Thompson: Arthur Levine Is Wrong About Teachers & Unions

Arthur Levine’s Education Week Commentary The Plight of Teacher' Unions offers a disheartened, broad brush account of America’s social, political, and economic institutions.

He then presents a narrow, and impoverished, vision of public education -- and in particular, teachers unions.

Levine apparently expects everyone to accept the fate that many policymakers are planning to impose on us.  He seems to argue that our focus on teaching will be replaced by a focus on outcomes, but he does not seem upset at the prospect of teaching being tossed on the ash pile of history. Most of all, Levine is factually incorrect when he writes that all of our institutions are trapped in the industrial era. 

Thompson: The Qualities Of A Great Teacher

"To become lifelong, self-directed learners. That's what great teaching should lead to."

OK, it was a director of medical education, not a public school teacher evaluator, who made that affirmation.  New Yorker's Every Disease on Earth,by Rivka Galchen, profiles Dr. Joseph Lieber and his ability to teach doctors in training.  Dr. Lieber brushes off the lower salary and less respect devoted to those who educate doctors, "Oh, people are always giving teachers a hard time. Look at the way they write about public school teachers in the Post."

The bottom line for Dr. Lieber is "You have to love what you do."

According to the article's conclusion, Lieber is a great diagnostician, but his distinctive quality as a teacher is being "always nice."-JT (@drjohnthompson) Image via.  

Thompson: TED ED & the Future of School Reform

Wasn't Sir Ken's PBS TED talk wonderful?  Did Bill Gates stick around after his presentation and hear Sir Ken Robinson proclaim, "leadership should not be command and control?"

Does the first public education television TED signal that Gates is changing gears?  After all, he downplayed the bubble-in accountability aspect of his talk, so maybe he is learning about the dangers of his test-driven approach to instruction.  And, Geoffrey Canada directed his anger toward the lack of budgetary support, not unions.  Neither did host John Legend seem like an enabler of Michelle Rhee. Maybe he is realizing that the "reformers" who he has supported are responsible for the curriculum narrowing that Sir Ken derided and driving music, hands-on science and media studies from public schools.  Finally, wasn't Angela Duckworth fantastic and wasn't that young poet, Malcolm London, inspiring?  

I kid myself.  I know that sometimes a PBS program is just a PBS program. I know it is humiliating for teachers to continually be watching the tea leaves in the hopes that a billionaire or a media star will stop attacking us. Educators have to continually worry about the next Waiting for Superman or Won't Back Down, using teacher-bashing as a quick fix for urban ills. But, what we really want is to be a part of a constructive, reality-based effort to improve schools.

The first PBS Education TED did not mention the keys to accountability-driven "reform," standardized testing and top down mandates for drill and kill, except to criticize them.  If veteran educators and researchers wrote the script, we couldn't have done a better job.  Maybe we are seeing a new day or maybe we're just seeing a kinder, gentler spin. We might just be watching the same excellence that is expected on PBS, and it might have prompted "reformers" to be on their best behavior. Or, perhaps we are ready to discuss ways for teaching students to be empowered students, improving instruction, and making schooling into a team effort, as opposed to seeking scapegoats for the failure to meet growth targets.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.      

Thompson: David Kirp Lays Out A Path

David Kirp’s new book, Improbable Scholars, explains how Union City used research-based reforms to turnaround a school system that had been one of New Jersey’s worse. Kirp shows how we can build great schools on the strengths of our democracy. Their successes did not come from outside technocrats, but from a local culture of “abrazos” or caring.  Rather than firing our way to the top, Kirp shows that school improvement must come from trusting relationships.  The secret sauce of Union City’s success is “respeto,” or respect. 

The equally good news is that school improvement is best achieved by the “grunt” work of “continuous improvement.” Rather that gambling on “disruptive innovation” and “transformative” change, real reform requires a modest ethic of “plan, do, and review.”

The worrisome news is that Union City’s turnaround was expensive. It was made possible by an activist New Jersey Supreme Court that ordered the state to produce equity. This allowed the funding of high-quality early education, reduced class sizes, professional development in English as a Second Language and methods of motivating and engaging students, and one-on-one coaching to struggling teachers and students.

The sobering news, however, is that Union City shows that it will take just as much planning, coordination, and trial and error to coordinate and align policies that work as we have squandered in the last decade on aligning instruction and testing.

Thompson: Diane Ravitch Is an Engaged and Bilingual Writer

I agree and disagree with Alexander’s take on David Brook’s New York Times’ Op Ed, Engaged, or Detached? Brooks argues that today we mostly have engaged writers who are less concerned about persuasion than mobilizing people who already agree with them. Engaged writers can be repetitive as they seek immediate political influence.  A detached writer, however, is more like a teacher. He or she prods people to think.

Also, detached writers have more realistic goals. Detached writers generally understand that they are not going to succeed in telling people what to think. It is enough to prod people to think about “underlying concepts, underlying reality and the underlying frame of debate.” A detached writer understands that politics is a “bipolar struggle for turf.”

I agree with Brooks and, presumably, Russo, in drawing that distinction, although I would offer a more nuanced view. If a detached writer is like a teacher, what is a detached teacher like?   

I disagree with Russo that Diane Ravitch should be defined as an engaged writer under Brook’s definition.  Fundamentally, she is bilingual. Ravitch has long demonstrated fluency in the language of scholarship. Her research is presented in vivid prose. It is as solid as that of any detached writer. It is her ability to cut through the jargon and articulate a mass message that "reformers" can't stand.

Thompson: Reformers Say It's Time to Evaluate the Evaluations

I have no idea how to take Evaluating Evaluations by Ross Weiner and Kasia Lundy.  The report they wrote was issued by the Aspen Institute and the Parthenon Group and they have seemed supportive of the contemporary school "reform" movement.

But, Weiner and Lundy describe its “teacher quality” approach to school improvement in the third person. They repeat its factually incorrect statement that teachers have the most impact on learning.  So, it is hard to tell whether Weiner and Lundy believe that, or if they are just summarizing the logic of using improved teacher quality as the driving force of school improvement. My sense is that they are trying to diplomatically push towards more realistic methods of improving instruction.

For the record, teachers are responsible for only a small part of student learning so there are many other ways of improving schools other than gambling the farm on teacher evaluations.  But, Weiner and Lundy seem to assume that we have no choice but  to ride the teacher quality horse until it wins, or collapses.  They thus offer constructive criticism of the abusive way that it has been implemented. 

Still, Evaluating Evaluations makes numerous belated but smart suggestions.  It says that systems must start listening to teachers and even adjust their plans after contemplating our input.  They describe surveys of teachers' attitudes, such as those conducted in New York, Washington D.C. and, especially, Tennessee. They should have been wake-up calls.

Thompson: Weingarten's Common Sense Proposal to Save Common Core

If the contemporary school “reform” movement really seeks to improve schools, as opposed to defeating unions or, perhaps, privatizing education, then Randi Weingarten's proposed moratorium on Common Core high-stakes assessments is common sense. (It is described here in Stephanie Banchero's Wall Street Journal piece, Learning Goals Spur Backlash.) 

