a phrase. Our students and their parents should be the ones to whom we’re accountable. A real education platform would figure out how to make that happen.

Terry McAuliffe

Like Cuccinelli’s plan, McAuliffe's plan uses numbers. That makes it easy on us. Here’s what he says about plans for education.

1) Reforming the SOL tests.

We must have a strong system of student achievement and teacher evaluation.

How about scrap and start over? I do like his ideas about what needs to change, but I don’t trust his plans to change them. The plan seems to place much faith in the validity of “growth measures” and still focuses on the purpose of SOLs being teacher evaluation rather than student learning. He also calls for a “Blue Ribbon Panel” to reassess content. How about we just release some of the content and let parents, teachers, and students judge for themselves whether the tests are fair?

2) Innovation in Education.

Quality educational systems need to think more creatively. Partnerships with businesses and community colleges, emphasis on STEM and Computer Science, and increased flexibility for our school districts will all help bring our schools into the 21st century.

Public/Private Partnerships and an emphasis on STEM are good, but if we’re not careful, we sacrifice other areas of equal importance. Education should not be solely driven by economic incentive. As a teacher, my job is not to prepare students to earn as much money as they can when they grow up. Let’s not sacrifice the arts and humanities for the sake of preparing students for a global economy. And, the quest for private/public partnerships should not overshadow the fact that education is a public trust and the public has a responsibility to support it, fully. The addition of private partnership should enrich, not support. (On a side note: Quality political systems need to think more creatively. Can’t we do better than just using words like Innovation, STEM, and 21^st century and really focus on what we’re doing now in the present)

3) Supporting our Schools

Over time, the Commonwealth has reduced state investment in our schools, reducing the resources of our schools and shifting the burden to local school districts.

I agree. But the biggest obstacle to spending money on education is accountability. I think the public wants to know what they’re getting for their investment and the lack of transparency in educational spending creates a public sentiment of distrust. I don’t think the public wants test scores, I think they want to know how their money is being used. We don’t do a good enough job of letting them know.

4) Let Teachers Teach

Our teachers need to be relieved of the growing amount of paperwork and administrative tasks so they can focus on the job they signed up for: educating our kids.

Let’s focus here. Paperwork and administrative tasks are a nuisance, and when I’m overworked, they become the proverbial “straw that breaks the back.” I did sign up to “educate kids” but I’m educating about 35-50 more of them a year than I did in the late 1990’s when I started. Before worrying about the administrative burden, we need to understand the “job that we signed up for.” It takes much energy, effort, and time to “educate our kids.” Many teachers today are not doing their best, they’re doing the best they can.

The First Week of School?

Congratulations on completing the first full week of school America. Eight days in the books and a long Labor Day weekend coming up…

What’s that you say? Oh, you’re not starting until after Labor Day. I guess I did know some places still do that.

And what else was that, four weeks in? Already?!

O.K., I know, some of you do that year round thing.

I guess it’s pretty presumptuous for me to assume that every other school in America is on the same schedule as me.

Last week, the wide variety of starting dates for school struck me. I participated with a group of Psychology teachers in a twitter chat on August 21 and our topic of conversation was “first day activities.” It just happened to be the evening of my first day of school. Other teachers were in the midst of planning and probably incorporated some of the ideas into their first day. I also learned that some other teachers were already well into their school years.

A week later, we talked about different ways to use technology. Some teachers are already 1:1 and others can’t even rely on a consistent network connection.

A conversation about “flipping the classroom” highlighted scheduling issues of a different sort. At some schools, kids take classes that meet every day for a semester, others every other day all year, and even others every day all year long.

Teachers have students taking anywhere from four to eight classes at a time. If a student takes eight flipped classes with twenty-minutes of work for each every night, that’s two hours and forty-minutes at home in addition to the 7-8 hours at school each day. Perhaps it’s much different when students have four classes at a time.

The point is, no two schools are the same. Resources, size, demographics, schedules, all play a role in making them unique. The only consistent element is the relationships between young learners and adult guides helping them to reach their potential.

Perhaps as a nation we should focus more on these relationships that make a difference and less time searching for the big solution. There is no one curriculum, one instructional style, one behavioral system, one learning resource, or one best assessment that fits every system.

If we’re not careful, in our push to find the one big solution we’re going to kill the solution that’s already present.

Real World and Real People

Real World and the Real World

When I was about 6 years old, I remember watching a show on TV called “Real People.” Byron Allen, Sarah Purcell and Fred Willard would make me and my family laugh and I still remember some of the colorful characters from all across America they showed to us. The supposed “Real People” where the show took it's name.   This show also was the first time America heard from Richard Simmons, that’s just trivia by the way. The show dealt with nothing in particular that was influential or meaningful, but it says something that a 6 year old remembers those names some 20 years later(OK more than 20).

 I begin with that diversion since today’s scramble to revolutionize education with technology, which the TU posts have touched on, looks right past the people in it. I don’t remember the names from my youth because they were associated with TV, I remember these people because of who they were and how they affected me. So imagine if you will a redesign of education discounts the significance of real people working in the field.

 Often in education circles power players and decision makers preach about preparing students with nebulous things like “life skills” and "digital citizenship." As fuzzy as these words are, most people have at least have an idea of what the terms mean. Defining and measuring them is the hard part. But to the skilled and experienced educator you just kind of know when a student goes out into the “real world” whether or not they are ready and whether or not they will be OK.

