As with most things, there are some good and bad aspects to the changes I've made recently to my daily and weekly roundups ("Five Best Blogs" and "Weekend Reading"). Since a couple of you have asked (or complained), I thought I'd take a moment to explain what I'm doing and why. Basically, I'm now sending out the items Twitter first, and then using a blog widget to make them appear on this blog, too. For those of you on Twitter, you get my recommendations (to use the term loosely) immediately, rather than waiting for me to collect them all and post them at the end of the day / weekend. Ditto for those of you on Facebook, where everything gets posted automatically in something close to real time. For those of you who love coming here to the blog site and seeing what's what, it's a messier setup than before, I realize, but a small price to pay I hope. (If anyone can give me some advice, I still hope to figure out how to make it so that you only see what I Tweet out, not the retweets and responses from others using the #5bb or #thisweekined hashtags.) The main weakness of this approach is that the individual items I've posted don't show up in RSS readers like Google Reader or Bloglines, which I and many others use to speed read the Internet. I'm reassured knowing that most of you who use RSS are also on Twitter, and the new approach has the advantage of notifying you if yours is one of the chosen items rather than making you check to see, and making it easier to pass along individual items (your own or someone else's). I'm not sure what to do about the RSS reader situation. Again, any advice appreciated. Is anyone else doing it better or differently? I may well be missing some obvious solution.
#ThisWeekInEd Here are some links to magazines and sites I don't check during the week, in Twitter form, plus whatever else I come across along the way or missed during the week:
Come across something I've missed? Put it in comments or tweet it out using #thisweekined and it will show up above. Links and retweets aren't necessarily endorsements, you ungrateful wretches, just an effort to give you a range of interesting news and opinion with which to challenge your knee-jerk view of the world.
It's hard not to agree with the notion presented by Jill Tucker in this SF Chronicle article that "there is a particular type of teacher who wants to work in an urban environment," and that many teachers who are great "in schools with few challenges" would not make it in the inner city." That is why we have such a shortage of teaching talent in the toughest schools. That also explains why so many great teachers work their hearts out in the toughest schools for a certain time period and then use seniority rights to transfer to schools where better conditions allow for great teaching over a sustainable career. In my experience, those dedicated educators fret through months of sleepless nights before moving to the easier schools. Others may disagree but it felt to me like Tucker was editorializing against unions for protecting their members' health and from being treated like interchangable widgets. The politics of "mutual consent" are no different than the other politics that made seniority (and civil service and age discrimination laws) a necessity. "Mutual Consent" will, again, create more problems than the system it replaces. It will drive off veterans with the institutional memories that schools need, while replacing them with inexperienced, low salaried teachers with no interest in making a career of teaching. Seniority should be reformed, but these attacks on collective bargaining agreements ignore the realities of urban education. More importantly, they are a distraction from the hard work necessary to transform "an urban environment." Poor schools will attract and retain talent when we address the conditions that drive out teachers while beating down students.-JT (@drjohnthompson)Image via.
I agree that these are serious concerns, but think they're overstated in part because compulsory attendance laws are likely to accommodate them and in part because I think we're seeing an example of status quo bias in action.
One way to think about it is to imagine a scenario in which the status quo is compulsory schooling until the age of 18 and the President's proposal is to reduce the dropout age. In that situation I don't think we'd feel comfortable saying, "Well, yes, if we reduce the dropout age many of our already-disadvantaged students will enjoy considerably less professional success in their lives, but we think that's worth it to reduce the strain on our nation's high schools and compensate for our ragged safety net."
As a country we probably do need to strengthen our economic safety net and build capacity in our high schools, but I don't think those are burdens that should be borne on the backs of kids who should be in school. To some extent the trade-offs we're making seem more palatable than they should just because we happen to be used to them. - PB (@MrPABruno)
Much of the conventional wisdom about the impossibility of turning around chronically low-performing high schools is either mistaken or badly exaggerated. - Arne Duncan on MDRC small schools study (via email)
Romney Hearts English Immersion, Mrs. Gingrich Likes Music Education Politics K12: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a huge fan of English immersion programs. Romney's state used a CNN-sponsored debate in Florida to reiterate his love for programs that teach kids only in English. He's said in other debates, and in his recent book, that kids don't learn as well in bilingual education classes.