Only diehard opponents of Common Core have an educational reason for opposing Weingarten’s compromise.  If Common Core proceeds on schedule, it will be quickly thrown into the dustbin of history. But, if we have a victory over the hurried implementation of tests, it would likely be a pyrrhic one.

My previous opinions on Common Core, like my current ones, are contradictory. I have long believed that unless someone like Weingarten takes charge and convinces the big boys that they need to face facts, its standards are doomed.  Unless poverty is addressed, Common Core would crater before any real instructional improvements could occur in urban schools.  Common Core assessments would likely be a trainwreck.  

Maybe we should step back, watch the dramatic debacle and blame it on market-driven "reformers." But, primitive bubble-in testing is a slow-motion smashup.

Thompson: Why Did Another Oklahoma City Principal Resign?

For the second time this year, the resignation of a principal of a troubled Oklahoma City secondary school hit the newspaper. The Daily Oklahoman's Jaclyn Cosgrove, in Oklahoma City Principal Resigns After Large-Scale Tardiness Effort, describes it as a result of three days of "hall sweeps" at a middle school in order to get students to class on time and of the arrests that followed.

 According to the police report, 100 to 200 kids (or up to 1/5th of the student body) were late to class every day.  Four tardy students were suspended and told to not return to school without a parent, but they came back the next day. They were charged with trespassing, which could result in a fine as large as $1000.  One student explained that he was too scared to tell his parents and he didn't believe he would actually be arrested.

I do not know the principal and even if I did, I would be like the OKCPS central office and not comment about an individual in a controversy like this. In my twenty-plus years of experience with the OKCPS, this type of sad story is the inevitable result of the inability of neighborhood schools to enforce their tardy and attendance policies.  When schools are not allowed to address one or two dozen chronic "hallwalkers" during the first semester, by April we often see one or two hundred who are either tardy or who do not attempt to attend class.

Jefferson Middle School received a grade of "D" in the controversial new state report card.  Last year, it received an "F" for the growth in student performance and and an "F" for growth for the bottom quartile.  Jefferson received an "A" for attendance. Those metrics may or may not say something about the school.  But, clearly they say that the administrators are under severe stress.  And, this is the height of the high-stakes testing that will determine the school's fate.

Also, in my experience, the overuse of criminal penalties becomes worse every spring, when decent and caring principals are overwhelmed with stress.  Our inability to enforce school rules makes everyone frustrated. But, that is no excuse for criminalizing the conduct of a boy who said his guardian told him to go to school because he would send his case worker to clear up the situation.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Thompson: False Positives & Value-Added Evaluation

Daniel Goldhaber and Susanna Loeb's What Do We Know About the Tradeoffs Associated with Teacher Missclassification in High Stakes Personnel Decisions?, posted in the Carnegie Knowledge Network, argues that value-added evaluations could result in roughly 25% of teachers labeled as ineffective being wrongly placed in that category.  These mistakes are called false positives.

Then, they estimate that 25% of those who not are classified as being ineffective should have be in that category. These mistakes are false negatives.

Are false positives equally destructive?  Are there ways to work around the mistakes these systems are going to make?  Or should we be focused on much simpler, more concrete measures of teacher performance such as attendance, timeliness, and active participation in the classroom?

Thompson: The Creators of "Michelle Rhee"

John Merrow’s recent blog post, Who Created “Michelle Rhee?", distinguishes between the flesh and blood person named Michelle Rhee and the "Michelle Rhee" phenomenon. 

Merrow says that the force that Rhee symbolizes was created by herself, the mass media, some corporate reformers and, above all, “U,” or union militancy.

After citing “Michelle Rhee” as a reaction to union intransigence, Merrow describes the union as a reaction to administrative policies that infantilized teaching.  

Merrow then concludes, “‘They,’ we and U created the social phenomenon that is ‘Michelle Rhee.’” It would have ruined his alliteration, but Merrow should replace the U, for unions, with T, for teachers. We Ts are the U.

Merrow criticized a 17-year-old statement by a Philaldelphia union leader who said that teachers should not be evaluated on student performance because there are too many variables that can't be parsed. I agree. I suspect that most teachers and most Americans agree.

Merrow says that those words are burned into his memory, and he repeated them in his The Influence of Teachers.  A few pages later, however, he acknowledged the dangers of allowing administrators to conduct evaluations using test score growth and he copped to the charge of being inconsistent. 

In this case, context is crucial.  At the time, Philadelphia schools were run by David Hornbeck who was as much of an ideologue as "Michelle Rhee."  This non-educator also came to the job with flavor of the month theories, as well as the belief, "You are either against the children or for them."

Merrow should rewatch his previous documentary and, with the benefit of hindsight, see if he can deny that the union leader was right.-JT (@drjohnthmpson) Image via.    

Thompson: Michelle Rhee Must Obey the Rule of Law

John Merrow's recent post, Michelle Rhee's Reign of Error, revealed the confidential "smoking gun" memo warning Michelle Rhee of the extent of the cheating that may have occurred in Washington D.C. schools.

But let's not forget that  this is only her most public scandal, and it is not the only case where Rhee's words could come back to haunt her. 

PRWeb links to another: Federal Judge Orders Michelle Rhee Suit to Go Forward, Will Broaden to Concealment and Fraud Claims describes the case which could be another double-barreled shotgun blast at the embattled "reformer."  A 53-year-old teacher, who worked for DCPS for 28 years, was terminated in 2009 due to “budgetary constraints” under a RIF (Reduction in Force).

Federal Judge Rudolph Contreras will allow the teacher to broaden the scope of Rhee’s alleged actions into possible civil fraud and concealment claims. This is based on testimony by the district's former Chief Finance Officer who, in 2009, appeared to admit that he willfully concealed the true accounting figures indicating that the DCPS had no budgetary shortfall. The judge could find that this was done with Rhee's knowledge and as a pretext for the RIF and the mass firings to take place. In that case, PRWeb reports, Rhee’s ideological experiment "may quickly unravel."

I have long been shocked by the cavalier way that "reformers" have brushed off Rhee's situational ethics. They ignore her statement to John Merrow, “If there are rules standing in the way of that, I will question those rules. I will bend those rules.”

Rhee et. al may resent the way that our constitutional democracy complicates school "reform," but sometimes the "rules" they don't like have the force of law. PBS's Merrow exemplifies one foundation for our democracy - a vibrant press.  Rhee never understood another foundation - our nation is based on "the rule of law," not "the rule of man."-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via. 

Thompson: Hedgehogs, Foxes, & Hope Against Hope

Sarah Carr's Hope Against Hope chronicles a year in three New Orleans charter schools, Sci Academy, KIPP, and P.O. Walker.

Carr's masterpiece is heavily influenced by Isaiah Berlin's metaphor, "the hedgehog and the fox." A fox needs to know a little about a wide variety of realities. A hedgehog only knows one thing, but he knows it very, very well.

Historically, educators aspired to be foxes. Traditional public schools serve everyone who walks through the door. Students come with all types of personalities. Their diverse families make every imaginable demand on schools. Politicians impose one contradictory mandate after another. And, since education tends to be underfunded, educators have to become jacks of all trade. Facing such a range of issues, the need to improvise is nonnegotiable for the foxes who are teachers and principals.

