Anger Management

I am appalled by this malicious attack on teachers and teachers' unions by Jay Greene. He claims that teachers are engaging in mob-like behavior, are seething anger and are intimidating politicians. The irony is that I've met few teachers who are nearly as angry as Jay himself comes across.

But when the public face of the teacher unions is the Army of Angry Teachers, they no longer seem like Mary Poppins and begin to look a lot more like longshoremen beating their opponents with metal pipes.

Giant mobs of yelling protesters and blogs filled with tirades may increase the intimidation politicians feel, but it seriously undermines the image of teachers as an extension of our family.

Jay's "mob" is my "democratic gathering". Here in Wisconsin (the featured photo on Jay's blog post) there was an organic outpouring of disgust and determination as a result of Governor Scott Walker's attacks on collective bargaining and public employee and teachers unions -- and his decisions to balance the state budget on the backs of public workers and by gutting public education while steering tax breaks to corporations and providing massive funding increases to voucher schools.

Jay is mad that teachers are mad, but they have every right to be, especially in a state like Wisconsin. Have you visited Wisconsin in the past six months, Mr. Greene? Have you actually talked to teachers here? Have you seen and heard the thousands and thousands of protesters that have no vested or financial interest that nonetheless turned out en masse to speak out on behalf of others? (Clearly, these are rhetorical questions.)

This *is* what democracy looks like. The allowance of such an outpouring of opposition is why our nation was founded. Apparently, Jay's preferred answer to the Palin-esque question of "How's that redress of grievances thing workin' out for ya?" would be "It should not be allowed."

Wisconsin teachers have not and should not lie down and take the beating they've received here. Their right to bargain has been stripped. They've seen massive cuts to their pay and benefits. They're now working in public school systems that have had resources sucked out of them. They're standing up for their rights and for a far different state of Wisconsin than has emerged under the leadership of Governor Walker and his legislative Rubber Stamps.

Have teachers and their unions always advocated for and prioritized the best educational policies? Sure they haven't. Has any one education group or interest? (Greene's free market approach to education certainly doesn't represent sound policy.) Reforms can only succeed when teachers are full partners in their creation and implementation. And I will fight for the right of their voices to be heard in policy debates, in schools, and, yes, at the bargaining table.

It seems that Mr. Greene would prefer that teachers simply shut up.

Why Can't Democratic Leaders Break It Down Like Jon?

Jon Stewart makes a compelling defense of teachers on the March 3rd Daily Show. He juxtaposes numerous comments made on Fox News during the 2010 debate in favor of extending the Bush tax cuts for couples earning more than $250,000 against the "avarice" of teachers earning around $50,000 a year plus benefits here in Wisconsin.

As one Fox anchor put it: "250,000 dollars is not rich for a family of four sending kids to college! It's actually close to poverty!" Indeed. Further, Tracy Byrnes, a "Fox business contributor," railed against reducing pay or rescinding bonuses for Wall Street CEOs whose firms were being bailed out by the U.S. government because of contractual obligations. But, recently, she favored reducing teacher pay and benefits regardless of whether they were promised under existing employment contracts. What's fair is fair -- or not.

Very interesting. The Republican argument is that we shouldn't -- and didn't -- let the Bush tax cuts expire on income over $250,000 (an amount only a fraction of Americans earn), but, in Wisconsin anyway, we should reduce the take-home pay for teachers by more than 8%.

Where's the shared sacrifice? Or is that concept outdated in America?

A New Year

We hope all our readers enjoyed relaxing holidays and have returned refreshed for the new year. While our family and professional lives continue to make it difficult to blog with great frequency, we hope you'll continue to read our infrequent commentary and join in the discussion during 2011.

A few thoughts to start the new year...

