Wait ‘Till Next Year

I know I listed the Presidential race as being my number one education story for the 2012-2013 school year, but this is the first time I have posted anything about it.  What readers will also realize is that I did it with a considerable amount of trepidation.  Apparently I am not alone.  In the past couple of weeks Flypaper, the blog for the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has posted a couple of pieces which downplay the role of the President in setting education policy.  Earlier today Andy Smarick showed how serious presidential historians have barely noted the education policies of recent Chief Executives.  Not only was it true for third party evaluations of Presidents, it was even the case when the President had the opportunity to evaluate himself.  Says Smarick concerning George W. Bush: “But I just checked Decision Points, George W. Bush’s 477-page memoir. NCLB, one of his greatest accomplishments, gets a four-page treatment. By contrast, stem cells, Iraq, Afghanistan, and The Surge each gets its own chapter. Bush’s work on health issues in Africa also gets a full chapter.”  So, if even Presidents do not see themselves as being great harbingers of change in public education, why are we spending so much time focusing on that race?

The next logical step would seem to focus then on Congress.  It makes sense.  Article 1 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to actually spend money.  It does not have the sizzle of a tough Presidential campaign, and it does not get the coverage therefore from the popular media.  Oddly enough, there is more focus on Congressional races in the middle of a President’s term than there is when there is a Presidential election.  As it stands now the only group who has really put a concerted focus on the races for Congress is the American Policy Roundtable.  But is focusing on Congress really going to make a difference in education policy?  The second piece from Fordham by its President, Chester Finn, says “no”.  Finn contends that since federal funding is only on average 5% of school revenue, there are definite limits to federal power, even in the era of No Child Left Behind.  Instead the focus is more local than anything else.  In Ohio that means we have to wait until next year, because the vast majority of school board races happen in off-year elections.

You may not agree with the logic, but I think the Fordham have a point.  In considering my choice for President, I have to admit that even though I am an educator I have not considered education very much in making my decision on who to vote for (NEA and OEA members who might read this are probably in despair.).  In addition to questioning how much power the Federal government actually has, I have also taken the more cynical view of seeing little substantive difference between the two candidates approaches to education.  I may be wrong about that, but the points made by Smarick and Finn indicate otherwise.

My Top 3 National Education Stories for 2012 -2013

Last year I did a top 3 education stories for both the nation and for my home state of Ohio.  My predictions were a mixed bag, but it was fun to see how things would turn out.  My school year starts in two weeks.  So, here we go with my top 3 national stories.

November 6 – As I thought about this post, I was tempted not to put this number one.  I have said on this blog on multiple occasions there is little difference between what the Democrats and the Republicans propose at their respective cores.  They both say No Child Left Behind is broken and needs to be fixed.  They both want higher standards.  They want accountability.  The main differences exist in how they are going to do it.  What ultimately changed my mind was with what happened this past winter, when Congress could not come to an agreement on the various proposals to reauthorize No Child Left Behind (also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act).  In terms of the original act, this was not a big deal because the deadline for 100% proficiency do come until 2014.  The big deal was when Secretary of Education Arne Duncan started granting waivers to states from the law in exchange for essentially agreeing to the terms of Race to the Top.  It was audacious to be sure, and it does a lot to set the agenda for the election, but it was also unconstitutional.  The Republicans in Congress did not anticipate this approach of legislating from the executive branch, and they have not adjusted to it.  So the November 6 ends up being as much about Congress as it is about the White House.  It is Congress that has to pass bills regarding education and also approves all federal spending for education.  Education is not a high priority in this election cycle.  It might get 5 minutes in one presidential debate.  I don’t particularly trust either side to do necessarily the right thing by the nation’s children.  I don’t know that voting for Mitt Romney for president and the Republicans for Congress will necessarily restore constitutional law-making, but we have had a pretty good look at how things will run if keep the current divided government, and it was on education that we got that look.

The renewal of No Child Left Behind – Despite the questionable state of government in Washington, I think this is going to get done, and I believe it will get done in the first 100 days of the next presidential term, and regardless of the make up of Congress and the White House.  When you look at the mood of voters, the thing that is most lamented is the lack of cooperation by members of Congress, whether that is with the executive branch or with each other.  Given the similarities between the parties on education, the renewal and re-tooling of No Child Left Behind should be the proverbial “low-hanging fruit.”  Members of Congress are going to be under extraordinary pressure to work together.  So, any chance to show the public a bipartisan effort to pass reform will be taken.  Barring some unforeseen event, NCLB should be one of the items that gets to be showcased as an example of “bipartisanship.”  That does not mean the result will be good for children.  Indeed if the priority is bipartisanship, that is probably all they are going to get.