Years of reading wedding announcements and the court report in the newspaper have mostly supported my predictions about the fate of students.   To me and most other teachers our job is about more than data, lessons or content is people.  What has occurred with alarming frequency over the past few years is the arrival of the snake oil salesman in educators lives. These are characters(there is no better word for them) arrive from out there in the supposed real world and have leveraged their technical or business skill and savvy into a position within the education establishment.  Unlike those of us here already, they don't seem to care much about people.




Their first step is to talk about re-designing everything in schools for the real world. This is where a good teacher pauses and says things like, “What?” You see, we ARE in the real world. Too often their efforts to improve our educational world instead disrupt what is a carefully crafted environment.   I end up no longer doing my best and instead doing the best I can as a result of some additional burden or unhelpful shift.  They usually push some brand of pseudo-real world scientific approach.  Science instead of art in the classroom.  An approach I do not favor.

 Sure, they can bring in an idea that makes things better and sometimes do. I and everyone else welcomes such reform. But more common is their ability to alienate, demoralize and undermine talented and devoted educators. What I have seen first hand is the ability of these outsiders to group-think in isolation. They also tend to promote their ideas using the digital landscape.  They fail to gather or even value the insights of people who deal with students. That is unfortunate because those are the Real People in education. The same Real People that have been preparing students for the real world for years.

 Not all of these characters are bad.  Not all are good.  In that sense they are like teachers.  But they differ in the most critical of ways.  They don't think like a teacher.  They don't have the experience of working with students and lack the practical knowledge to understand how ideas translate to action and play out in a school.  They don't actually carry out any of these plans, they just constantly come up with more.  And most importantly they are not directly accountable to students, their parents or any sort of evaluation.  If things don't work out they just move on to the next town....I mean school system.

Appearance of movement over substance.  That sums it up.  Sacrificing deep relevant positive change for quick flash in the pan actionable shifts that appeal to the popular trends.  They aren't real people and that isn't real change.   Just a carefully crafted facsimile.  Some promote ideas, others products while others simply seek to gain access and tap into the last stream of public funding to succumb to privatization and for profit motives.  To them these are just untapped marketplaces for their new product, program, fad or idea.  Nevermind the impact it has on real people, there's money to be made and fame to be had.  Their efforts can divert critical resources away from classrooms and kids and the adverse effects are indeed real. 

Carl Jung said "Children are educated by what the grown up is, not what he says" and at the end of the day what makes real difference in education is real people.  The idea vendors will shove their wares down the throat of districts convincing them that it will yield immediate improvement.  If, or more often when, that doesn't happen, they disappear into night heading out to raid the next division coffers.  Leaving behind the Real People to continue their efforts to make a lasting and real difference.  If we want real and consequential change to be the cornerstone of the future of education it must indeed be centered around Real People. 

Crazy- In a Hurry

Week one is in the books!  It is true it wasn't really a full week and there aren't actually any books.  But that shouldn't detract from the joy of having all the students back in our building after dreary week and half of meeting.   The first few days went smoothly which is not always the case.  If you teach I hope the same was true for you.  Working with almost 1800 young people running around, you get used to crazy.  But this year started before they arrived. 

As an experienced teacher I am never surprised at the speed at which the world around me can go completely haywire.  Rarely am I surprised or even forced to pause to absorb the chaos.  It's just too common.  Crazy is the normal.  It's what we do.  That said I can't help but take in with bewilderment the week that was in local education circles.

Let's start at a nearby High School.  Fresh from his June appointment the new principal released a statement announcing his resignation.  What?  While he cited personal matters as the cause I could only imagine what might really bring this about.  It is odd to say the least.

The NCLB Monument.  They built a monument to that crap?

Just down the road in another nearby district a new assistant principal is under fire.  Locals are calling for her ouster after what they term "bullying' of their students.    
All this as the state releases data on how district students have performed on statewide SOL tests.   Nevermind the impact of No Child Left Behind is still being debated.  Along the same lines the Norfolk school board and the Virginia School Board Association decided to sue the state to block Governor Bob McDonald's school takeover legislation. 

Then there's an announcement that Pearson(our nemesis) had mis-scored tests for more that 4,000 students.  The same Pearson that has a more than $100 million contract with our state.  And this isn't first time.  As if we needed another reason to despise for profit education.  Sadder still is the fact that no one seems to bat an eye.  Let's imagine the calls for accountability if this were a teacher who made this mistake. 

Closer to home I found myself conflicted about efforts to redesign learning spaces.   Our media center has been radically transformed.  It is not that the changes are all bad, some are quite good.   But many of the alterations seem to have originated far from actual classrooms and teachers and affect what we do.  As a consequence what was a multi-use facility is now shifting to trends more about appearance that function.  In fairness it is a work in progress.  The Media Center people in the building are great and to some degree, they like us, are along for the ride.  I just wish for one minute the "about the learner movement" would assume that most teachers always try to be about the learners.

Elsewhere our county will hire someone to "rebrand" a local middle school.  To what extend that is necessary or wise I am not certain.  But that term "rebrand"  sounds odd in the same sentence as school.  That word belongs in some sort of business world.  All in the name of "What's Best for Kids"  That might require some rethinking.

Thanks goodness day one of school things returned to "normal". The kids running everywhere meant things were about like they should be.  We'll do our best to keep about the same the rest of the way.