Next Wednesday in NYC, Lee Hirsch, the producer of “Bully,” will be showing clips from his remarkable film and talking about the growing problem of bullying in our schools (and beyond).

Please  watch the trailer:

Once you’ve done that, I am certain you will want to be at the JCC of Manhattan Wednesday evening, December 11th at 7:30 to hear from Lee, ask your questions, and perhaps share your own stories.    I hope to see you at 334 Amsterdam Avenue (76th Street) on Wednesday.  Please call 646.505.4444 to make a reservation, or write me so we can hold a place for you. Tickets are only $15, and you get a glass of wine out of the deal too, if you choose.

The topic of bullying has been swept under the rug for too long. As Lee will tell us, it’s a problem we can solve, and must solve.

Like many of you, I gave thanks for our public schools and their teachers during American Education Week, which just ended. Now, during Thanksgiving week, I suggest we give thanks for our public libraries.

First of all, they’re everywhere: “If you have ever felt overwhelmed by the ubiquity of McDonald’s, this stat may make your day: There are more public libraries (about 17,000) in America than outposts of the burger mega-chain (about 14,000). The same is true of Starbucks (about 11,000 coffee shops nationally).”  So wrote Emily Badger in the Atlantic Cities back in June.   She adds that libraries serve 96.4% of the US population.  While that does not mean that nearly everyone uses a public library, they could if they wanted to.

Public libraries are aggressive because they have to be; they need people coming through their doors, and so they provide internet access, loans of DVDs and more, all with the endgame of promoting literacy.

The strategy of meeting the public’s needs seems to be working: Library membership and usage are up in most parts of the country, even though public financial support has been declining.  Here in New York City for example, circulation, participation in educational programs and the number of visitors are up by 45% on average, although funding from the City is down 18%, according to the Library’s President, Tony Marx.

New York’s public library system could be a national model for how to work with schools. NYPL main library and its branch libraries deliver books to about 600 of the city’s 1700{{1}} public schools, when requested by students and teachers.  The aim, Dr. Marx told me, is to supplement school libraries “…so that those libraries can also circulate from our 17 million books and better meet needs, rather than forcing students and teachers to rely only on the books they have in their own small collections.” His goal, he said, is to support school libraries and learning everywhere–and to give every child a (free) library card.

I have been a fan of libraries for a long time, probably because, when we were kids, our Mom was a regular patron of our local public library.{{2}}   In the Preface to The Influence of Teachers, I wrote:

Just a few years ago, libraries and schools were the places that stored knowledge—on microfiche, in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and in the heads of the adults in charge.  We had to go there to gain access to that knowledge.

Not any more.  Today knowledge and information are everywhere, 24/7, thanks to the Internet.  Unless libraries have been closed because of budget cuts, they have adapted to this new world.  Most have become multi-purpose centers with Internet access that distribute books, audio books and DVD’s.  Librarians encourage patrons to ask questions, because they need to keep the public coming through their doors.

By contrast, schools remain a monopoly, places where children are expected to answer questions, by filling in the bubbles or blanks and by speaking up when called upon.{{3}}

Those thoughts can be condensed into a bumper sticker: “People go to libraries to find answers to their own questions.  We make kids go to schools to answer someone else’s.” It’s not that simple, of course, because there are schools and teachers that insist on students taking control of their own education, and some teachers pose questions that they themselves do not know the answers to—and then enlist their students in figuring it out. {{4}}

But schools in general aren’t changing fast enough. It’s time to recognize that, because our children are growing up swimming in a sea of information, it’s incumbent upon adults to make certain that the institutions we force kids to attend are teaching them how to formulate questions, not merely regurgitate answers to the questions we pose. Meeting that challenge will require a sea change by the people in charge, and all the talk about ‘deeper learning,’ ‘blended learning’ and ‘flipped classrooms’ won’t amount to much if we don’t make that fundamental change.

The old saying, “If you can read this, thank a teacher,” still resonates. but I would add, “If you are a reader, you probably should thank a library.”

