It Rhymes With 'Tool'

UPDATED, 8/11/2011, 1:10 pm



Thursday morning in Washington DC -- the only city that could host such a vacuous, inane event -- the Thomas B. Fordham Institute is hosting (the hopefully one-off) "Education Reform Idol." The event has nothing to do with recognizing states that get the best results for children or those that have achieved demonstrated results from education policies over time -- but simply those that have passed pet reforms over the past year.



It purports to determine which state is the "reformiest" (I kid you not) with the only contenders being Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin and the only judges being: (1) a representative of the pro-privatization Walton (WalMart) Family Foundation; (2) the Walton-funded, public education hater Jeanne Allen; and (3) the "Fox News honorary Juan Williams chair" provided to the out-voted Richard Lee Colvin from Education Sector.



With the deck stacked like that, Illinois is out of the running immediately because its reforms were passed in partnership with teachers' unions. Plus it has a Democratic governor. Tssk, tssk. That's too bad, because Illinois represents the most balanced approach to education and teaching policy of the five states over the past year. And the absence of a state like Massachusetts from the running is insane. It has the best NAEP scores of any state and has a long track record of education results from raising standards and expectations, not by attacking teachers or privatizing our schools. But that's not the point here, of course. This is ALL politics. [UPDATE 8/11/2011: Yes, all politics. Mike Petrilli of Fordham says that "the lesson of Education Reform Idol" is --- ba-ba-ba-baaah ... ELECT REPUBLICANS. "When Republicans take power, reforms take flight."]



So I digress.... The coup de grace of ridiculousness for me is the inclusion of Wisconsin among the list of "contenders." What exactly has Scott Walker and his league of zombies actually accomplished for education over the last seven-and-a-half months OTHER THAN eliminating bollective bargaining rights, a historic slashing of state school aids, and a purely political expansion of the inefficacious school voucher program?



What's even worse than the inclusion of Wisconsin among the nominees is the case made by Scott Walker's office for the 'reformiest' award. As a policy advisor to the former Wisconsin governor, I am amazed by the brazenness and spin from Walker's office. I would expect nothing less from a political campaign. But someone's gotta tell these folks that while they theoretically represent the public trust, the content of their arguments suggests we can't trust them as far as we can throw them. And here in cheese curd land, that ain't very far.



A quick look at Walker's argument reveals an upfront invocation of Tommy Thompson (Wisconsin's version of Ronald Reagan) to pluck at Badgers' heart strings and make them long for the good old days of the 1990s (when the rich paid their fair share in taxes). It is soon followed by the refuted and refuted claims that Walker's deep education cuts "protect students in the short term" and give districts "tools" to manage the fiscal slaughter. Just read the well-respected Milwaukee school superintendent's opinion of such "tools." Then there's this gem: "Districts immediately began to set aside more time for teacher collaboration as well as money for merit pay." I'd LOVE to see the data behind this claim because as I am aware there is no state survey that measures collaborative time for teachers for starters. Walker's staff probably lifted it from a single school district's claims detailed in this Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story -- claims trumpeted by dozens upon dozens of right-wing bloggers such as Wisconsin's own Ann Althouse -- claims which since have been exposed as "literally unbelievable".



The irony is that this event is taking place in DC just two days after the recall elections of six seemingly vulnerable, incumbent Republican state senators. The repudiation of Walker's slash-and-burn policies will be testament enough to the destructiveness of his leadership both for public education and for the Badger State as a whole. In Wisconsin, recall would appear to be a far more effective 'tool' than the tools tentatively running the show under the Golden Dome in Madison.



[UPDATE 8/11/2011: For anyone who cares ... Indiana apparently is the "reformiest" state. By reformers' preferred metrics, I believe this means that Indiana will have the top NAEP scores in the nation next time 'round. Right?]





Image courtesy of Democurmudgeon

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.