Education Week just published an article I co-authored with Julie Woestehoff of
The only instance in which parent involvement in decisionmaking is mentioned in
Though the U.S. Department of Education calls many of their proposals “innovation,” we see them as representing large-scale experiments on our children—experiments lacking a foundation in research and implemented without informed parental consent—something that would never be allowed in fields such as medicine.
Comments on Obama Administration’s Race to the Top Proposal.
Patrick J. Sullivan, Manhattan Member, Panel for Educational Policy, NYC Board of Education
The proposal emphasizes increased uses of standardized testing and expansion of charter schools, two strategies for improving student performance that do not have a research base supporting their efficacy.
In contrast evidence-based strategies such as class size reduction are not anywhere supported by the proposal. Beyond small class size, attributes of high performing public and private schools – enrichment programs, arts, foreign language, and sports – are nowhere to be found in the proposal despite the fact that these programs are always found in schools already at “the top”.
The definition of effective teacher and student growth are too narrowly dependent on standardized tests. Application of these definitions as proposed for teacher tenure, compensation and termination decisions will have negative consequences for teaching and learning.
The “effective teacher” and “very effective teacher” are defined as those who demonstrate “student growth” which is itself defined to be changes in “student achievement”. “Student achievement” is defined as changes in state standardized test scores. Once enshrined as criteria for making tenure decisions, rating and termination decisions as suggested by the proposal (Reform plan criteria C2), this approach will lead to narrowing of the curriculum and teaching to the test. Only tested subjects will be emphasized. There is also significant risk that educators will avoid schools where factors outside of a teacher’s control such as overcrowding, underfunding, poverty, crime, weak administration and lack of parental support create a more difficult environment for teaching. Rather than seeking to define effective teaching, the RttT proposals should focus on proven tactics for improving teaching effectiveness such as lower class size or innovative solutions for addressing the challenges teachers face.
Proposed interventions for underperforming schools lack vision and emphasize measures that, in practice, will be punitive toward educators.
The interventions required in “Turning Around Struggling Schools” (Reform Plan Criteria D3) include closing schools, elimination of the majority of staff and forced conversion to charter or private management. The emphasis of these tactics will cause talented teachers to avoid low performing schools likely to lead to situations where teachers will be terminated or otherwise stigmatized as failing.
The proposal systematically excludes parents as stakeholders in the education of their children.
One factor considered in awarding the grants to each state is the extent to which support and commitment of key stakeholders is enlisted (Overall Selection Criteria E3). While the administration has a long list of stakeholders, parents are not on it. Charter schools, teachers unions and foundations are deemed to be important stakeholders but not parents. These criteria should be extended to explicitly include parents, parent groups and Parent Associations as stakeholders. There is only one place where parents are even mentioned in the proposal, as consumers of reports produced by the proposed data systems. The proposal’s exclusion of parents and the rejection of their role in the education of their children are inappropriate and will undermine any genuine reform effort. Reform efforts must engage parents as they play an essential role in maintaining a supportive environment for learning and must set expectations for their children. This type of thinking appears to be alien to the drafters of the proposal who appear to seek only to hold teachers accountable to the exclusion of all other factors or stakeholders.
Effective teacher means a teacherWhat then, is "student growth". Also in the definitions section:
whose students achieve acceptable rates
(e.g., at least one grade level in an
academic year) of student growth (as
defined in this notice). States may
supplement this definition as they see
fit so long as teacher effectiveness is
judged, in significant measure, by
student growth (as defined in this
notice).
Student growth means the change inOf course, "student achievement". That's what we're all after. But not surprisingly it's nothing more than our old friends, the ELA and Math tests.
achievement data for an individual
student between two points in time.
Growth may be measured by a variety of
approaches, but any approach used
must be statistically rigorous and based
on student achievement (as defined in
this notice) data, and may also include
other measures of student learning in
order to increase the construct validity
and generalizability of the information.
Student achievement means, at aIs that all there is?
minimum—
(a) For tested grades and subjects: A
student’s score on the State’s assessment
under section 1111(b)(3) of the ESEA;
and
(b) For non-tested grades and subjects:
...
(E)(3) Enlisting statewide support and commitment: The extent to
which the State has demonstrated commitment, support, and/or funding from the following key stakeholders:
(i) The State's teachers' union(s) and charter school authorizers;
(ii) Other State and local leaders (e.g., business, community,
civil rights, and education association leaders);
(iii) Grant-making foundations and other funding sources; and
(iv) LEAs, including public charter schools identified as LEAs
under State law, with special emphasis on the following: High-need LEAs (as defined in this notice); participation by LEAs, schools, students, and students in poverty; and the strength of the Memoranda of Understanding between LEAs and the State, which must at a minimum be signed by the LEA superintendent (or equivalent), the president of the local school board (if relevant), and the local teachers' union leader (if relevant).
Gotham Schools has a genuinely thoughtful analysis entitled "The Fruitful Alliance of Arne Duncan and Rupert Murdoch" including some great quotes from incredulous education and journalism insiders.Arne Duncan, the US secretary of education, lauded The Post's coverage.
"I appreciate your paper's leadership. I appreciate the thoughtfulness. You guys did a lot of work on [the mayoral-control issue]," Duncan said.
Dear friends,
Welcome back to a new school year! I hope you are refreshed and energized as we have a very busy year ahead.