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah, everyone……

—-

[[1]]1. Dr. Marx said his goal is to provide that service to every public school within the next two years.[[1]]

[[2]]2. And one of my sisters ended up working there for many years.[[2]]

[[3]]3. Page 5. The book was published in 2011 and is available on Amazon.[[3]]

[[4]]4. For an example, watch this remarkable piece[[4]]

I write the songs that make the whole world sing.
I write the songs of love and special things.
I write the songs that make the young girls cry.
I write the songs, I write the songs.

No doubt that the Barry Manilow tune is now playing in the heads of most readers.{{1}}    But who “writes the songs” in the larger sense of the term?  Who and what determine how we look at the world, what you might call our ‘political narrative’?

We know this matters. Time and again research has shown the power of preconceptions over conclusions and decisions. If people are led to believe that a particular artist’s work is masterful or a certain composer’s music is sophisticated, that’s what most people are likely to see and hear.  When a teacher is told that her students have low potential, those kids somehow end up performing poorly; conversely, if the teacher is told the students are gifted, that’s how they do in class.  That’s the influence of the narrative.

What I find intriguing is the power of the current narrative about public education, which goes this way: “Effective teachers are the cornerstone of quality education, and, because so many of our public schools are failing today, it stands to reason that our schools must have a surfeit of ineffective teachers. Ergo, to reform education, we must drive out those bad teachers and replace them with quality teachers who will produce higher scores on standardized tests.”

Once one accepts that narrative, it makes sense to evaluate and fire teachers based on student test scores.  Accept that narrative, and it’s logical for the federal government to award millions of “Race to the Top” dollars to states which agree to evaluate teachers based on test scores.

When I wrote about the public narrative about education just three years ago, the two sides were engaged in a fierce battle, and the outcome was still in doubt.

“On one side in this battle is a cadre of prominent superintendents and wealthy hedge fund managers.  Led {{2}} by former New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee, 15 leading school superintendents issued a 1379-word manifesto in October 2010 asserting that the difficulty of removing incompetent teachers ‘has left our school districts impotent and, worse, has robbed millions of children of a real future.’

This side believes in charter schools, Teach for America, and paying teachers based on their students’ test scores.  Publicly pushing this ‘free market’ line is a powerful trio: Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for ‘Superman’ movie; NBC’s semi-journalistic exercise, Education Nation; and Oprah Winfrey.  And if one movie isn’t enough, this side also has The Lottery in the wings.

It has identified the villains: bad teachers and the evil unions that protect them, particularly Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers.

The other side is clearly outnumbered: The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, the two teacher unions; many teachers and some Democrats.  Its villains are No Child Left Behind and its narrow focus on bubble test scores in reading and math. This side’s far weaker megaphone is wielded by historian Diane Ravitch, a former Bush education policy-maker turned apostate.{{3}}

No longer. Now those in what I named the “Better People” camp rule. Their view has become the lens the world is viewed through, ‘the new normal.’ Of course, teachers will be judged{{4}} by their students’ test scores–and perhaps fired if scores aren’t high enough.  It’s ‘the new normal’ to accept that we are losing the education race to most of the rest of the world. It’s ‘the new normal’ to set a ‘college for everyone’ goal. And it’s ‘the new normal’ to support universal early childhood education, even if that means school-like conditions for three- and four-year olds.

Diane Ravitch argues in “Reign of Error” that our schools are not failing, and I don’t intend to repeat her arguments here.

What I am interested in are the consequences of accepting this narrative. Of course, it makes life simpler, even black-and-white. Unfortunately, the current narrative has, from my perspective, at least SIX negative consequences.

1) MORE TESTING.  I’ve given up trying to count how many days are given over either to testing or to test-prep in what are called ‘the testing grades.’  Standardized testing used to begin in third grade, but now we are seeing the downward push for testing in second and even first grades. And while I hate giving free publicity to anyone who’s seeking to make money from our testing obsession, I have to provide at least one example of wretched excess, so here it is: http://www.ixl.com/math/pre-k Some teachers have developed practice tests for kindergarteners, to get them ready for their future.