It was a point of pride for Sci Academy, Kipp, and Akili Academy (another charter whose leader was often cited by Carr), however, that they were hedgehogs.

Thompson: "Big (Dumb) Data"

Those of us who oppose the misuse of data to punish educators and students must always remember that computers are not going away, and that "Big Data" has great potential for improving schools and our lives in unanticipated ways. 

Big Data, A Revolution that Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier, gives a perceptive appraisal of the benefits and dangers of data-driven decision-making. 

While not specifically mentioning value-added teacher evaluations, Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier seem to agree that punishing an individual based on an algorithm would be misguided.  On CSPAN, Mayer-Schonberger asserts, "government must never hold an individual responsible for what they are predicted to do."  

Thompson: Sarah Garland's History Lessons

Sarah Garland's Divided We Fail is a carefully crafted history of desegregation in Louisville, Kentucky. It is also is a warning to reformers in education (or any other social sector?) seeking to remedy the great and complicated evils of history.

Garland mourns the final defeat of desegregation, as she notes that it was toppled by dissatisfaction by both whites and blacks over the way it was implemented. She also reminds us of integration's successes, and how black student achievement increased more in the 1970s when bussing to achieve racial balance was at its peak.

Reading the twists in desegregation cases, I invariably had two responses - "Wow! I didn't know that!," and "Wow? What would I have done?"

Thompson: Fordham's Petrilli Goes Awry On Atlanta

I have long believed that Fordham's Mike Petrilli has a balanced view of school reform. 

Petrilli, like Diane Ravitch, argued that NCLB-type testing should be used for Consumers Report-style transparency, not for high-stakes accountability. In The Diverse Schools Dilemma, he recognized that affluent parents oppose the way that testing drives the joy of teaching and learning from the classroom.  And, he criticized Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for his imposition of "formula-driven" teacher evaluation using test scores.

After Joel Klein did in New York City what Petrilli now proposes, Petrilli said, "fantastic veteran teachers — the very people that Klein wanted the rest of the system to emulate — were just as frustrated and beaten down by the changes as everyone else.” In "Alfie Kohn's Message: Half-Crazy, Half-True," he wrote, "even the most hawkish reformer must blush at depictions of the endless test prep and shamefully narrowed curriculum that is present at too many inner city schools."  I had once hoped that Petrilli opposed Kohn's idealism but that, being a realist, he would distance himself from the "reform" movement's teacher-bashing ideologues.  

But Petrilli's "The Right Response to the Atlanta Cheating Scandal," in the New York Daily News, now embraces the worst possible use of testing. He wants to allow principals to consider test score results when evaluating teachers, but without even the central office providing checks or balances.

I had hoped he would be concerned about abusive testing regimes that have failed to improve schools for poor children of color. In the past, half of Petrilli's positions  seemed to realistic, while the other half seemed to be going through the motions of supporting the crazy wing of the "reform" movement. I am disappointed that he seems to still reject most of the worst aspects of standardized testing except when it is used against teachers.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Thompson: Why 'Reformers' Are Allergic to Activism

Luis Gabriel Aguilera, the author of Gabriel’s Fire: A Memoir, reminds us that the Chicago teachers strike of 2012 was not about salaries or benefits. It was a counter-attack against the brutality of corporate school reforms.

In his recent post, The Chicago Public Schools: Allergic to Parent, Student, Teacher, Union and Citizen Activism (Part II), Aguilera first nails the fundamental flaw of market-driven “reforms” designed to turn up the heat on teachers. Then, Aguilera explains that accountability-driven reform is part of a larger global conversation, that reflects on the future of education in general and the quality of all of our lives.  School closures come from an “ever-streamlining corporate culture.” Corporate “reformers” are not content with attacking public schools. They now hope to transform higher education.

Their public relations flacks argue with a straight face that poverty persists, not because of global economic changes (and exploitation), but because of teachers’ low expectations.  Not even the best PR that big money can buy could sell the claim that buildings wouldn’t burn if firefighters adopted a “No Excuses!” mentality.  Neither, I would add, will they be able to sell the idea that all of society should welcome the additional stress of the leaner, meaner world that corporations are imposing on all of us.   -JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via. 

 

Thompson: Cleveland, Detroit -- But Not Chicago

Chicago Teachers Union social media guru Kenzo Shibata’s recent post in In These Times -- CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett May Have Met Her Match in Chicago -- explains that the primary prerequisites for a Chicago school CEO were “an ability to address the media and a talent for glad-handing power brokers (and, in some cases, a willingness to fall on the sword after new policies failed).”

By that measure, CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett seemed perfect for the job. In Cleveland, she was called the “$300,000 wonder.” Byrd-Bennett was expensive, “but worth every penny.” She closed over twenty schools and cut hundreds of teachers positions. As “chief academic and accountability officer” in Detroit, she closed 59 schools and cut 30% of the workforce, while adding 41 charters.

Shibata writes that Byrd-Bennett has “proven herself so skilled at the art of “cleaning” districts that she has part-time job with the Broad Academy."  

Shibata argues, however, that Byrd-Bennett and Mayor Rahm Emanuel are now in a very different political landscape. I agree. 

Part of the reason for school “reform’s” political success is the politics of resentment.  Until recently, teachers had not been punished by the new economy as badly as most workers.  

However, the corporate powers who seek to micromanage schools do not have a very good record in improving the living conditions of most people.  At some point, angry workers will ask why the billionaires think they can improve learning conditions in schools. If the elites had the power to improve schools, voters might ask, why won't they use their power to make life better for families and communities?

Here's the problem.  Cutting jobs is no better of a strategy for building a strong society than closing schools is for improving education. Corporations have had great success in increasing their bottom line, as they have reduced wages and benefits for most Americans. Somehow, we must rebuild a value system which affirms that all working people are in the same boat.

Who knows?  Perhaps a revitalized public sector labor front in the "City of the Broad Shoulders" will lead to a broader consciousness that reorganizes all citizens.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.   

Thompson: Why Aren't Schools Firing More Teachers?

The New York Times’ Jenny Anderson (Curious Grades for Teachers: Nearly All Pass) explains the worries of school “reformers” about the cornerstone of their theories for school improvement.  The so-called “teacher quality” movement invested “many millions of dollars developing the new systems and thousands of hours of training,” but few teachers have been fired for ineffectiveness. The vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality admits, “It is too soon to say that we’re where we started and it’s all been for nothing, … But there are some alarm bells going off.”

“Reformers” realize that they will have to tackle the all-important issue of school culture, but, I see little evidence that they understand where they went wrong. And, despite the excellence of Anderson’s journalism, she overlooks the big teacher quality problem in under-performing schools. As I will explain, Paul Bruno addresses the key issue in "You Can't Fix Teacher Eval Without Fixing Teacher Supply." Why fire more teachers if replacements can't be found?

Anderson describes a surprising development where the test score growth component apparently inflated the evaluations of some teachers. She also explains why systems devised such a lenient model.  A Florida superintendent argues that proficiency standards changed 21 times in the last six years.  Even if there was not a risk-adverse culture in school systems, “How can you evaluate someone in a system when you change your levels all the time?”