The Rise of the Common Core – This is a story that so far only education “insiders” have really talked about, but it is coming.  It actually has no origin at all in Washington, but rather from 46 of the 50 states (including Ohio).  The Common Core Standards will cover math and English language arts and will have new assessments for those subjects.  The Obama Administration has thrown its support behind it by making it a condition for accepting an NCLB waiver, but with some states on board that does not really carry a lot of weight.  The predictions about the impact are mixed.  Some say it is a major step forward, including the NEA (NEA Policy Brief on Common Core).  Others say it is a step backward.  As we get closer and closer to full implementation in fall of 2014, this story will progressively get larger and larger.  The Thomas B. Fordham Institute already has a blog dedicated to issues surrounding the implementation of Common Core Standards (They are generally in favor of it.)  It won’t be this school year, but this story will eventually overshadow everything else on the national stage.

The Deal is Done

The US Department of Education today granted waivers to 8 more states, including my home state of Ohio.  I have already devoted several posts to this topic, and I seriously doubt that this will be the last, but now that the deal is done the focus now changes.  It is now time to prepare for new realities for public education in Ohio.  These include:

• Letter grades for public schools – I know that the General Assembly has been a little skittish on enacting this part of Governor Kasich’s education reform, but it is going to get done.  For the general public this will make more sense than the ratings we have now, but it will not be as big of a deal as some of the other aspects.
• Tougher standards – According to The Columbus Dispatch, only 5% of school districts would have earned an A grade based on last year’s results.  This will be the big shock to the public school systems.  Schools (including mine) have become quite accustomed to only having to make a 50% cut score for tests.  Those days are over, now.  What the new cut will be remains to be seen, but it won’t so easy, now.
• Tougher evaluations for teachers – Teachers will now have their test results as half their evaluation.  Essentially it give the green light to legislation that was already passed, thus shutting out the teacher unions yet again.
• Full speed ahead on reform – In one of the most ironic twists in this tale, the Democratic White House by granting a waiver has actually given political coverage to a Republican Ohio General Assembly.  They are free to fly in Columbus to finish things up.  And we all thought bipartisanship was dead!
• Where does Cleveland fit in?  The Cleveland school reform plan has been in the works as a separate piece from the statewide reforms and it doesn’t look like it was part of the waiver application.  Yet, it has been no secret that Governor Kasich wants to expand it beyond the shores of Lake Erie.  It will be interesting to see whether or not Ohio amends its plan to include larger applications of the Cleveland plan.

Ohio’s deal with Arne Duncan is now done.  Ohio schools will now start to deal with it.

Midterm Report: My Top Three Ohio Education Issues for the 2010-2011 School Year

So, have I been any better at predicting Ohio issues than I was national issues?  I said that being an educator in Ohio would be “dangerous business.”  It looks some of that remains to be seen.

1. Senate Bill 5 – Senate Bill 5 got squashed like a bug in the November election.  I don’t really see this as a big union victory, but rather as a really poor job of politics by the Republicans.  About $40 million dollars got pumped into the state’s various media outlets on the campaign, with the teachers, police, and fire unions spending about 80% of that.  Is it really over?  Probably not.  Governor Kasich has more chances to make changes to collective bargaining.  Look for the next attempt to be more limited and focused on the teachers, which I still believe is the weakest politically, especially with the continued stories of teacher misbehavior coming up in the news.
2. The Coming of Consolidation – Looks like we are going to wait on this one for a while.  There has already been a delay in coming up with the new funding formula, as Governor Kasich has found out what Governor’s Strickland and Taft before him learned that this is one tough problem to solve.  Losing out on Senate Bill 5 probably complicated his calculations a bit.  There is also the priority of getting Ohio into the win column for whoever the Republican presidential nominee is.  One thing to look for in the meantime is for local school districts to start partnering up on certain items and services.  The local school districts in Pickaway Country, including my district, are looking into an agreement to buy fuel in bulk for their school bus fleets.  The agreement may eventually expand to include vehicle fleets of other country agencies.  Agreements like these, although relatively small, are tangible moves in the direction of consolidation.  More of these may come in the next several years.
3. Will the ODE take Duncan’s Deal?  While 11 states have taken it, there has been no indication at all that Ohio will join them.  I suppose Superintendent Heffner could still surprise us all in the next few months, but given the political climate, and the attitude of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, why should Ohio bother with it?  By offering the waivers up for the states, Secretary Duncan is basically saying that the power of No Child Left Behind is no more.  Whether it is through a legislative action in 2012 or 2013 (much more likely), he’s right.  Taking the waiver may just be adding federal burdens when they probably aren’t needed.  The truth is those burdens will likely be coming regardless of who gets elected.