2) TEACHERS BEING JUDGED BY SCORES OF STUDENTS THEY DO NOT TEACH.  That’s right. It’s now possible for a teacher to be rated based on the test results of kids she or he has never seen, let alone taught!  There’s no standardized testing regimen for physical education, music and other ‘fringe’ subjects, but ‘fairness’ demands that all teachers be judged by test scores…and so that’s happening.  The alternative, by this logic, is to create standardized tests for those subjects–and that’s happening too.  The adjective ‘Kafkaesque’ comes to mind.

3). A NARROWER FOCUS. The ‘narrowing’ of the curriculum to emphasize the tested subjects has been going on for some time now. Equally disturbing is the concentration on ‘on the bubble’ students who are close to meeting the standard that will keep their school from being disciplined.  Those two steps make school less interesting for everyone, but particularly for gifted students, who, because they are already certain to meet the (low) benchmark, don’t get the stimulation that their giftedness requires.

4) MORE ANSWERS, LESS INQUIRY.  Bubble tests are blunt instruments that require correct answers and little else.  But true learning is messy, uneven and often quite sophisticated.  Getting things wrong–failure–is a large part of genuine education, but the value of making mistakes and learning from them is what today’s narrative does not recognize.  The disease of perfectionism is contagious and insidious.  The admissions committees of some elective colleges eliminate candidates who earned a C in one subject in 9th grade. And why not? They have thousands of applicants with straight A’s all through high school!  Parents hover, ready to complain—or even sue–if their child gets a low grade.  In some classes students who dare to say ‘I don’t understand’ or ‘I don’t know’ are mocked by their classmates (even though they themselves are equally uncertain).

The focus on getting the right answer at all costs–as opposed to asking questions and learning to cope with ambiguity–is an especially dangerous outcome today, because our kids swim in the Internet’s 24-hour sea of information and data.  But ‘information’ can be partial, misleading or wrong. Because not all information is true, young people need to develop the skills that enable them to sift through the flood of information and separate truth from half-truth and falsehood.  They need to be, in the jargon, ‘critical thinkers,’ but the best way to develop those ‘habits of mind’{{5}} is through trial-and-error.  They learn from making mistakes–preferably in the ‘safe’ environment of a classroom.

Our test-score-driven system is, inevitably, an answer-driven system.  Students are rewarded for regurgitating the correct answers.  Teachers encourage that because their livelihoods depend on enough students getting enough correct answers. Some parents encourage it because they want their children to qualify for a top college.

5) “TEACH ME, OR YOU’LL GET FIRED”  That’s what some high school students told their teachers in Washington, DC, a few years ago, according to those teachers.  I have since heard similar tales from other teachers. These are examples of a system turned upside down.  Apparently those students have absorbed the narrative–it’s all about the teacher–and interpreted it to mean that, while they have no responsibilities, they do possess the power to get people fired. All they have to do is flunk.

6) MORE CHEATING. You know these awful stories: Atlanta, Georgia; Columbus, Ohio; Austin, Texas; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland, Washington, DC.  And on and on…..

Not everyone accepts the narrative, of course.  Paul Tough has written convincingly about the importance of ‘grit,’ a quality that some value above straight A’s on a report card. Some politicians–California’s Jerry Brown comes to mind–want to limit the frequency and number of standardized tests.  A few hundred public schools are actually led by teachers, and in those schools testing counts for less. Hundreds of school boards in Texas have taken a stand against excessive high stakes testing, and last year some teachers in Seattle flat out refused to administer one standardized test they found to be egregiously irrelevant.  Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers and others have called for a moratorium on high stakes testing to judge teachers while the new Common Core National Standards are rolled out, on the assumption (thus far correct) that the new tests will result in lower scores.

How can the narrative be changed?  One crucial step is to identify those who benefit from the current one.  That means following the money.  Are there significant interests who actually benefit from failure?  They need to be called out.

A second step is to persuade those on the sidelines that their long-term interests are being damaged by the current narrative.  And since 75-80% of households do not have school-age children, that’s a big group.  Those folks need to understand that answer-based (“regurgitation”) education is not keeping America competitive.  They need to know that using high-stakes testing to hold teachers ‘accountable’ is a not a proven strategy but a gamble that could do lasting harm to public education.