A new capital plan will be introduced that will determine whether we will have the room to finally eliminate overcrowding in our schools or significantly reduce class size. The Mayor is making a big push to lobby the legislature to renew Mayoral control, by helping form a new political operation that expects to raise $20 million. He is also apparently considering trying to overturn term limits. All of these factors will determine the future of our schools for years to come, and as parents, we have to make sure that our voices are heard and our views seriously considered in whatever decisions are made.
In addition, an important Presidential election will also be held just two months from now. A couple of years ago, Class Size Matters teamed up with a parent organization in
We're joining forces again to get a message out to the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates about the key reforms that as parents and stakeholders we believe are needed in our schools.
While more access to health care and quality afterschool is important, we believe that there are miles to go before classroom conditions in most high-needs urban schools begin to rival those offered by the schools that wealthier kids attend, and until we start to provide some of the same educational opportunities to all our children, we haven’t even begun to see their potential in improving outcomes.
As such, we're asking you to sign on to the letter above. It calls for a major federal effort to eliminate school overcrowding, provide smaller classes and more guidance counselors in high-needs schools, ensure that all students receive a rich curriculum, including more arts and high-quality assessments that are primarily classroom-based, and encourage parental involvement in decision-making.
Please let us know if you’d like to sign on by contacting us at classsizematters@
Too often the parent voice is the last to be heard in these debates, if at all; let’s make sure that this time, we speak out loudly and clearly for the sake of our kids.
Thanks,
Jonathan Alter blusters in a column in Newsweek about what Obama should do to reform our schools:…. we know what works to close the achievement gap. At the 60 KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools, more than 80 percent of 16,000 randomly selected low-income students go to college, four times the national average for poor kids.
Here is the response of Caroline Grannam, a SF parent and blogger who is one of the few people to independently assess KIPP’s claims:
In the current Newsweek, columnist Jonathan Alter earnestly claims that 12,800 alumni of KIPP schools have gone on to college. Here's what Alter wrote: At the 60 KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools, more than 80 percent of 16,000 randomly selected low-income students go to college, four times the national average for poor kids. The actual number, according to KIPP itself, is 447.
It turns out that that 80% figure was derived from calculating the matriculation rates at only two KIPP schools.
Alter also omits to mention the self-selection process involved in applying to KIPP, well as the rigorous interview process the school uses that discourages less motivated students from enrolling, including making them promise to attend school six days a week and most of the working day. Nor the high attrition rates, with some schools losing 50 percent of their students over three years.
Yet Alter continues to spin wildly:
[Obama] …hasn't been direct enough about reforming NCLB so that it revolves around clear measurements of classroom-teacher effectiveness. Research shows that this is the only variable (not class size or school size) that can close the achievement gap. Give poor kids from broken homes the best teachers, and most learn. Period.
Where is the research base for this? Don’t bother to ask, as there is none.
We don’t even know how to identify potentially effective teachers, not to mention how to make them more effective once they’ve been hired. Aside from treating them like professionals, giving them a smaller class and persuading them to stick around in the profession longer.
More from Alter:
To get there, Obama should hold a summit of all 50 governors and move them toward national standards and better recruitment, training and evaluation of teachers. He should advocate using Title I federal funding as a lever to encourage "thin contracts" free of the insane work rules and bias toward seniority, as offered by the brilliant new superintendent in Washington, D.C., Michelle Rhee. He should offer federal money for salary increases, but make them conditional on differential pay (paying teachers based on performance and willingness to work in underserved schools, which surveys show many teachers favor) and on support for the elimination of tenure.
What? Surveys, including this one from Education Sector, which generally favors such proposals, show that teachers overwhelmingly oppose basing salaries on performance (read test scores.): “…one in three teachers (34 percent) favors giving financial incentives to teachers whose kids routinely score higher than similar students on standardized tests. Most teachers today (64 percent) oppose the idea, up 8 percentage points from the 56 percent who opposed it in 2003.”
Nevertheless, Alter continues in this same vein:
And the next time he [Obama] addresses them, he should tell the unions they must change their focus from job security and the protection of ineffective teachers to higher pay and true accountability for performance—or face extinction.
Good luck with that one. I’m sure the NEA and the AFT are quaking in their boots.
As Grannam points out about Alter’s error in reporting the number of KIPP students that have gone to college that could also be applied to his false claims about teacher surveys and class size:
It's ironic that Alter made that rather significant error in a column mostly devoted to blasting and blaming teachers for troubled schools and calling for getting rid of problem teachers, along with eliminating tenure and increasing "accountability" for teachers. I wonder how he feels about more accountability for journalists.
In case you’re interested, Alter lives in Montclair NJ, where no doubt the class sizes are small, and teacher tenure reigns supreme, along with high salaries, and performance pay is nowhere in sight.
But in a school district like NYC, with lots of immigrant and poor students, it doesn’t matter what class sizes they are crammed into or what overcrowding exists. All will be well and teachers will magically be able to reach all thirty plus kids per class, as long as the people in charge crack the whip loud and hard enough and can threaten them with losing their jobs if they don’t deliver.
A sure fire formula for success if ever I’ve heard it.
I’ll end with Grannam’s conclusion in her SF Examiner blog:
I suspect that anyone more familiar with the inside of a diverse urban classroom than Jonathan Alter is (it’s evident that such a setting is as familiar to him as the surface of Mars) would have the same reaction I did: Send that man to teach in an overwhelmed inner-city school for a few months, and then let’s see how he feels about blaming and bashing teachers for the challenges such schools face.”