(1) Outcomes First? If outcomes are what really matter in education, it is interesting that so many advocates, commentators and policy organizations seem to count adoption of favored policy reforms as ends in themselves. We are all guilty of this to some degree. It is only when there is a research base to suggest that specific reforms and programs work that there is a strong argument to be made. Examples might include targeted class size reduction in grades k-3, high-quality early childhood education, and comprehensive, multi-year induction support for new teachers. But, at a macro level, certain arguments fall apart when there is no evidence to back them up, such as teachers' unions being a wart on the ass of progress. Take Massachusetts, for example, a strong union state. It leads the nation in TIMMS scores in spite of the fact that the Massachusetts Teachers Association looms large in state politics.

(2) Teachers, Teachers: One of the best developments of 2010 was an increased focus on teachers and on teacher effectiveness in particular. This focus was not always for the better, as in the case of the Los Angeles Times' decision to publish value-added scores for individual teachers or the misleading, union-bashing documentary Waiting For Superman. But an overall focus on the outcomes of teaching is the right policy conversation to be having. However, that conversation must lead to solutions that create comprehensive structures and systems to maximize benefits for all involved -- students, teachers, parents, etc. Regular feedback about teaching is critical for educators, not just summative data or annual evaluations that don't provide actionable feedback. A key goal around improving teacher effectiveness should be the development of schools and districts as communities of practice that make teaching more of a collective endeavor and support all educators to strengthen their individual practices and skills.

(3) ESEA: I am increasingly of the mind that something -- but not much of anything -- will happen with regard to reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2011. If successful, reauthorization will primarily serve as a token of bipartisanship that both parties can carry into the 2012 elections to say "we can work together to get things done." If accomplished, it may be one of the few significant bipartisan accomplishments of this Congress. Look for substantive tweaks to the No Child Left Behind Act rather than a wholesale overhaul of it. More flexibility around AYP. Attention to the needs of rural districts. More local control. Perhaps a stronger focus on teacher performance pay, charter schools and school choice options -- some elements of the Obama Blueprint combined with priority issues for Republicans like John Kline and Lamar Alexander. And level funding, at best.

(4) Exclusivity: One of my wishes for the New Year is that the DC echo chamber would become less and less influential in conversations about education policy. I am constantly amazed at how regularly the usual suspects parrot, squawk about and retweet the comments and ideas of the other usual suspects, especially those with whom they have personal or proprietary relationships. And how the same usual suspects are quoted saying the same usual things by the mainstream and educational media. This dynamic plays out, too, in conversations within multiple exclusive fiefdoms within education that generally have little to no intersection with fiefdoms with competing worldviews or different policy priorities. As someone who once worked in DC and who now works for a non-DC-based national non-profit organization that has relationships with all sides of the education community, I am especially cognizant of this dynamic in which voices outside of the Beltway 'influentials' are not heard.

One alternative stream recently profiled by Rick Hess and Jay Greene are academics doing policy-relevant research and cutting a high profile in policy conversations. We need more of that type of intellect in play -- and not just from economists. Another is the rise of state-based reform groups like Stand for Children, the PIE Network, Delaware's Rodel Foundation and Oregon's Chalkboard Project. Finally, the voice of actual teachers is too often missing from policy conversations. Fortunately, there are numerous efforts afoot to remedy this. Two, in particular, worth checking out are Teach PLUS and the VIVA Project. My organization, the New Teacher Center, in conjunction with the College Board, recently profiled real-life teachers in a publication about the importance of teacher mentoring.

One way or another, 2011 undoubtedly will be an interesting year for education.

Silver Linings

It's probably no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I'm a Democrat. That said, in my professional life, I have worked for non-partisan and non-profit organizations committed to working with public officials of all political persuasions. And I think that both political parties -- as well as political independents -- are potential partners in improving pubic education. Nonetheless, I can't honestly say that November 2010 was an uplifting month from my (electoral) perspective.

But this is the Education OPTIMISTS blog, right? I guess I'm a little self-aware in that I recognize that a majority of my posts grouse about something or other and too few are offered in a truly optimistic vein. So here is my attempt at weaving a silk purse from an elephant's(?) ear.