The third step is peace talks.  This suggestion comes out of a conversation I had with Kent McGuire of the Southern Education Fund and Jerry Weast, the former Superintendent of Schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, recently.{{6}} Weast and McGuire believe that it is in the best interests of warring parties to come to the table, because, even though they disagree bitterly on a raft of ‘adult’ issues, they have a common enemy, failure.

Nobody wants our children to fail. Weast and McGuire believe that should be enough to bring people together.

Peace talks wouldn’t be easy. The warring parties would have to agree on a definition of ‘success,’ for one thing.  For that to happen, they would first have to agree to focus exclusively on young people.  Discard everything else….tenure, evaluating teachers, class size, pay scales, merit pay and all the other adult issues.

The unions, the school boards, the charter school folks, the schools of education, the superintendents, the state leaders, Teach for America, and everyone else would have to agree to decide what ‘success’ in education means.

One rule for a successful marriage is to fight only about the thing you are fighting about. No fair bringing up the mother-in-law or the no-good drunk of a brother-in-law.  And no fair bringing up the fight you had last month either.

To change the narrative, we must decide what we want our young people to be able to do and become once they leave school.  And we must keep arguing about that–and only that–until some resolution is reached. Having that argument would certainly be a better use of our energy than the demonizing ‘blame game’ that is now going on.

The complex definition of success that would emerge could become the new narrative.  I think it’s time for a new song.  Who’s ready and willing to help write it?

—–

[[1]]1. And it’s probably going to keep on playing in your head for the rest of the work day. Sorry about that. By the way, Barry Manilow did not write the song. Bruce Johnson did![[1]]

[[2]]2. If I were writing that paragraph today, I would add names: Paul Tudor Jones and the Robin Hood Foundation, Whitney Tilson and other hedge fund powerhouses, Tim Daly and others at The New Teacher Project, and some major foundations, and others.[[2]]

[[3]]3. The Influence of Teachers (Page 6)[[3]]

[[4]]4. The distinguished emeritus UCLA professor James Popham laid out very clearly why standardized test scores are not adequate for judging students, let alone teachers, in this well-argued piece from 1999.[[4]]

[[5]]5. The great Deborah Meier’s wonderful phrase[[5]]

[[6]]6. The occasion was a Board meeting of the Institute for Educational Leadership in Washington, DC, whose Board I have just joined. IEL will be observing its 50th Anniversary next year.  While I am new to the Board, IEL was my first non-teaching job, after I finished graduate school, back in the fall of 1973.[[6]]

Dear Friends and readers,

First the news, then a request.

A lot of our attention these days is focused on the debut on Netflix of our film, “Rebirth,” which covers the reconstruction of public education in New Orleans since Katrina and the flooding in 2005.  We hope you will take a look at this compelling story, one that has lessons for the rest of the country. (But perhaps not the lessons you are expecting.)

Here’s the basic information:

Netflix: This is the easiest way to watch the film. You have your choice of NINE languages, by the way.

Learning Matters Shop: If, on the other hand, you want more than an hour, then the DVD is what you need. It includes quite a few scenes that almost made the film. Some of this material is also available on our website.  You may purchase it from us directly, or you may head for Amazon.

Livestream Video: Recently I sat down with John Tulenko, my colleague, to answer his questions about the film. I hadn’t expected to be grilled, but I discovered that JT doesn’t believe in softball questions.

Next week our report on the arts in public schools should air on the NewsHour.

Finally, the request:  I had a 90-minute conversation with the editors of US Catholic Magazine today about No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, charter schools, teacher training, pre-school and on and on.

At one point we played “If you were Arne Duncan, what would you do?”   It’s a popular parlor game for people like me–and perhaps you.  I’m curious to know what you would do–and hope you will post your thoughts.  Some of you will say “I’d resign,” but I hope most of you will take this more seriously. (The Secretary told me that he reads the blog, by the way).

My response was,”I would get the federal government out of the ‘teacher accountability’ business completely because that is simply not Washington’s business. Holding teachers accountable is the responsibility of principals, districts, state policymakers, other teachers and parents. It’s simply not in Washington’s power, interest or capability.”

Your thoughts?

Fall brings the World Series, lots of football games, and–it would seem–almost as many reports on education. Here’s my summary of four recent studies, with close analysis of the most controversial, a study of Michelle Rhee’s IMPACT program in Washington, DC.