In the meantime we have to wait until November to figure out who that is.  I am not amused.

 

Standard Bearing

While it has been a couple of weeks since he made these remarks, I think what Ohio superintendent Stan Heffner said does warrant some notice.  In some respects his words are tough to swallow, especially in a district like mine which earned an Excellent with Distinction rating (equivalent to an A+) for the first time in its history this past year.  Yet when I look at the data he quoted in his speech on December 6 to the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, I can see why he said it.  If you have one set of standards that say more than half of your schools are A or A+ quality schools, and you have another set of standards saying that your schools are failing, and in some cases miserably, to get elementary students to read at grade level or to prepare high school students for college, then either your good set is too easy or the bad set is too hard.  Considering the large volume of data going well beyond what Mr. Heffner alluded to, the consensus would seem to be that the state standards are too easy.

What’s interesting is his answer to that is to expedite the standards revision from the Strickland Administration.  The funding model that went with it is being scrapped (however the process has hit some snags), but the content portion has by all appearances been left untouched by Mr. Heffner and Governor Kasich.  It may be the only thing Governor Kasich hasn’t touched in his first year in office.  The main points of this reform include:

• Adoption of Common Core Standards for reading and math at all grade levels.
• Expansion of testing to include end of course exams for core high school courses
• Require all students to take the ACT
• Implementing a new teacher evaluation program that has student test results as at least 50% of the evaluation.

This is all supposed to be in place by the fall of 2014.  In the meantime school districts have a balancing act to make as they continue to bear the burden of the current system.  They are still responsible for the current standards as the current assessments will continue for another two years, and then have to flip a switch and be ready for the new system for 2014-2015.  (Grades K-2 actually start on the new standards immediately as well as high school courses for grades 11 and 12.)  The question that hangs over everyone in Ohio, then is this one.  What happens if we find out these standards are also too easy? That question will undoubtedly be left for Governor Kasich’s successor.

Curriculum versus Teaching

Robert Pondiscio of the Core Knowledge Blog has an interesting piece questioning whether it is curriculum that is the major factor in student achievement as opposed to quality teaching.  While it could very well be that I just haven’t looked hard enough, it seems to me that the idea that curriculum quality has gotten short shrift in the debate over student test scores.  Some of that I believe is due to a deeply ingrained culture among reformers and even among teachers which says that teachers make the biggest difference in how much students learn.  That is not to say that the idea is wrong, but the question I want to ask here is this:  What happens when the best teachers don’t have anything good to teach?  While addressing teacher quality is certainly a needed goal to have, it also makes sense that the content should also be addressed.  In three years time new curriculum standards will go into effect in Ohio for all grades, and being a teacher of high school juniors and seniors, I am actually free to start implementing things.  Then, late last week I found out that the College Board was implementing changes to AP Chemistry that will actually go into effect the year before the Ohio changes come.  So, I am in the middle of a rather busy period now trying to figure out what I need to change in the content of my courses.  In many respects the efforts of teachers to adjust their courses to match new standards will be a major theme over the next several years, with my own classroom being one of many small battle grounds.  Some the interesting questions that may be confronted during this time include:

• Will better curriculum make good teachers better?
• Are curriculum and good teaching methods independent of each other?
• Will the quality of assessments allow or hinder the ability of teachers implement the new curriculum?  (With the seemingly slow pace on developing assessments in the Common Core system, this could have some consequences.)

Obviously these questions are open-ended and I have no intention of answering them definitively at this point, but my work on my courses continue, I am sure that there will be plenty of opportunities to post on this topic some more.

It sure beats talking about the now-dead Senate Bill 5!

Improving the Teaching Profession

There has been much to talk about in the past few months regarding the teaching profession, whether it is concerning how they are paid and what benefits they get, to how they are prepared, to how to evaluate them.  Some people, usually with a union label, would have you believe that all of these things are all wrapped together so tightly that to try tackle one of these issues, is tantamount to a full scale assault on the teaching profession.  While that makes for good sound bites and some lively speeches at the union conventions, it does not necessarily help teachers improve their profession, because it shuts off potentially legitimate discussion and attempts to make things better for education by the creation of a culture of fear for one’s job security.  Others, usually conservatives, would paint teachers with the broad brush of being against any sort of reform with their heads in the sand as education gets worse and worse.  A counterpoint to both sides could be this week’s “School of Thought” column by Andrew Rotherham, the author of Eduwonk, for Time.com.  In it Mr. Rotherham makes the argument that this current culture does not allow stakeholders to discuss the real issue of instructional quality.