Newly elected Republican governors and state legislators have opportunities to improve education in ways that some of their Democratic counterparts may not. They may be more politically willing and able to take on certain vestiges of the education status quo that may not be research-based, may not be working, and may be not be in service of student outcomes. I'm talking about things like the traditional steps-and-lanes teacher salary schedule, the length of the school day and year, and largely purposeless teacher evaluation systems. They may be able to construct new human capital systems and reform outdated school practices and processes. Certainly, these opportunities will vary depending upon numerous contextual factors, including state systems of educational governance, the intellectual and policy foundations for such work, the existence of non-governmental advocates and thought partners, existing vehicles for collaboration (such as p-16 councils), etc.

A number of past Republican governors emerged as leaders, or so-called "education governors." Some that immediately come to mind are former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, outgoing Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, and former Tennessee Gov. (and current U.S. Senator) Lamar Alexander (who also served as U.S Education Secretary under President George H.W. Bush).

That said, here's where my pessimism takes over. There are certainly members of the current Republican gubernatorial circle that are certainly not in the running for such an earned label, such as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. With less than a year in office, he has moved in a decidedly confrontational direction. His actions and rhetoric makes him better suited for talk radio than as a collaborative education governor who needs to work with a Democratic-controlled state legislature and, yes, with teachers. Christie is casting himself as a modern-day Archie Bunker and is relishing the attention and headlines he is getting. The sad fact is that such rhetoric is what garners attention in today's media rather than the dogged policy work that actually changes the equation for students and teachers.

Christie seems to think that leadership consists of rhetoric rather than results. And that's dangerous if our collective goal is the creation of meaningful reform as opposed to simply talk or threats of it. Christie has attacked his own state's relatively good educational performance in order to further his demonizing of the state teachers' union, which appears to be his primary priority. He fired his first education commissioner who dared to strike a compromise with teachers around New Jersey's aborted Race to the Top application. That former commissioner said that the Governor "placed fighting with the state teachers unions and his persona on talk radio above education reform." Good luck to those who seek to thrust him upon America as a 2012 candidate for President.

My fear is that there those within the ranks of new Republican governors that are more likely to fashion themselves in the style of Christie than as "old school" education governors. Texas Governor Rick Perry's ascension to head the RGA probably doesn't help either.

With the exception of the 12 Race to the Top winners, one challenge that these new office holders of both parties will face is the distinct lack of new resources to inject into the educational system, either from state or federal sources. They won't be able to buy reforms by increasing education funding or refashion teacher pay with a major infusion of cash.

My hope is that governors of both parties will seek to work with educators to accomplish their policy objectives rather than force their desires onto them. There is good evidence to suggest that collaboration leads to more resilient and relevant policies that are likely to trickle down to actually change practices and processes within classrooms and schools. That's where the real work gets done.

I am hopeful that some quiet leaders will emerge.

Building A Better Teacher

If you haven't been reading the excellent "Building A Better Teacher" news series in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, you should be. It really doesn't matter whether you're from Wisconsin or not, or particularly interested in this state's policy context. The series is taking an expansive look at the various issues related to human capital development, teacher effectiveness and teaching quality. And it's not quoting the same overused Beltway prognosticators to drive its points home.

The fourth installment in the eight-part series, funded by Hechinger, ran this past Sunday and was entitled "Trying to steer strong teachers to weak schools."

My main quibble with this particular article was that it gave short shrift to one of the most effective answers to the question posed: How do we steer strong teachers to weak schools? The answer: Improve the teaching conditions at those schools.

Here's the extent of what the article offered on this issue:

So what else might be done, in hopes of having more impact? A few ideas in nutshells:

• Make schools better places to work: This is both the simplest and most complex solution. The New Teacher Project report in 2007 said, "The best way to staff high need schools is to make them attractive to great teachers." But how do you achieve that?