These reports claim 1) The teaching force is more qualified than it was 20 years ago;  2) The nation is getting tough on teachers and teacher education; 3) The skill levels of many American adults leaves a lot to be desired; and 4) Getting tough on teachers works.  With your permission, I will attempt to unravel these threads and, let’s hope, find a common meaning.

1. The teaching force seems to be more qualified academically. The average SAT score of new teachers climbed 8 percentage points between 1993 and 2008. That’s the takeaway from a new study from researchers Daniel Goldhaber and Joe Walch of the University of Washington, published in the magazine Education Next.  This is surprising{{1}} news, given the rash of criticism of teachers and teacher training, including the slam from the National Council on Teacher Quality (controversial rankings) and a tough op-ed by Bill Keller in New York Times.  He called teacher training programs “an industry of mediocrity,” a fairly typical example of the lack of respect shown schools of education.

2. Consistent with the rash of criticism of teachers, a public policy has emerged.  35 states now tie teacher evaluations and tenure decisions to student test scores. That’s the big takeaway from the National Council on Teacher Quality’s “state of the states” report. This follows a prior overview by the same organization in 2011. Thirty-five states are now tying teacher evaluations — and tenure decisions — to student test scores. NCTQ wants more of this.  “Get tough on teachers” is a pretty common mantra these days.

3. But it’s not just today’s students that (apparently) are being failed by their teachers. American adults aren’t doing all that well either. Should we blame their teachers? In math, reading and problem-solving using technology, American adults scored below the international average on a global test called PIAAC and released by OECD.{{2}}  (OECD Survey of Adult Skills)   In fact, nearly three out of 10 American adults (28.7%) perform at or below the most basic level of numeracy, compared to around one in ten in Japan (8.2%), Finland (12.8%) and the Czech Republic (12.8%).  We ranked below Italy (31.7%) and Spain (30.6%).  The study covered 20 countries and tested 166,000 people between the ages of 16 and 65.  These skills are, of course, widely considered to be essential for America’s economic strength and global competitiveness.

In other words, whatever’s wrong now has been wrong for a while.  The Associated Press has a good summary of the PIAAC report here.

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a statement saying that the country needs better ways for adults to upgrade their skills. Otherwise, he said, “No matter how hard they work, these adults will be stuck, unable to support their families and contribute fully to our country.”

While that’s undoubtedly correct, my reaction is different.  I think the data indicate that most of what we have been doing in the name of school reform for the past 30 years has been off-target–and perhaps misguided.  I say that because the PIAAC data reveal how much social background matters, and how little difference schooling seems to make.  In the PIAAC study, for example, those whose parents were college-educated did better in both reading and math than those whose parents did not complete high school.   Here in the US we talk about ‘the achievement gap,’ ignoring the fact that social class, parental income and parental education–not ‘teacher quality’–are the chief determinants of that gap.{{3}}  And what we are doing in schools is, by and large, not closing the gap.

This is not to say that schools don’t matter or that education cannot change lives.  What happens in classrooms matters, which suggests to me that we ought to re-examine what we are doing.

4. “Getting tough” on teachers works, or maybe it doesn’t. That’s the takeaway from a study by professors from Stanford and the University of Virginia, who asked whether IMPACT, {{4}}Michelle Rhee’s controversial teacher rating system, was having an impact.

NCTQ was, predictably, enthusiastic: “Yes, says a new study released today. Incentives, Selection, and Teacher Performance: Evidence from IMPACT, by James Wyckoff and Thomas Dee found that the IMPACT evaluation system implemented by Michelle Rhee during her tenure as DCPS Chancellor is indeed raising the performance of teachers.”

Current DC Chancellor Kaya Henderson also hailed the research as evidence that IMPACT is working. “We’re actually radically improving the caliber of our teaching force,” Henderson told The Washington Post’s Emma Brown.

Professors Wycoff and Dee report that low-rated teachers were more likely to resign and that highly-rated teachers were more likely to work harder to try to win the financial rewards the system promises.  In other words, it’s a win-win: the (supposedly) bad teachers left, and the (supposedly) good teachers got better IMPACT ratings and a bonus.