Phila. district must cut $400,000 a day Inquirer: City Controller Alan Butkovitz expressed serious concern Wednesday about the Philadelphia School District's continued financial viability.
As Evaluation Talks Resume, Some Teachers Press for a Resolution NYT: Teachers petitioned the city and union to reach an agreement on a new teacher evaluation system that would fulfill the requirements of a federal grant and free up $58 million that the state has been withholding.
The term paper is disappearing Chicago Tribune: The high school research paper, that academic rite of passage riddled with footnotes and anchored by a bibliography, has faded from many classrooms, a consequence of larger class sizes that leave teachers with more students and less time.
There are some interesting internal differences and disagreements going on in education-land right now, differences which I think are healthy on the whole in that they illustrate substantive differences of opinion, independent thinking among entitities that too often agree with (or disagree with) each other automatically, and the reality that neither teachers, nor reformers, nor Democrats or Republicans are as monolithic as they are sometimes depicted on education issues.
So, for example, while union leaders expressed strong support for the President's remarks on education earlier this week, some teachers (see John Thompson below) were deeply disappointed that the President didn't go further towards dismantling NCLB's accountability system. They see the NCLB waiver scheme as more of the same, rather than any kind of surrender on testing and accountability.
In the meantime, several civil rights and some reform groups are banding together to express concerns that the Kline NCLB reauthorization proposal and top Democrats on the Hill are urging the Administration's waiver scheme not to go too far in sending responsibility for educating children back to the states. But at least one group, Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst, declined to sign onto the letter to Kline because it didn't include praise for the teacher evaluation measures in his proposal.
There's no big mystery behind the differences, really. Teacher advocates opposed to standardized testing and accountability want to push back against the current system as much as possible, knowing that they will only get some of what they ask for. Teachers unions want to create an environment in which they are heard without going so far as to scuttle a Democratic President's re-election chances. Civil rights and some reform groups are more concerned about schools' longstanding habit of not paying much attention to poor, minority, and special needs students than they are about teachers' pedagogical or curricular autonomy. Rhee's organization is building its reputation as being the most politically indepedent of the reform organizations, and the most narrowly concerned with teacher evaluation issues rather than broader concerns about accountability, etc.
These internal differences do make things interesting, though, in the sense that they show that no one --not reformers or reform opponents -- can claim an entirely unanimous front. Teachers, teachers unions, and Democratic leaders on the Hill are all in somewhat different places right now. Ditto for reform groups.
Teachers know how to "take one for the team." Had President Obama chosen to look tough in his State of the Union Address by labeling teachers as pointy-headed intellectuals, or borrowed from Oklahoma’s former Republican governor by calling us "slugs," I would have said that that’s politics. But President Obama should not insult our intelligence by saying that we should "teach with creativity and passion," and "stop teaching to the test," when his policies make it inevitable that more bubble-in test prep will result. Throwing a couple of gratuitous insults at educators would have gotten him the political points he sought. However, he did not need to condemn our students to more educational malpractice. So, teachers like me will swallow our anger and help re-eelect our president. Next term, we will work within the system to ameliorate the damage done by Obama's tougher, meaner version of NCLB. We will thus do what teachers have always done, shake off the insults, and make the compromises necessary to help kids.- JT (@drjohnthompson)Image via.
School safety and discipline issues don't usually get much love from policymakers and professional education pundits -- too gritty, not sexy enough, plus jurisdictional complications between schools and law enforcement. But safety and enforcement are often a prime point of interest for teachers, parents and students who spend their days in school. A group in Chicago has put together a study showing that one out of five arrests last year took place on school grounds -- usually a black male student, usually for fighting (rather than assault on a teacher, say) -- and that the school system does not provide data on these incidents to the school community or centrally: Youth advocates want more data on school arrests Catalyst Chicago, Advocates say disproportionate number of black kids arrested WBEZ, In-School Officers Put Teens On Road To Prison Huffington Post. The report is full of interesting maps and information. For example, there are two police officers assigned to each high school in Chicago, and principals have resisted giving them up despite financial incentives. Of course, Chicago isn't the only district dealing with disparities: In Maryland, discipline reform aims to limit students’ suspension from school Washington Post. In New York City, arrests are supposed to be reported publicly along with suspensions and expulsions.