Mike Langyel, president of the Milwaukee teachers union, listed things that would attract teachers: "A competent and fair principal is key not only in getting teachers there but in keeping them.... We're also looking at schools that are safe."

My suggestion would have been a much more robust treatment and discussion of the issue of teaching conditions. I have extrapolated on its importance in a series of blog posts, and the New Teacher Center (my employer) has unique national expertise in administering statewide Teaching and Learning Conditions surveys. The NTC has a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to administer a Teaching & Learning Conditions Survey as part of the foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project. The Survey is being administered in select schools and districts participating in the MET project across the country.

Perhaps Wisconsin and Milwaukee, in particular, should consider administering such an anonymous full population survey to its educators -- teachers, administrators and support staff -- and see what they have to say. Why do they stay or leave a given school or district? What's working and what isn't? States and districts that have administered such surveys have used the data to improve principal preparation, rewrite professional standards for teachers and principals, and strengthen teacher mentoring and professional development. This is not data to be afraid of but data that can empower policymakers, school leaders and teachers alike.

Teaching and learning conditions are highly correlated with issues such as teacher retention and the presence of such conditions explain as much as 15 percent of the variance in student achievement between schools (Helen 'Sunny' Ladd, 2009). This stuff matters greatly in the current policy debates about teaching and student outcomes and it gets far too little attention as compared with value added, teacher evaluation and teacher pay.

Teacher Voices: The VIVA Project

The VIVA Project is a new initiative that gives teachers an opportunity to collaborate, share ideas, and inform education policy and reform conversations at the state and national levels. VIVA stands for Voices, Ideas, Vision, Action.

The Goal of the VIVA Project is to identify ideas and opinions straight from the classroom, work together to create actionable policies to improve public education for classroom teachers and their students, and deliver them directly to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Teachers are encouraged to share their ideas in both the national and New York idea mines. Register today! And check out its Facebook page, too. You have until October 10, 2010 to add your voice to the conversation.

Other notables initiatives in a similar vein include Teach PLUS, the Teacher Leaders Network and the Hope Street Group's Policy 2.0.

The VIVA Project is a worthy addition to an education reform marketplace that too often ignores and discounts the thoughts and ideas of actual classroom teachers. Kudos to Secretary Duncan for being willing to listen.

Check out the embedded video to learn more about the VIVA Project:

LA Times Value Added Editorial

The Los Angeles Times editorial page gets it mostly right today on the value-added issue ("Good teachers, good students," September 3, 2010). It says a number of smart things that I agree with, such as:

• "Test scores are indeed just one indicator of a teacher's performance."
• "But it's revealing, and disturbing, to read the comments of some teachers who don't seem to care whether their students' scores slide. They argue that they're focused on more important things than the tests measure. That's unpersuasive."
• "This page has never believed that test scores should count for all of a teacher's evaluation — or even be the most important factor. But they should be a part of it."
• "Right now, the "value-added" scores The Times has been reporting are more useful for evaluating schools than teachers. Many factors can throw off the data at the classroom level."
• "That's why we think the Obama administration has been too hasty to push states into linking test scores to teacher evaluations and to reward states that overemphasize the scores, making them count for half or more of a teacher's worth. The administration's first priorities should have been developing better tests, which it's working on now — if we're going to judge teachers in part by these scores, it's unacceptable to say that top-notch tests are too expensive — and statistical models that minimize random factors and make the scores a better evaluation tool."
• "Current teacher evaluation practices are ripe for overhaul. Performance reviews should include, at minimum, classroom observations, portfolios of student work over the academic year and, yes, objective test data."

I just wish its news division had taken some of these points to heart, namely having patience until the methodology was ready to be joined by other measures of teacher effectiveness, such as classroom observations, and not publishing the value-added scores of individual teachers and definitively labeling some as most effective and least effective.