However, the study itself is full of caveats, such as “A notable external-validity caveat is that the workforce dynamics due to IMPACT may be relatively unique to urban areas like DC where the effective supply of qualified teachers is comparatively high.”{{5}}

And the study conspicuously does not say whether student performance improved, only that IMPACT ratings did. {{6}}

Mary Levy, a thoughtful analyst who is often asked to testify before the City Council on education matters, believes that the report is “highly misleading,” adding that “The report was worded carefully to avoid stating explicitly any assumption that the ratings system is valid.”  Or as analyst Bruce Baker put it, “Put simply, what this study says is that if we take a group of otherwise similar teachers, and randomly label some as ‘ok’ and tell others they suck and their jobs are on the line, the latter group is more likely to seek employment elsewhere. No big revelation there and certainly no evidence that DC IMPACT ‘works.’”

Ms. Levy has done a deep dive into the data, and her analysis reveals what the researchers apparently ignored: the impact of social class and income.  Through this lens, IMPACT emerges as deeply flawed.{{8}}

Below is the distribution of ‘highly effective’ teachers in Washington.  You need to know that Ward 3 is Washington’s wealthiest region by far, populated by upper middle class families. Only 23% of students in Ward 3 schools {{9}} are low-income.  By contrast, Ward 8 is one of the poorest parts of the city; 88% of students in Ward 8 schools are low-income.

Now look at the teacher effectiveness ratings. 41% of teachers in Ward 3 were rated ‘highly effective,’ while only 9% of Ward 8’s teachers made the grade.  Ward 3 had one ‘highly effective’ teacher for every 35 students, while the ratio in Ward 8 was 1:145.

The city is also roughly divided by Rock Creek Park and the Anacostia River. Upper income families are far more likely to live West of the Park, and 44% of teachers West of the Park were ‘highly effective.’  East of the River, where 87% of students are low income,  only 10% of teachers earned that distinction.  Just 23% of students who go to schools West of the Park are low income.  The correlation is pretty obvious, and while correlation is not causality, the implications are tough to ignore: If you want to be a highly effective teacher in Washington, choose your students carefully! On the other hand, if you want to increase the chances of losing your job, teach poor kids.

DCPS:  Distribution of Highly Effective Teachers {{10}}

Now let’s come full circle. What this study confirms are the findings of the PIAAC study of adults: when it comes to schooling, social and economic status are the greatest determinant of educational outcomes.

It doesn’t have to be that way, because schools and teachers can make a difference.  But when the system is narrowly focused on scores on bubble tests–as ours is–and on holding teachers ‘accountable’ for results–as we increasingly do–all bets are off.

—

[[1]]1. Some have predicted that the growth of high-stakes testing would drive competent college students away from teaching. That has not happened, the report says.  “We find that new teachers in high-stakes classrooms tend to have higher SAT scores than those in other classrooms, and that the differential in teachers’ SAT scores between the two classroom types grew by about 6 SAT percentile points between 1993 and 2008. Test-based accountability greatly increased after the 2001 passage of NCLB, but we see no evidence that more academically proficient teachers entering the workforce in the year immediately following graduation are shying away from (or at least are not being assigned to) high-stakes classrooms.”[[1]]

[[2]]2. PISA stands for Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. OECD is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.[[2]]

[[3]]3. It doesn’t have to be this way, of course, but as long as we remain obsessed with test scores, efforts to ‘close the gap’ will fail.  I think we may see more protests against standardized testing this school year, following last year’s refusal by some Seattle teachers to administer a test.  California seems to be the epicenter of concern and action.  Its efforts to eliminate some tests required under No Child Left Behind have produced a stern warning: it could lose as much as $15 million in federal education aid if it fails to toe the line.  John Fensterwald of EdSource has a good summary here. [[3]]

[[4]]4. Under IMPACT, which Rhee put into effect during her second year, teachers are rated on a 1-4 scale, with student test scores counting for half the rating, and observations by trained specialists from the central office counting for most of the rest of the score.  Get a ‘1’ and you’re fired, whether tenured or not.  Rhee’s successor changed the system slightly, and now student scores count for just 35%.  The flaw in this approach, as most veteran teachers know, is that teachers switch to the special “demonstration lesson” that they keep handy to impress observers.  This is often done with the knowledge and complicity of the students, I’m told.  Over the years, I have observed enough observations to be convinced of the unreliability of the approach.[[4]]