Caution is equally predictable regarding the observation part of evaluations. Florida teachers are now rated on 60 elements, including “engaging students in cognitively complex tasks involving hypothesis generation” and “testing and demonstrating value and respect for low expectancy students.”

Speaking solely from an inner city high school teacher's perspective, I support any non-punitive method of helping teachers demonstrate respect by challenging their students.  But, “reformers” seem oblivious to the politics that pervade evaluations that touch the third rail of school culture.

Documentaries: Could Principal Minor Have Done More?

Below are some interesting things I learned chatting Monday afternoon with Jacquie Jones, ED of the National Black Programming Consortium, about last week's "180 Days."  

NBPC is the outfit behind the documentary, which was also funded in part by the Ford Foundation, and according to Jones was conceived of as a way to deepen the school reform conversation but not necessarily as a response or rebuttal.

Jones puts the core question the film raises this way:  "How could this person [Principal Minor, pictured] who se so clearly smart in a real pratical way as well as passionate about these kids -- working at full capacity every day -- how could she be doing all this and it still sucked like this?"

I came away from the conversation much enlighted about some of the issues that had intrigued me -- especially the question of what if anything could have been done differently -- and informed about the thinking behind the scenes that were (and weren't) shown. 

Thompson: Two Ways of Speaking Truth to Power

The Annenberg Institute's Warren Simmons set the tone for the discussion of school reform at Columbia's Teachers College panel discussion, "Reconciling Race, Community, and School Reform," and in doing so he also highlighted some of the best features of the work of Sarah Carr, Sarah Garland, and Amy Stuart Wells.

Simmons explained how “ideologues” came to New Orleans and used its schools as a great experiment for their theories about charters and performance management.  Those reformers now proclaim New Orleans a great success, he said, even though it clearly is not. The people with power, Simmons explained, ignored the voices of the people.  They used their favored metrics as a “proxy” for the discussion that was needed about race and class. Some of these “reformers” have finally listened and, perhaps, learned.  Others, especially those with money and power, have not.

Another view of power was described by “reformers’” Brian Johnson and Joshua Thomas at the California Charter Schools Conference.  They saw unions as the power that will only respond to power.  They participated in a panel discussion, "Politics, Policy, and Advocacy,"   that focused on ways of telling their stories.  In fact, the panelists mostly agreed that everyone should have an opportunity to express their own beliefs.

But, then, Johnson and Thomas crossed a line that should never be crossed, saying that we teachers who support LIFO and oppose value-added teacher evaluations “believe that all poor children of color can’t learn at the highest levels.”  It is our prejudice that explains why “power” “hates high-performing charter schools.” Even if these young “reformers” can’t respect the voices of others, they should at least stop questioning the integrity of families and educators who have different stories to tell.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.      

Thompson: The Tragic Endings of "180 Days" (Plus DCPS Response)

Viewers had been warned, but the tragic conclusion of PBS's 180 Days was more excruciating than anticipated.  The first two hours balanced the sorrows that students had endured with their concrete displays of grief and coping.   Delaunte was covered in tattoos in a way that could terrify outsiders. They are tributes to his deceased mother, Viola. His "FOE" tat is not a gang symbol; it means "Family over Everything." Raven shows us her private shrine for deceased loved ones, as well as symbols of triumph.

Similarly, the educators at D.C. Met alternative school prepared conscientiously for the best practices of demonstrating abstract concepts in concrete and understandable ways. Sports and the music program (which was destined to be cut) played essential roles.

Early in part two, the educators' efforts to keep Rufus in school died when his mother transferred him.  It was the only scene that I could not watch, forcing me to twice leave the room.  The goodbyes were interminable because everyone knew what the future would be for the kid with that captivating personality. Rufus was in a daze, a doomed student walking, not noticing a classmate he bumped into.  As Rufus exited his last loving sanctuary, he looked to be preparing for his cruel fate.

D.C. Met did the opposite when trying to avoid its predestined outcome.  In panic, a helter-skelter approach to test prep was thrown together.  Hands-on instruction became a parody of itself as the rush to remediate morphed into the syndrome known as "lost in activity."  Students were forced to drink from a firehose with only a desperate hope that enough disembodied facts would stick in their brains until testing concluded.

Thompson: The Essence of Inner-City Teaching and Learning

Watching Part 1 of PBS's "180 Days" is like gazing across the Grand Canyon.  You want to share your feelings about it, but first you must silently revere its majesty.

This masterpiece chronicles a year at the District of Columbia's  D.C. Met High School. When students like Raven Q., Raven C., and Rufus open up to the camera, this viewer forgot he was sitting on a couch.  I was back in school, listening, sharing, contemplating, and feeling the same gratitude that fellow human beings would open up the way these teens do. School is not the place for adults to impose solutions.  Our job is to contribute our experience, love and support, as we accept the invitation to join in their journey.

And, who would not commit to following principal Tanishia Williams-Minor wherever she dares to venture? Watching her coach the cheerleaders, I bet she could even teach me some moves! Ms. Williams-Minor understands that teaching and learning is an affair of "the Heart," not "the Head."  She knows that the moral and emotional consciousness of students is the rock on which schools must be built.

I am glad that I missed the first five minutes which foreshadowed a problem with the D.C. Schools central office, so I forgot politics. For the next two hours, the filmmaker portrayed so much of humanity's most profound emotions that I completely forgot that the D.C. accountability hawks were also watching the school. Even the central office IMPACT evaluator seemed cool. Surely, any administrator could see the genius at work in leading D.C. Met. 

Watching the previews for part 2, which show Ms.  Williams-Minor crying before the faculty, I got sick at my stomach. I didn't feel outrage that some bureaucrats might think they know what is better for her students.  I just mourned. 

Thompson: Classroom-Level Reform (There's Still Time)

Kathleen Porter-Magee’s words of wisdom to fellow “reformers” provide a “teachable moment.” Her “Opening the Black Box: Common Core as a Classroom Level Reform” draws the distinction between systemic and classroom reforms. 

Systemic reformers seek to reimagine school systems. They advocate for charter schools, vouchers, portfolio districts, and teacher-evaluation policies. Classroom-level reformers, however, try to actually change what happens in the classroom.

Porter-Magee writes "the classroom is a black box to systemic reformers. While many leaders have made it their business to understand inputs and student achievement outputs, too few have focused their attention of what it takes to drive achievement within the four walls of an American classroom." She then explains why the failure to understand classroom dynamics has prompted systemic reformers to be in too much of a hurry to shake things up.  Paying proper attention to the classroom, however, would force reformers to prioritize.  It would force policy-makers to establish feedbacks loops that use data for instruction, as opposed to systemic accountability.  

Porter-Magee supports Common Core, which she says is  pushing reformers to take classroom-level change more seriously, "but realizing this potential means accepting that, so far, our efforts may be falling short of what the moment requires."