Harkin, Miller to Education Secretary: Set a High Bar for Waivers Politics K12: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, any day now, is supposed to announce which states will get waivers from parts of the NCLB Actt, in exchange for embracing certain education reform priorities.
Broad Coalition Argues Bills Undercut Brown v. Board HuffPost: A broad coalition of 38 civil rights, education reform and business groups sent House education chairman John Kline a scathing letter Wednesday, describing his No Child Left Behind legislation as potentially racist.
We have to transform the way we think about data from a hammer that’s going to hurt teachers to a flashlight that’s going to help them. -- Data Quality Campaign ED Aimee Guidera
What to make of the education elements of the President's speech last night? Not that much, to be honest. For all the media attention the event generates it's just a speech -- one given during an election year; a week, a month, a year from now, the real-world impact of Obama's remarks will be minimal. (Obama can call for states to raise the mandatory attendance age to 18 but he doesn't have a magic wand to make it happen anytime soon.) In terms of political theater, however, the event was rich and textured. One of the valiant Chester Upland teachers who's working without pay was sitting with the First Lady. Classroom teachers, the President has not forgotten you. (Also sitting with the First Lady was a recently-homeless Siemens Science contest winner and a rising TFA corps member from Colorado.) The President asserted the oft-made [but misleading, I think] claim that the Race To The Top competition resulted in changes in nearly every state's education laws for very little money. (The spreadsheet showing the state changes illustrates the minimal, preliminary nature of many of the states' legislative changes made in hopes of winning the federal funding. NPR's Claudio Sanchez notes that even those who won the money are struggling to make good on their promises.) The President called for an end to teacher-bashing, which seems like a decent and politically smart thing to do, at the same time he bragged about moving responsibility for education back to the states (via NCLB waivers), which I see as a politically smart move that's problematic at a substantive level. (I'm not alone in worrying about the NCLB waiver process -- several civil rights, disability, and minority groups are opposed to the accountability rollbacks in state waiver plans.) I'll stop there -- what did you think, or did you not bother?
State special education rates vary widely Stateline: Federal education data show that states differ widely in how many students they designate for special education. Those differences could have a financial impact for some states in the face of possible cuts to federal aid.
School lunches to have more veggies, whole grains Associated Press: First lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack are expected to announce Wednesday that most school meals, including pizza, will have less sodium, more whole grains and more fruits and vegetables as sides.
The policy implication of Long-Term Impacts of Teachers by Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff is that incorporating value-added metrics in teacher evaluations can improve the educational outcomes of students who attend poor schools. But, a key policy issue is whether it is more difficult for teachers in the inner city to meet their growth targets, and whether the use of value-added would thus encourage an exodus of teaching talent from the toughest schools. So, Chetty et. al could have made a solid contribution to the debate by studying teachers who left high-performing schools for low-performing schools, and estimating whether they able to add the same "value" in their new, tougher environment. Also, Chetty et. al excluded the 6% in their sample of observations in classrooms where more than 25 percent of students are receiving special education IEPs. Why are they not making a big deal out of that qualification? I can't recall a freshman or sophomore class where fewer than 25% of my students were on IEPs! Shouldn't the advocates of value-added issue the warning that the 5 to 10% of secondary schools that serve a disproportionate number of students with learning disabilities and, more importantly, high percentages of students with Severe Emotional Disabilities should be exempt from data-driven evaluations?- J T (@drjohnthompson)Image via.
I finally found a TED video I really like. Here, economist and blogger Tyler Cowen talks about the way stories dominate our world even as they filter out important details, boil down to the same few basic structures (good vs. evil, rebirth, rags to riches), and both please and dumb down readers and conveyers. The world of stories has no luck, or mess, or accidental events, or unintended consequences, and it's pretty fixed.