[[5]]5. This prose is worse than the usual education-speak because it’s also bad grammar: Nothing can be ‘’relatively unique.’ Just as the female of a species cannot be ‘a little bit pregnant,’ there are no degrees of uniqueness. A thing is unique–or it is not.[[5]]

[[6]]6. I asked Thomas Dee, a co-author, for more information, and he graciously replied as follows: “I think the “plain English” takeaway from our study is something like: The incentives embedded within IMPACT improved teacher performance and encouraged the voluntary attrition of low-performing teachers.

I’m seeing at least two issues about this takeaway that seem confused in the public discussion so far.

(1) A somewhat subtle issue of interpretation that seems invariably to get muddled in the broader public discussion is that we have estimated “the overall effect of IMPACT.” It’s not really possible to do that given that IMPACT went to scale district-wide and at once (it’s an experiment with a sample size of just 1!).

Our inferences are instead based on comparing the outcomes of teachers close to the rating thresholds (i.e., those with big, plausibly experimental incentive contrasts). There are at least two reasons this comparison differs from the “overall effect of IMPACT.” One is that all of these teachers are subject to IMPACT so any shared effects of this policy regime are washed out. Second, our inferences leverage only those teachers whose initial ratings placed them “close” to these thresholds. So, we can’t rule out the hypothesis that teachers who are consistently average in their measured performance perceive neither a threat of dismissal nor the lure of performance bonuses (i.e. IMPACT may have no effect on them). Interestingly, the recent redesign of IMPACT’s performance band appears designed to target the thick band of “effective” teachers.

Anyway, this interpretative issue (overall effects of a policy vs. effects of incentive contrasts within a policy) may simply be “inside baseball” for academic researchers like me. We try to be exacting in terms of what inferences we are making and we discuss this sort of issue all the time!

From a broader perspective, our results are strongly consistent with the logic model advocated by IMPACT’s proponents (i.e., these types of incentives coupled with the other design features and supports driving teacher performance and positive selection into the workforce). And this study has the imprimatur of credible causal inference (RD designs are coupled with RCTs in terms of the highest evidentiary standards in the What Works Clearinghouse). So, I think the reactions from Henderson, NCTQ, etc. are understandable.

(2) A second misunderstanding I’ve observed (possibly going back to Emma’s WaPo article) is that the study says nothing about achievement. In fact, we find effects on IVA for minimally effective teachers and effects among highly effective Group 2 teachers on their more flexibly designed achievement measure (TAS). Moreover, the results of the MET Project suggest that multiple measures (i.e., like those in IMPACT) are better at predicting future student performance than test scores alone. So, this meme seems off base to me.

I also asked Professor Dee, some other questions about the study, which he recalled began in 2011. “For most of this time, we had no external funding; no financial support (or in-kind) transfers from DCPS. We recently received a small grant from the Carnegie Corporation of NY to support this work and we’re currently seeking other research grants for further studies.”[[6]]

[[8]]8. And potentially dangerous–if it encourages other efforts to use test scores as the chief determinant of teacher effectiveness.[[8]]

[[9]]9. Mary Levy added, “Almost none of the students in Ward 3 schools who are low income live in Ward 3.”  A few schools West of the Park, including Wilson High School,  draw students from outside Ward 3.[[9]]

[[10]]10. Data provided by Mary Levy[[10]]

I have just returned from Tokyo, where I had the honor of being the American judge for The Japan Prize. While I was away, “Rebirth: New Orleans” began live-streaming on Netflix, and I hope it’s in your queue–or that you have already watched the 1-hour film. It’s based on 6 ½ years of filming, and so the DVD, now available on the Learning Matters website, includes a lot more footage that you wonks will want to watch.

The folks in the Learning Matters office have decided to webcast a live-streamed conversation between John Tulenko and me on Monday, October 28th at 4PM Eastern. John will be asking the questions, yours and his own, and so I hope you will join us or submit your questions directly.