She is correct.  Real world, reformers must decide whether they only care about the exciting challenge of creating new governance systems or whether they want to improve schools.  Had they looked into the black box which is classroom instruction, "reformers" would have known that schools never had a chance of implementing all of their contradictory agendas. Consequently, as districts focused on complying with systemic reformers' demands, the opportunity to improve instruction was put on hold.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Thompson: Secrecy, Not Privatization, Marred Broad Grad's Oklahoma City Tenure

Alexander' recent Scholastic Administrator Profile of Eli Broad makes a strong case that Eli Broad does not seek to privatize public schools.  Those of us who despise Broad's policies are on firmer ground when explaining how the harm he has caused is due to his self-proclaimed "art of being unreasonable." 

Russo cites the education blogger (and critic) Tom Hoffman who says the Gates Foundation is “feckless and trendy” on school reform, as compared with the “focused malice” of the Broad Foundation. I agree, but, who cares whether Broad's damage is the result of his impatience or anger?

According to Russo, Broad has been willing to make adjustments in his metrics, and two districts asked his foundation to do diagnostic audits of their systems.  I welcome any diagnostic metrics and I would also offer a suggestion. 

Oklahoma City's Broadie ordered audits of seven aspects of our school system, but he kept them private.  Because he did not use public funds, the audits were not even subject to Freedom of Information requests.  I have always wondered if our very talented and sincere Broad graduate would not of have produced a six-month disaster before resigning if those audits had prompted an open policy discussion. So, I wonder if Eli Broad would support diagnostic and transparent audits. -JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Thompson: Trauma Treatment At Heart Of "Harper High"

This American Life's brilliant radio documentary about Harper High School describes a "Turnaround" school as it comes off a year in which 29 current and recent students were shot. Eight died, and there were dozens of other incidents where bullets were thrown.

Reporter Alex Kotlowitz, author of the masterpiece, There Are No Children Here, reporting with Linda Lutton, Ben Calhoun, and Ira Glass, spent five months at Harper.

Nearly every time Kotlowitz visited the school's social work office, a student named Thomas would be there. Asked why he hangs out there so much, Thomas replied in a "muffled and sluggish" voice, as if he's "speaking from deep inside a cave:"

"Nay, I ain't gonna give you no answer for that. Every time I come here, you come. And I'm for real."

Thomas sounds like the type of black male who frightens so many people who don't understand his world. "His braided hair hangs over his eyes. He often has a hood on. He won't look you in the eye." And perhaps society should worry about Thomas' expressed fears that he will "try to hurt somebody." Angered by a bully, Thomas punched the aggressor so hard that one of the boy's teeth got stuck in Thomas hand

But what most strangers don't know is that, last June, Thomas was standing on a porch, talking with another Harper student, Shakaki Asphy, when she was shot and killed. In 2006, at a birthday party for 10-year-old girl, "Nugget," Thomas saw her brains laying on the floor after she was shot. And according to his social worker, there have been "many, many in between."

The suffering I witnessed over, say, a decade in my high school has been compressed into just a few years at Harper. "Harper High School" explains a world that is even indecipherable to many educators.  Ira Glass stresses that Harper is not alone and gives voice to seven other school administrators who described the more typical levels of violence that our kids have endured. 

Perhaps society has imposed a school reform experiment devoted to remediating academic weaknesses because we dare not confront the emotions of Harper High School.

Thompson: Building A *Better* Better Reform Taxonomy

Eric Horowitz’s In Search of a Better Education Taxonomy is a rough draft for better terms for discussing education policy.

Horowitz  identifies himself with a complicated formula that boils down to a fair summary of the beliefs of many members of the faith-based movement known as school "reform." His post reads like something a teacher might expect in a blog entitled, “Peer Reviewed by My Neurons." After apologizing in advance for mischaracterizing anybody’s position, Horowitz misstates that of Diane Ravitch.

But, even so, his post is constructive. Let me take you through his taxonomy, and then share with you my own.

Thompson: Small Town Scandal with Big Implications

Oklahoma is in a mess created by its new A-F School Report Card. 

Since its grading system is based on Jeb Bush's and Florida's report card, its flaws are of national importance. 

The more interesting story, however, is the suspension of the Ryal School System's superintendent -- which grew out of the report card controversy.

The Daily Oklahoman joined the chorus of laypersons and scholars criticizing the A-F Report Card. It also showed that schools' grades were almost completely the result of their demographics.  For instance, schools earning an "A" had an average low income rate of 33%, while schools earning a "D'" had an average rate of 85%. The paper cited the Ryal district as a rare exception.  Although 100% of Ryal's students are low income, and although 40% of them were on special education IEPs, it earned a "B."

Now, Superintendent Scott Thrower has been suspended, and the Principal Chief of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation has called on him to resign.  The patrons are upset about the newspaper article praising the district's efforts to overcome generational poverty.   The public is angry over Thrower's description of alcoholism, meth labs, and families without electricity or shoes. “The vast majority of our kids live in houses with electricity," it was argued, "They do have shoes." 

It has been nearly five decades since Daniel Patrick Moynihan was condemned for using the phrase, a "culture of poverty."  Education is about the only part of our society that has not moved on. In lieu of undertaking honest conversations about what it would really take to overcome the legacies of generational poverty and trauma, education wonks still dismiss reality-based school policies as "excuses," "low expectations," and "blaming the victim." 

As Paul Tough explained in How Children Succeed, the contemporary school reform movement grew out of a "liberal posttraumatic shock" due to losing the War on Poverty.  We will continue to fail to improve poor schools, however, until we are capable of discussing the reality of extreme poverty.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

 

Thompson: Former Reformer Shows What Educators Must Do

Listening to former Education Commissioner Robert Scott at the Save Texas Schools rally in Austin, a light went on.  Actually, two lights when on.

If educators want to avoid being labeled “anti-reform,” we have a task that is twice as complicated as that of data-driven “reformers.”  We have to say what is right about our schools, as we acknowledge our problems with overcoming poverty. Secondly, we must explain why our proposed solutions are better.

Scott did both.  The former “reformer” first explained, "I had to turn in my reformer card because I looked at it as a flea circus." He said, "They are selling two ideas and two ideas only: No. 1, your schools are failing, and No. 2, if you give us billions of dollars, we can convince you [of] the first thing we just told you.”

Scott then described an overlooked success story that sounds a lot like our calls for socio-economic integration.  In 2006, evacuees from Hurricane Katrina who relocated to Texas had proficiency passing rates that were 9 to 17% below that of Texas test-takers.  After four years in their new homes, they exceeded Texas students in two of the three grades. The best charters have had success in raising math scores, but Katrina students also increased their reading passing rates to being similar or better than all Texas test takers. 

On second thought, maybe Scott shows that we who favor more old-fashioned reforms have the more concise position.  Perhaps it is the market-driven “reformers” who should prove that competition that produces winners and losers is the better way to help kids.  

Children were suffering and schools welcomed them.  Perhaps, the way to help disadvantaged children is to come together as a community and simply focus on helping disadvantaged children.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Thompson: Edu-Philanthropy's Unintended Threat to Public Education

Sarah Reckhow's recent TWIE post, Philanthropy Critique Can Obscure Key Differences reviews her research findings on the growing "convergence" of edu-philanthropy and her concerns about the consequences of the coordination of their efforts.

Among other things, Reckhow worries that "policy priorities of major philanthropists are not well supported by research." But she also warns against critiques of philanthropists that she believes verge on conspiracy theories and makes the important distinction between debating whether big donors are pursuing the wrong policies or whether their secrecy and money "pose threats to democracy."