Cowen acknowledges the fundamental human-ness of stories, but sets out some clues and warning signs to use to make sure you're not falling prey for these stories, or using them too much on others. Transcript here.
Still trying to digest Apple's recently-announced foray into the textbook market? The education textbook business is big, notes Wired -- much bigger than most people understand. The biggest education publishers in the world -- Pearson, Reed Elsevier, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Thomson Reuters -- are most of them much bigger than the better-known book publishers like Random House or Penguin (owned by Pearson). They're bigger than AOL or the New York Times company. Only multi-platform companies like News Corp and Amazon have bigger revenue or profits, according to the piece. Scholastic, which sponsors this blog, comes in at number 10.
How Tucson schools changed after Mexican-American studies ban CNN: Some books have been removed from classes, teachers are uncertain about what curriculum to use and some students said they'd like to give district and state school administrators some homework.
Stanford Takes Online Schooling To The Next Academic Level NPR: Last semester, Stanford University professors tried something radically new: They opened their classes to the world for free. Within hours, thousands had signed up to participate. The classes' success could transform the way we look at higher education.
To get the buy-in and for the proper public discourse on what’s going on, you need to let reporters see what’s happening on the ground at schools, without interference from district officials who might try to manage the situation in a way that we only see certain things. -- New Haven Independent's Melissa Bailey via EWA
Andrew Rotherham has a column up at TIME.com arguing for not just "school choice" but for the right of parents to choose particular teachers for their students and deploring the fact that "the whole system is stacked against empowering families in this way."
There are lots of potential problems with this suggestion. It's not clear whether we could make such a system fair to teachers or equitable for students. Nor would I envy the administrators and counselors tasked with satisfying the individual scheduling requests of potentially hundreds of parents and guardians...
This is a guest commentary from middle school science teacher Paul Bruno, who tweets at @MrPABruno. Click below to read the rest.
The notion that charter schools not only don't outperform district schools but are also guilty of promoting segregation is an increasingly popular -- though far from uncontrovertible -- narrative. Here, Charter school expert Joe Nathan rebuts the Bloomberg News article from a couple of weeks ago, “Segregated Charter Schools Evoke Separate But Equal Era in U.S.”
"There’s a lot more that the Bloomberg reporter left out. I know in part because he interviewed me, twice... Charters in Minneapolis and Minnesota enroll a higher percentage of low income, limited English speaking and students of color than the average district public schools."
Check out the full response below and let us know what you think. Are charter schools mirroring community segregation, or exacerbating it? Are homogenous low-income, predominantly minority charter schools a problem if they reflect neighborhood demographics?
On Wednesday WBEZ Chicago Public Radio broke the news that Stand for Children IL was conducting a massive phone operation to reach out to Chicagoans on the South and West Sides of the city, hoping to create "a giant conference call" among people in areas affected by CPS's turnaround plans (and to demonstrate support among parents for dramatic improvements). The event took place and, according to Stand IL, about 9,000 people participated. Here's the audio. Where did the idea of doing these things come from? No idea. Are they an effective way of demonstrating support for change? I'm guessing sorta. One thing I do know: One more example and we've got a trend. Michelle Rhee's organization, StudentsFirst, did a version of the same thing a few weeks ago (audio here).
Hawaii Teachers Reject Contract Politics K12: Hawaii is already in big trouble with the U.S. Department of Education for failing to hit key milestones the state promised to deliver as part of its $75 million Race to the Top prize.
In Teacher-Evaluation Fight, One Deal Won’t Be Enough WSJ: State education and union officials said they had initiated formal talks, the first public sign the two sides were working together after a threat from Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Growing tech students: A new high school model CNN: Despite the nation’s high unemployment rate, IBM executives say they have a hard time filling those positions because few candidates have the backgrounds in math and science to qualify. IBM hopes to change that by fostering future employees among high school students.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in This Week In Education are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Scholastic, Inc.