He has a point.  If we are unable to have an honest discussion about what is good teaching and what is bad teaching, then how can we possibly make any substantive improvements to education in general?  As we look at the next authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,  there is the potential of different states coming up with different methods of evaluating this area, especially if the Harkin-Enzi bill gets through Congress.  If that power does go back to the states there may be an unprecedented opportunity for that honest discussion to happen on more local levels.

The questions to be tackled may differ from state to state, but could include some of the following:

• How much of an indicator is student achievement of good instruction?
• Is there a reliable objective measure of classroom management practices?
• What safeguards will be available to make sure administrators are making personnel decisions on the basis of objective data and not on subjective judgments?
• Will teacher evaluations based on student achievement be adjusted to account for factors such as; socioeconomic differences, special education needs, subject matter, and/or racial and gender differences?
• Will there be contingency plans for evaluating teachers who miss extended time for personal and families emergencies?
• How will the practice of tenure change?
• What will be the basis for awarding performance bonuses to teachers?
• What will be the basis on which a poor performing teacher be released from employment?
• How can states measure and identify high quality teacher preparation programs, both in traditional degree programs and alternative pathways?

Mr. Rotherham focuses primarily on getting rid of bad teachers but there are other opportunities where teachers could benefit, but it will only happen if there is enough courage among teachers, union leaders, politicians, and reformers to discuss them honestly.  Lately that courage has been in short supply, but that does not preclude future opportunities.  Hopefully, it won’t keep people like Andrew Rotherham from pointing them out.

Some other comments of Mr. Rotherham’s column are here and here.

Votes Have Consequences

We are exactly 3 weeks away from election day, at which point Ohio voters are going to decide upon Issue 2 (Senate Bill 5).  In anticipation of the final weeks of the campaign I found it rather instructive something that has been happening in my school district.  For the past several weeks our curriculum director has been meeting with teachers in all grade levels to begin the work toward switching to new academic content standards that are set to be in effect by 2014-2015 “at the latest.”  With these standards will come new assessments; including the replacement of the Ohio Graduation Test with end-of-course exams in core subjects, all students required to take the ACT and complete a senior project.  The challenge for teachers in grades 3 – 10 is to continue to teach to the current standards for the next three years and then switch over to the new standards in the space of one summer.  I am fortunate in that I teach 11th and 12th grade courses and I am free to make changes now (and I am doing so).  What is instructive here is that these changes originated from people who elected, in this particular case it was then-Governor Ted Strickland, and fellow Democrats in the Ohio General Assembly.  Those men are not in power now, but the consequences of the votes cast for them in 2006 have been making themselves known 5 years afterward in school districts across the state.

Regardless of what happens on November 8 there will be consequences to the vote on Issue 2.  Some are predictable.  A lot of teachers will likely retire if it passes.  Voters should expect more requests for tax levies if it fails.  Others will be of the unintended variety.  While those are by definition unpredictable, it is still helpful to understand that they will come.  Do not make the mistake of thinking there will not be unintended consequences of keeping the status quo by voting no.  The current Governor, John Kasich, has yet to take his turn at education reform and he has promised to do so in his second budget in 2013.  What he and the Republicans will do will likely depend on the outcome on November 8.

I do not pretend that I am going to convince anyone to vote one way or the other.  I just want readers who are Ohio voters to just consider the consequences of this vote before you go to the polls.  If you do that, you’ll have my respect even if you end up voting yes.  And know that I will continue to work to the best of my ability and my calling, even if it passes.

Update: The Changing Face of Teaching

In my piece, The Changing Face of Teaching, I commented on the change in demographics of teachers hired in the last 5 years, especially in regard to those teachers views on school reform.  Now Andrew Rotherham (aka Eduwonk) has a piece on Time.com involving pro-reform insurgency movements with the ranks of the teachers unions, most notably within the American Federation of Teachers.  These movements are operating in large city school districts like New York and Los Angeles, and they have not been welcomed with open arms by the union leadership, but these groups are more receptive to changes in teacher tenure and reform of compensation, and they are largely made up of younger teachers.  Very interesting!

Also very interesting:  The teachers unions are the largest political contributors nationwide at $67 million over the last 20 years.  If the union leadership continues to follow the same pattern in terms of what causes they support (and given their role in supplying part of the  over $30 million that was spent from both sides of the Wisconsin recall election, that is a good assumption), then it will only be a question of when will the internal conflict come out in the open between the leadership and these new groups, not if.  What happens then to all that political power that the unions have put their faith in for so long?