I welcome a debate over the effectiveness of the "Billionaires Boys Club's" policies.  They've got the money, while their opponents have the preponderance of evidence.

I don't believe that today's philanthropists began with a plan to privatize schools.   But intentions don't matter much.  The "Best and the Brightest" did not have any intention of getting the United States trapped in the Vietnam quagmire. They did not rely on primitive and inaccurate "body count" metrics because they were evil.  The tragedy was primarily a result of hubris, rather than intent. That same sort of elite pridefulness poses a similar threat to public schools.   Intended or not, philanthropy-funded reform efforts pose a threat to democratic governance of schools. - JT (@drjohnthompson) Image via.  

Thompson: The Line Separating Reformers from "Reformers"

A light went on while reading Alexander Russo's Charter Advocates Denounce Reuters Reporting. It illuminates the fundamental difference between school reform and "reform."

The dividing line is not evidence-based disagreements over charters, competition, collective bargaining or teachers' due process.  The issue is how do "reformers" deal with inconvenient truths. 

Stephanie Simon's Class Struggle - How Charter Schools Get Students They Want explains that "charters and traditional public schools are locked in fierce competition - for students, for funding and for their very survival, with outcomes often hinging on student test scores." Simon then punches holes in the hype of "reformers" who claim that this is a "fair fight" and that charters get better results with the same types of students. 

Conservative reformers like Mike Petrilli and Frederick Hess acknowledge that charter students come from more motivated families.  Hess says that charters' supposedly open access policies make for popular talking points, but "there's just one problem: It's not true."  He adds, "There's a level of institutional hypocrisy here which is actually unhealthy."

The real issue is not the fate of individual charters. A bigger problem is that the proliferation of charters has become a drain on traditional public schools. As Simon explains, even some staunch fans of charters agree that "the charter sector as a whole may be skimming the most motivated, disciplined students and leaving the hardest-to-reach behind."

Thompson: The Anti-Testing Backlash Reaches a Crescendo

Kathleen Porter-McGee’s Fordham Flypaper post (The Four Biggest Myths of the Anti-Testing Movement) is right on one thing: the backlash against bubble-in accountability has reached a crescendo. 

But, Porter-McGee seems to assume that these primitive metrics are more valuable for poor children than teachers’ "instincts" because educators are contaminated by “low expectations.”

Does that mean that imposing rote instruction on poor children represents “high expectations?”

Porter-McGee recalls that “drill-and-kill” was popular in the era of mimeograph machines, but she provides no evidence for her claim that basic skills instruction is due to something she calls "excessive within-class achievement variability," as opposed to overzealous accountability.

Yes, worksheet-driven instruction is “a function of low teacher capacity,” but it is also due to failed schools and systems.  Often, it is the way that teachers in chaotic inner city schools create some order in systems that refuse to address discipline.  Rather than imposing the lowest-common-denominator of standardized testing on teachers and our students, the better response would have be to invest in capacity-building so that instruction could be improved.

 Porter-McGee is half-right on one point. Testing could put a spotlight on achievement gaps and struggling students and schools.  If assessments were diagnostic, they could drive critical conversations about policies and instruction.  As long as there are stakes attached to those metrics, however, they will remain inaccurate and they will continue to be a barrier to getting struggling students on the path to success.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Thompson: How Do We Engage Students in Learning for the 21st Century?

Rather than fight among ourselves, charter and traditional public schools should be battling the real causes of educational failure.  We need to find a way to confront the distractions produced by our hyperactive culture.  I would draw upon the strengths of our technologies in order to help students learn how to control their impulsive digital world, and not be controlled by it.  Regardless of the strategies we choose, however, teachers can not continue to fight each other, as well as test-driven "reformers," and also discover ways of making instruction engaging enough for the 21st century.

So, charter school advocate Joe Nathan deserves a hat tip for "Student 'Engagement' Declining Dramatically - and What Schools Can Do."  which summarizes a 2012 Gallup poll of almost 500,000 American students on the single greatest threat to public schools.  "The School Cliff" finds that as students move through school their engagement with learning declines dramatically. Gallup concludes “There are several things that might help to explain why this is happening — ranging from our overzealous focus on standardized testing and curricula to our lack of experiential and project-based learning pathways for students — not to mention the lack of pathways for students who will not and do not want to go on to college.”

Nathan describes schools where hands-on and project-based learning are flourishing. He also makes it clear that he is not blaming teachers who are being forced to focus on standardized tests for the decline in engagement. Nathan is issuing a reminder, however, that even in this age of "reform," teachers must not give up the search for opportunities to creatively teach the skills that kids will actually need in the real world.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.      



Thompson: Two Charter School Soundbites That Should Be Retired

If we are serious about deescalating this destructive conflict over school “reform,” we must stop hurling two unsubstantiated charges:

The soundbite that high-performing charter schools are serving “the same students” as high-poverty neighborhood schools should be retired. We who teach in the toughest schools that serve all students who walk into the door also deserve an apology for that slander, but I’m ready to move on without it. 

Similarly, the equally serious charge against charter schools – that they intentionally “push out” difficult students in order to raise test scores - is wrong.  Such an attack on the integrity of charter school educators is just as serious as the idea that we in neighborhood schools could have the same success as the top charters if we had their “high expectations.”

Thompson: Why Some Teachers Embrace "Astroturf" Organizations

Richard Colvin's "Taking Back Teaching" in Education Next quotes policy analyst Julia Koppich, who says, “the new generation of teachers aren’t collectivists, they’re pretty much individualists. They don’t understand unions. And the unions don’t understand them.” I am not sure that the misunderstanding between unions and teachers who have been on the job long enough to find the restrooms is that deep.  But, Koppich's point is well-taken.

Colvin also cites Brad Jupp, a former union leader and an adviser to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who says that teachers who join groups like E4E  want "personal efficacy."  Similarly Evan Stone, the E4E co-founder explains of his own experience, “Inside our classrooms we had so much autonomy and control, and outside we had no control or influence in the school, the district, or beyond.”

The solution, of course, would be for young teachers to work with veterans to restore the professional autonomy of all teachers, so that we can better influence schools and districts. All educators who value their own individuality should help other teachers who have been turned into "widgets" by high-stakes testing. But, E4E demands the opposite.  Instead, that "astroturf" organization drew "a line in the sand" requiring their members to support its positions on issues ranging from value-added evaluations to school choice and merit pay. 

So, which is it? Are its co-founders, Stone and Syndey Morris "tired of being treated as subjects of change, instead of as partners in transforming the education system.” Or, do they want to exercise their own personal efficacy by helping the billionaires seeking to micromanage teachers? Do Stone and Morris have a problem with turning teachers into cogs in a Model T assembly line or do they just want to be inside the Henry Ford-style cadre who run the operation?-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via. 

Thompson: Jeff Henig & "The New Coaching Project"

Jeffrey Henig’s Education Week Commentary, Reading the Future of Education Policy, explains the centralizing shifts in schooling from local control to federal and state government and towards for-profit and nonprofit organizations. He astutely describes "the end of exceptionalism," where American education, for better or for worse, is handled like other major domestic policies.