Heather Horn of The Atlantic magazine offers a nice summary of some of the related issues and links to relevant sources in this September 1, 2010 blog post.

And Dana Goldstein offers a smart retort (and a preview of her upcoming The Nation feature on value added?) to a vacuous and vitriolic Slate post by Jack Shafer on this topic.

Related Posts:

• Education Optimists: "Adding Value to the Value-Added Debate" (August 31, 2010)

• Education Optimists: "More Grist for the Value-Added Mill" (September 1, 2010)

• Education Optimists: All "value added" related posts

More Grist for the Value-Added Mill

Here is additional smart and pithy commentary on the current value-added conversation that I wasn't able to incorporate into yesterday's post or have only discovered since.

• Dr. Douglas Harris - "Not By Value Added Alone" (The Blog of Harvard Education Publishing)
• Dr. Aaron Pallas - "Value-added measures: The cardinal rule and the cardinal sin" (A Sociological Eye on Education)
  
• Stephen Sawchuk - "Some Scholars Slam Value-Added for Teacher Accountability" (Teacher Beat/Education Week)
• Jay Mathews - "America's Best Teacher and the L.A. Times" (Class Struggle/Washington Post)
• Dr. Daniel Willingham - "3 Key Factors in Teacher Evaluation" (The Answer Sheet/Washington Post)
• Sherman Dorn - "Please leave your magic numbers on the magic carpet with your magic wand" (Sherman Dorn)
• Bill Tucker - "My Value-Added Number" (Quick and the Ed)
• John Thompson - "High-Ranking Teachers Ignore Pacing Standards" (This Week In Education)
• Walt Gardner - "Why Not Name and Shame Teachers?" (Walt Gardner's Reality Check/Education Week)
• Claus von Zastrow - "The LA Times Goes Astray" (Public School Insights/Learning First Alliance)
• Alan Borsuk - "Where newspaper goes in rating teachers, others soon will follow" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
• Andy Rotherham - "LA Story" (Eduwonk)

This Is Rich

This policy proposal from Senate Republican Leader Jon Kyl (of Arizona) with a $678 billion price tag -- yes, BILLION -- puts the hullaballo over the $800 million "edujobs" controversy into some perspective. How about we tap into THAT source of revenue by letting the tax cuts expire to save teachers' jobs and leave the currently authorized education reform programs alone?

From Huffington Post ("Jon Kyl: Extend Bush Tax Cuts for Wealthy Even If They Add To Deficit"):

Top Senate Republican Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) insisted on Sunday that Congress should extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans regardless of their impact on the deficit, even as he and other Republicans are blocking unemployment insurance extensions over deficit concerns.

White House aides immediately seized on the comments. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wrote on Twitter, "Kyl says wealthy need big Bush tax cuts while middle class families are on their own to fend for themselves as a result of Bush economy."

With concerns over the massive budget deficit, rising income inequality, and an inability to fund existing programs, why again should we extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that were bad policy when they were enacted? And this at the same time when Republicans are refusing to extend $30 billion of unemployment benefits for Americans hit hardest by the recession. That's rich.

The Washington Post editorial page weighed in on this issue in today's edition, too.

Hire This Teacher!

Welcome to a special new series of the Education Optimists: the Promising New Teachers Award! We aim to identify, praise, and help place a few incredibly talented young women and men who are seeking the opportunity to work for schools across the country.

Our inaugural choice is Stephanie Ake of New Hope, Minnesota.

Stephanie is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Education with a degree in elementary education. She has also completed three years of extraordinary training and service as the nanny to the children of the Education Optimists!

Stephanie has numerous qualities and dispositions that make her a stellar teacher. She is caring, patient, responsible and understanding -- skills necessary to manage a classroom of young children. She is reliable and trustworthy, always on time, always prepared, always ready. She is one of the most organized, and dependable people we have ever met, and at the same she is flexible and calm. It was a testament to her skills that when it came time to choose a preschool and a teacher for our son, Liam and I found ourselves comparing every candidate to Stephanie.