Unfortunately, Henig neglects the two most important factors that have shaped educational exceptionalism and he thus ignores the lost opportunity which could have tempered the top down micromanaging of recent years.

Thompson: Russo's Wrong On "Reform Critics"

Alexander Russo acknowledges that contemporary school “reformers’” hubris, their misuse of data, and their distance from the classroom are “pretty familiar now.”   

But his Friday blog post (Sure, The Reform Brand Is Tarnished. But So Is The Other Side's) concludes that “The reform ‘brand’ has become tarnished, sure, but so has the reputation and credibility of all too many reform opponents.  And right now, those of us in the vast middle sort of hate you all -- both sides --  in roughly equal measure.”  

Russo's entitled to his opinion, but he's not being entirely fair or accurate.

Thompson: Rebalancing The Teacher Quality Discussion

Joshua Cowen’s and Marcus Winters' recent Do Charters Retain Teachers Differently? (in the journal Education Finance and Policy, via Shanker Blog) finds no discernible difference in the ability of elementary charter schools in Florida to dismiss poorly performing teachers.

Using a large data base over a six-year period, Cowen and Winters find charter school teachers are more likely to exit than similar teachers in comparable non-charters and low-performing are more likely to leave than higher-performing teachers.

Neither conclusion is surprising.  But, then they discover something that probably should not be surprising. Cowen and Winters thus fail to find evidence that collective bargaining agreements impede the removal of ineffective teachers.

Thompson: Houston Debates Teacher Bailout

In HISD Teachers Walk Out of Contracts in Record Numbers, Union Says, the Houston Chronicle reports that 700 or more teachers may have walked out of their contracts by January.  That would be more than 6% of all teachers.  The record number resignations would mean that teachers are so fed up that they ignore the union's warnings that breaking their contract will be seen as a termination and will stay on their record. 

The Chroncle also reports the contradictory numbers generated by the Houston school system, as well as their denial that a record number of teachers are leaving.  If Houston, and its "reform" superintendent Terry Grier, want a heads-up on why teachers are disgusted, they could listen to union leaders who explain, "A lot of our campus administrators are absolutely abusive ... No one wants to be told to sit down and shut up in a faculty meeting, or be yelled at in front of students, parents or their peers." -JT(@drjohnthompson)  Image via HISD

Thompson: A Daring New Idea - Trust Teachers

Eduwonk guest blogger Kim Farris-Berg's recent post, "What Happens When Teachers Call the Shots," reminds us that each student is different. Teachers continuously adapt to our students’ varying needs. That is why reformers need to tap the collective wisdom of teachers.  

Even better, Farris-Berg critiques the single worst policy to grow out of our mistrust of teachers. Top down curriculum pacing "guides" often tell teachers what textbook pages to cover and how many minutes to spend on what days.  Some scripted mandates tell teachers what to say on each page. In an effort to ensure that all students are exposed to the same content,  schools are turned into assembly lines. Advanced students get bored. Struggling students get frustrated and drop out.  The joy of learning is squeezed out of classroom instruction.

These mandates are designed to help transient students, but I would add that they are among the worst victims.  Teachers of highly mobile students need more, not less discretion in determining the the pace of instruction. With my high school students, however, I earn my salary by building relationships, reading my kids' body language, probing their understanding, and timing my instruction.

I will never forget the introduction of our old school's pacing mandate.  In one day, I was supposed to cover, "Standard 16.4, Examine the rise of nationalism, the causes and effects of World War II (eg Holocaust, economic and military shifts since 1945, the founding of the United Nations, and the political positioning of Europe, Africa, and Asia)."  

I ignored the guide, but teachers is tested subjects couldn't.  Across the school, 40% of the students dropped out during the semester-long fiasco.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via TrustingTeachers.org

Thompson: Parents Often Draft Better Plans Than Bureaucrats

The Washington Post's Emma Brown, in "D.C. Parents Develop Alternatives to Chancellor's School-Closure Plan," writes that Kaya Henderson challenged parents to produce more than "heartfelt pleas" as an alternative to her plan to close 20 schools. Sure enough, parents pulled together concrete alternatives.  The parents' plans include anti-truancy programs, early-childhood education, after-school tutoring and crime prevention.   

I'm not surprised that parents in Washington D.C. drafted better plans than the educrats.  When my district held public meetings to contribute to our school consolidation plan, they provided an essential reality check. The bottom line for many was that it was idiocy to combine middle and high schools (as opposed to the alternative, pre-k to 8th grade schools.) The district did not heed the parents' wisdom. Sure enough, after the first day in 6-12th grade schools, one twelve year-old was found hiding and curled in a fetal position and a sixth-grader told her mom, "there's not one nice person in that building."

Similarly, D.C. middle school parents also oppose the district's plan to combine a high poverty middle and high school. One mother said, “The weed smoking, the hanging out that they do, ... I just can’t see sending a sixth-grader into that kind of environment.” I wonder whether Chancellor Henderson would let parents draft plans for safe and orderly secondary schools ... -JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Thompson: Carmel Martin As "Candide"

During the Fordham Institute’s recent panel discussion, Turnaround Merry-Go-Round: Is the Music Stopping?, the Department of Education’s Carmel Martin reminded me of Voltaire’s Candide.

Like Candide, Martin bravely endured a devastating critique by Fordham’s Andy Smarick of the Duncan administration’s School Improvement Grant outcomes. She countered that it is wrong to compare decades of failed turnarounds with today’s turnarounds.  Her evidence was that Secretary Duncan meets with a lot of state leaders, and those talks make him optimistic.

Martin gamely responded to critiques of NCLB-type accountability schemes, citing the political pressures that produced such flawed metrics. Finally, Martin faced the question of unintended results of data-driven accountability.  In order to boost graduation rates, systems resorted to credit recovery gimmicks and, in order to raise test scores, they adopted assessments with easier questions. So, has that not undermined the transition to more challenging instruction required by Common Core? 

Martin replied, “Again, it’s an area where I’m going to take the optimistic view instead of the pessimistic.”-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.           

Thompson: Let's Talk About Expulsion Rates, Charter & Otherwise

In “D.C. Charter Schools Expel Students at Far Higher Rates than Traditional Public Schools,” the Washington Post's Emma Brown reports that D.C.'s charters expel up to seventy times as many students as its traditional schools.   Charters expelled or longterm suspended 554 students, while traditional schools expelled or thus suspended 601 students.  (Charters serve 41% of D.C’s students.)

Brown quotes conservative school reformer Mike Petrilli, who argues that charters should not have to obey “a policy that says that schools’ hands are tied if they have kids who are disrupting the learning environment.” A parent of five Kippsters agrees, “When I send my children to school, when I walk off and I wave goodbye and I hug them and I look back at them, I want to know that my child is safe.”

But only 1/4^thof the charter expulsions were due to violence, weapons, alcohol or drugs, and nearly half of those students then enrolled in traditional schools (while a third did not enroll elsewhere.)  

Thompson: The False Promise of "Big Data"

Education reformers have taken to invoking "big data" as education's next big frontier.  However, linguist Geoff Nunberg, in the NPR's Fresh Air report,"Forget YOLO: Why 'Big Data' Should be the Word of the Year," explains that "Big Data is no more exact a notion than Big Hair."

The quantity of digital data has increased, and true believers in number-crunching still claim,"'With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.'"  But Nunberg says "The trouble is that you can't always believe what they're saying."  That is no problem when algorithms predict "that I'd be interested in Celine Dion's greatest hits, as long as they get 19 out of 20 recommendations right." But even when we get to the point where we are measuring information in "humongobytes," we will still need people to ask the question of what are patterns for?-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Thompson: Los Angeles' Value-Added Mess

The Education Sector's Chad Alderman, In Value-Added Backlash, Part Two, and StudentsFirst founder Michelle Rhee are all denouncing the new evaluation system that Los Angeles was forced into negotiating. 

The tentative agreement may or may not meet the letter of the California law requiring the use of student performance data in teacher evaluations. 

But, the compromise plan seems to be designed to collapse under its inherent contradictions.  And, it might foreshadow the tricks that systems will use to dodge the value-added bullet.

There are three possible scenarios, none of them particularly likely or welcome:

Thompson: Private Emails & School Privatization

Andrea Eger's State Emails Reveal Behind-the-Scenes Discussions of School Report Cards in the Tulsa World, is painful reading for anyone seeking compromise solutions for troubled schools. 

By all accounts, Oklahoma’s attempt to implement Jeb Bush’s A –F School Report Card has been riddled with errors.  Keith Ballard, Tulsa’s highly respected superintendent who has taken a lead in working with the Gates Foundation and implementing tough accountability systems, and 300 superintendents challenged the first report card.  A compromise fell through.

At the same time, Damon Gardenhire, the State Superintendent’s communications officer, left his position for the Walton Family Foundation, which pushes for school vouchers.  On his last day on the job, Gardenhire told the Tulsa superintendent that he hoped to work with him in his new role.  In an email released through the Freedom of Information Act, however, Gardenhire wrote: "A big part of why I took the Walton gig was because I see real promise for bringing positive pressure to bear that will help cause a tipping point with enough (superintendents) that the ugly voices like Keith Ballard will begin to be small and puny."

You can imagine my embarrassment when secret discussions by advocates of the report card were revealed.  I had just been challenged by Diane Ravitch, in her “A Brief Conversation with John Thompson” to explain why I believe it is too early to conclude that the real goal of “reform” is privatization.  Commenters argued that my reluctance to use the p-word amounts to appeasement.  At any rate, Ballard no longer has any qualms in saying that the private discussion “reveals an agenda to divert dollars intended for public education to vouchers and for-profit vendors that should be very frightening to all Oklahomans."-JT(@drjohnthompson) 

Thompson: An Attempt to End Our School Wars

Former Chief Accountability Officer of New York City SchoolsJames Liebman's Education Week Commentary, "Ending the Great School Wars," takes a step towards a framework for understanding our educational civil war.  

He argues that "the real fight" is between three methods of rejecting central mandates and promoting school-level autonomy. 

But which of the three is the right one?

Alas, it's not the one Liebman endorses. 

Thompson: The Meaning Of The NAACP Education Plan

Nothing in our educational civil war is more painful to educators than the divisions it has caused within the civil rights community. We seemed to hit rock bottom when Jonah Edelman, the son of civil rights heroes, was videotaped bragging about his assault on Chicago teachers. 

So it was reinvigorating to hear his father Peter Edelman and other civil rights leaders, declare that it is time to stop attacking educators and tackle the real issue—poverty. Even better, the NAACP recently issued Finding Our Way Back to First,  a four-part education policy proposal that would extend school hours and years in school, improve preschool programs, better target spending for the neediest of students, and improve teacher training and evaluations, while recognizing the inherent flaws with value-added evaluations. 

I still can't understand why value-added evaluations were taken seriously as a tool for helping poor children of color. For the life of me, however, I cannot understand why liberals could not agree to reject that failed experiment, as we commit to the NAACP's proposal.-JT(@drjohnthompson) image via.

Thompson: What's So Hard About Diverse Charters, Really?

Alexander's Education Next article, Diverse Charter Schools, begins with President Obama visiting the Capital City Public Charter School in Washington D.C. and declaring it an "example of how all our schools should be." 

I agree. Everyone should attend schools that are as wonderful as thousands of neighborhood schools in prosperous communities.  All schools should offer advanced and struggling students the opportunity to learn deeply, to be creative, and to solve problems, rather than focusing on remediation.

I cannot understand, however, why it is such a challenge to run those charter schools serving kids who are only 42% low income, with only 20% on IEPs. Neither can I understand why these relatively affluent charters deserve kudos for doing what magnet schools have always done.   But Russo offers a clue.  It is “strategically important to the reform movement” to create charters that elite parents would brag about. Also, one  progressive reformer claims “this [charter] model is the only model that can be principled and serve the needs of kids.”

Wow! Does that mean there is no principled way to serve my kids whose poverty and special education rates are more than twice as high as those in a diverse charter?-JT (@drjohnthompson) Image via.

Thompson: A SIG Success Story is Audited

Ordinarily, Oklahoma City’s Douglass High School would be proclaimed as a School Improvement Grant (SIG) success story: 

In 2012, it posted double-digit increases in four subjects, single-digit gains in four, and declines in only three tests.  After replacing 75% of its faculty, investing heavily in after-school tutoring and intersession remediation, and implementing its SIG "academic intervention plan," the high school earned a “C” on Oklahoma’s tough new report card.  It earned “A’s” for overall student growth, its graduation rate, advanced coursework, and “overall school improvement.”  

Douglass, however, is being investigated for awarding credits to students who have not earned them.  Now, the Daily Oklahoman's Carrie Coppernoll, in Douglass Transcript Finds Spur Call for Wider Auditing, reports that less than 20% of Douglass’ seniors are on track to graduate. To ameliorate the harm to its seniors, Douglass has no short-term option but to double-down on the full array of “credit recovery” shortcuts that got the school in the mess by “passing students on.” The lastest twist, ironically, grows out the Oklahoma Gazette's Freedom of Information request.  Jerry Bohnen, in "A Tale of Email," confirms that the former principal changed grades.  The district explains that those grade-changes would not have been appropriate under its policies, but they may have been consistent with SIG standards.-JT(@drjohnthompson) Image via.    

 

Thompson: A Shoddy Study On Teacher Retention

The Washington Post's Emma Brown, in Study Chides D.C. Teacher Turnover,  reports that the TNTP, which was founded by Michelle Rhee, asserts that the D.C. schools do not retain enough "irreplacable" teachers but they are doing a better job of removing ineffective ones.  

The TNTP report, titled Keeping the Irreplaceables in D.C Public Schools, acknowledges one problem - that Rhee's IMPACT evaluation system is the fourth most important reason why top teachers leave.   And, as Dana Goldstein notes, up to 40% of D.C. teachers turned down IMPACT bonuses in return for giving up their seniority protections -- indicating a lack of trust in the district.

How did the TNTP try to address the all-important question of whether D.C. is unfairly evaluating teachers in high-poverty schools?  That's where the real action is.