Stephanie seeks a teaching job in the Twin Cities area teaching preschool through 5th grade. We give her our highest recommendation. Please feel free to email her opportunities directly (ake@wisc.edu) or contact us with questions.

Arizona Says...

So far in 2010, it appears that the state of Arizona's contribution to public policy is two-fold:

(1) First, the Legislature and Governor said: "Show me your papers (unless you look like you'd fit in at a Tea Party rally)" and

(2) Now, the Arizona Department of Education is asking teachers to "say 'toy boat' three times in a row -- or you'll be reassigned."

Am I missing something?

But, lest one gets too depressed, there is plenty of good work happening in Arizona, in places like the Arizona K-12 Center and Expect More Arizona. So, chin up, Arizonans!

ESEA Hearing on Teachers and Leaders

The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is holding a hearing this morning on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind. Today's hearing focuses on the teacher and school leader elements of ESEA.

Among the witnesses are:

• Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers
• Stephanie Hirsch, Executive Director, National Staff Development Council
  
• Jon Schnur, CEO, New Leaders for New Schools
  
• Ellen Moir, CEO, New Teacher Center
  
• Timothy Daly, President, The New Teacher Project
• Thomas Kane, Professor of Education and Economics, Harvard University and Deputy Director, U.S. Education, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  

UPDATES:
A video replay of the hearing -- as well as links to the participants' testimony -- is available here.

TFA 'Set Aside'

The Washington Post's Nick Anderson reports that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan was grilled by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) yesterday about why he proposed eliminating the set aside for Teach for America in the Administration FY2011 federal budget.

"We made some tough calls. And what we did is we simply eliminated all the earmarks. We increased the chance for competition," Duncan said.

"Teach for America is an earmark?" Doggett asked.

"It was a set-aside," Duncan clarified. The organization, he said, would have "every opportunity to compete and get, frankly, significantly more money."

My question is: Why should TFA receive such a set aside while other high-quality education non-profits do not? What about KIPP, Urban Teacher Residency United, The New Teacher Project? How about the nonprofit I work for, the New Teacher Center? All of these nonprofits are national in scope. Is there something special about TFA that merits direct federal funding and forces these other organizations to exclaim, "We're not worthy!"?

Frankly, I like the Administration's competitive approach. Let the cream rise to the top. That's a very American concept.

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UPDATE: Here's more on the TFA funding issue from Eduwonk.

Central Falls Redux

I have to side with Rick Hess over Andy Rotherham on the question of whether the mass firing of teachers at Rhode island's Central Falls High School is a portend of things to come. In yesterday's Christian Science Monitor story, Hess calls the situation in Central Falls "a canary in a coal mine." In a blog post yesterday, Rotherham calls is "a bogus trend story."

“This will be a canary in the coal mine,” says Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Such dramatic moves are likely to multiply as “an increasing crop of no-excuses superintendents and state commissioners” take the view that “it’s essential to clean house” to improve persistently failing schools, he says.

This Rhode Island high school situation sure seems like a bogus trend story. Turnarounds may be a trend but really dramatic moves like this seem pretty anomalous. That whale in Florida killing people seems like a more common trend than schools firing all the teachers en masse. -- Eduwonk

In a Tweet this morning, Alexander Russo sardonically notes that "'mass layoff' sounds so much worse than school 'closing' or school 'turnaround' tho they're all the same thing." Indeed.

This morning word comes from the Providence Journal blog that teachers will appeal their firings. No surprise there.

Related Post: Rhode Island District Fires All Of Its High School Teachers (2/25/2010)

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UPDATE: President Obama comments on Central Falls in his prepared remarks before the America's Promise Alliance Education Event on March 1, 2010 (via TWIE, via D_Aarons).

"If a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn't show signs of improvement, then there's got to be a sense of accountability. And that's what happened in Rhode Island last week at a chronically troubled school, when just 7 percent of 11th graders passed state math tests -- 7 percent."

Study Demonstrates Link Between Hunger and Children’s Ability to Learn

On this Thanksgiving week, it is appropriate that we acknowledge the large numbers of America’s children who are too hungry to learn as indicated in a new public opinion survey commissioned by Share Our Strength. Teachers – as first responders – witness the toll hunger takes on students in their classrooms every day.

Hunger in America’s Classrooms: Share Our Strength’s Teacher Report shares teachers’ firsthand accounts of hunger as well as a formal national survey of teachers. Share Our Strength commissioned Lake Research Partners to poll 747 elementary and middle school teachers from urban, suburban and rural communities across America, for the study, funded by C&S Wholesale Grocers. The most recent figures released by the USDA paint a dramatic picture of hunger in America: nearly 17 million U.S. children – nearly one in four kids – face hunger today.

In a webinar, experts on childhood hunger and health(Billy Shore, founder and executive director, Share Our Strength; Maria S. Gomez, FN, MPH, president & CEO, Mary’s Center for Maternal & Child Care; Celinda Lake, president, Lake Research Partners; and Christine Gottshall, elementary school teacher, West Roxbury, Boston, MA) will share key findings from the study and address this often invisible American crisis.

WHEN: Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:00 AM ET

WHERE: Operated Assisted Conference Line 888-278-8465

Webinar Login Web site: http://soundpatheview.com

Webinar Login Participant code: 2025722864

***To access the Webinar you must run the Systems Check link located on the top left hand side of the Web site.

***Please RSVP to Sarah Sandsted at ssandsted@strength.org

Teachers' Voice

An important survey was released this week that captures teachers' perceptions of their professional working environment. The national study of 900 teachers by Public Agenda describes educators as falling into one of three groups: "Disheartened," "Contented," and "Idealists." It also raises some serious policy implications for the placement, retention and longevity of teachers based on teachers' perceptions about working conditions, why they entered the profession, and their opinions about proposed policy reforms.

But as useful as this survey may be in defining these issues at a 30,000-foot level, it does not approach the power and utility of teacher surveys that offer entire populations of educators in individual states and districts the opportunity to share their voice about working conditions, leadership support, resources, opportunities for professional learning, etc. In turn, these anonymous surveys also provide contextualized, customized summary data at the state-, district- and school-level based on the perceptions and opinions of local educators.

Teaching and Learning Conditions surveys have been led by the New Teacher Center in states such as Alabama, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina and West Virginia, and in school districts such as Fairfax County, Virginia. They provide state and district policymakers and educational leaders with powerful data to define issues that need to be addressed in school and districts that have major implications for the quality and effectiveness of teachers and principals.

Read the Public Agenda report, but also think about conducting a Teaching and Learning Conditions survey in your state or school district. What do the teachers where you live and work think?

Superteacher To The Rescue!

Given the recent spate of federally-funded studies showing no effect of a variety of educational innovations and interventions, my predicted answer to the question ('Can Teachers' Talent Translate Elsewhere?') posed in this Houston Chronicle story is "no."

I worry, however, that the basic premise of the federally funded Talent Transfer Initiative is faulty and builds upon the notion of teaching (as reinforced by popular culture) as an individual rather than as a collective pursuit. Can 'superteachers' walk into dysfunctional school cultures and work magic that can result in a quantifiable impact on student learning? Some surely can. (It's too bad we can't clone Jamie Escalante and Frank McCourt, isn't it?) More important to ask is, should we expect them to?

What is more desperately needed than an expensive scheme to redistribute 'superteachers' is a serious attention to teaching and learning conditions. My New Teacher Center colleague, Eric Hirsch, spearheads assessment of school culture and the training of school administrators to more effectively shape it. His and independent research (here and here) has identified that teacher effectiveness is facilitated by a positive school context, including support from leadership, the existence of a collaborative working environment, and time for professional learning.

It doesn't appear that the Talent Transfer Initiative envisions teaching and learning conditions as part of the solution, and that's terribly unfortunate. I wonder if the TTI is even collecting such data to investigate the relationship between these variables and teacher success, or lack thereof? Until we address these contextual issues in low-performing and hard-to-staff schools, we're not going to get the results that we expect and students deserve.

UPDATE (9:35 p.m.) -- Claus von Zastrow offers an excellent blog post on Public School Insights about this study as well.

Feels Like the First Time

Cross-posted from Brainstorm

Every fall for the last 29 years I've embarked on a new school year. No joke--for nearly my entire life the arrival of September has meant one thing: back to the classroom.

Yet this time feels entirely new, nerve-wracking, and yes, I'm nail-biting. Why? Two big reasons. First, it's the first year I'm sending my own child off to school. My son Conor begins preschool next Tuesday in a Waldorf program. So this year instead of simply looking forward to my own class schedule or preparing lectures for my students, I'm trying to get ready for his new principal, teacher, and classroom.

Want to bring an otherwise confident, competent professor to her knees? Put her face-to-face with a preschool teacher who disagrees with her. I may know something about something, but I'm no early childhood expert. I have instincts, and I have no idea what they're grounded in. So when Conor's teacher tells me the parents aren't allowed to stick around on the first day of school, I find myself saying "yes ma'am" even though every inch of me wants to scream "yeah right!" I have no idea how to enforce my desire to make sure he's ok, happy and acclimated before slipping out the door. Faced with Mrs. Preschool Teacher, I fold like a deck o'cards.

As for the other reason this is such a new year-- it's the first time I've got reason to fear my students. Normally I pooh-pooh medical hysteria, and try to ignore talk of epidemics. But this swine flu thing is no joke for pregnant ladies-- it can kill. And not only do I have a preschooler and a heavy schedule of air travel this fall, but I'm to spend a bunch of time among undergraduates. If the average healthy adult stands a 1 in 2 chance of contracting H1N1, what are my odds? They sure feel like 1 in 1.

So, I'll enter class tomorrow with a bunch of trepidation, afraid of coughs and sniffles. Hopefully, we'll get a good discussion rolling and I'll put it out of my mind, trusting everyone to stay home if they don't feel well. Fear doesn't set the stage for much fun or learning.

Another September, another back-to-school. I hope others are off to a better start.

New Teacher Center Annual Symposium

If you are an educational practitioner, policymaker, or researcher with an interest in the needs of new teachers, you may want to consider presenting at the New Teacher Center's annual Symposium on Teacher Induction in San Jose, California in February 7-9, 2010.

In addition to new teacher development and support, the NTC also seeks submissions that address school leadership development, teacher compensation, teacher evaluation, working conditions, and related themes. Submissions should exemplify best practices and current research and present new issues or topics, innovative ways of viewing traditional issues, and/or research that substantiates, promotes, and advances the work of teacher development and induction.

The NTC has released an online call for proposals. For your information, here is an overview of the sessions featured at the 2009 meeting.

Obama's Firewall

Michele McNeil at Education Week's Politics K-12 blog reports that President Obama himself approved the Race To The Top provision that restricts these competitive grants for going to states that restrict the use of student achievement data in teacher evaluations. Short of statutory or regulatory changes made by these 3 states, should we be saying au revoir to the Golden, Empire and Badger states?

Only two things can render a state ineligible for Race to the Top grants.

And only one of them is a biggie: the student-teacher data firewall issue.

This effectively means New York, California, and Wisconsin, at the very least, are ineligible for Race to the Top—or will at least have some explaining to do. They have laws on the book that essentially bar the use of student-achievement data in some teacher-evaluation decisions.

Erin Richards at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel picks up the story, too.

Background here and here.