We would love to have your participation:
a) Tune in on Monday, October 28 at 4pm.
b) Spread the word with your network.
c) Submit any questions you or others may have about the film!

The Livestream event page

Watch REBIRTH: New Orleans on Netflix

There’s a lot more news, of course: international data, more controversy about the Common Core Standards and the like. I will weigh on next week, in case anyone is interested.

What to make of “Education Nation,” which took over the magnificent New York Public Library for two days earlier this week and focused a great deal of national attention on a topic most of us care about?   In all, Education Nation consisted of 29 separate segments{{1}}, generally organized around the theme “What It Takes.”  I made it to 15 in person{{2}} and watched three more online.

If you are doing the math, you’ve figured out that cramming all those sessions into two days means they had to be short because this was an event made for television and the web.  And from what I saw online, it worked very well.

Education Nation has come a long way since the first one in 2010, which old NBC hands remember as “Evacuation Nation,” because a torrential downpour and windstorm forced everyone to flee Rockefeller Center for the halls of NBC’s headquarters.

These two days had some highlights and surprises.  I thought at least two stars emerged: Delaware Governor Jack Markell, who spoke forcefully about the importance of early education, and Joshua Starr, the Superintendent of Schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, who argued persuasively for multiple measures to assess both students and teachers.

The best sessions involved some give-and-take among opposing views. In one entitled “A Reality Check on Testing,” Randi Weingarten of the AFT, former Louisiana State Superintendent Paul Pastorek, New York Chancellor Dennis Walcott and the aforementioned Josh Starr disagreed, often eloquently. It helped that the session was skillfully moderated by Rehema Ellis, NBC’s reliable Chief Education Correspondent.  Weingarten told the audience about a new study of test prep (.pdf), contrasting how much time two different districts devote to getting their kids ready to take standardized tests.  Some in the audience gasped when she presented the figures: In one district, students in grades 6-11 spent 100 or more hours on test prep, the equivalent of nearly one month of school. In another district, students in grades 3-8 spent 80 hours on test prep, the equivalent of 16 days of school.  But that was the last time that issue surfaced, unfortunately.

Some sessions were content-rich, particularly the presentation by Professor Caroline Hoxby of Stanford about “Opportunity, Meritocracy and Access to Higher Education.”

She taught what Education Nation called–appropriately–a “Master Class” that showed just how many talented but poor kids fall through the cracks–and what can be done about it.

However, that was as close as Education Nation came to confronting the elephant in the room, poverty.  The disgraceful fact that nearly a quarter of American children are growing up poor simply wasn’t on the agenda, although Marian Wright Edelman, Freeman Hrabowski and John Deasy, the Los Angeles Superintendent, raised the issue during their panels.

Instead, Education Nation focused on getting parents involved, using technology to improve learning, urging students to live healthier lives, and praising students who had overcome their difficult circumstances.  It struck me as a bit like praising people for getting out of a burning building–but not calling the fire department.

In truth, many of the sessions were closer to show-and-tell infomercials than to probing journalism.  The worst offender was “Personalized Learning,” where four panelists{{3}} sang the praises of technology with nary a dissenting word or hint of skepticism.

The tone of “Education Nation” was generally pretty chummy, with very little wave-making. For example, I thought the usually reliable Brian Williams let former Florida Governor Jeb Bush off the hook in their one-on-one conversation. He began with a tough question: “Do we test our kids too much?”  Mr. Bush acted as if he had been asked “Do we need testing?” and went into a polished riff about how “you can’t become a doctor without taking tests, and you can’t get in the military without taking and passing tests,” and so on.  His “life is tough, so stop whining” routine plays well with crowds, but that was not what Brian Williams asked, and I wished he had insisted that the former Governor answer the original question.   Governor Bush also boasted about his state’s approach to high-stakes testing, the FCAT, which has been riddled with problems, and closed with a gratuitous slam on teacher unions.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan got kid gloves treatment from Matt Lauer when he appeared via satellite, so I guess that was the event’s M.O.

Four authors{{4}} participated in the 2-day event, but not Diane Ravitch, whose book, “Reign of Error,” may be outselling the other four books combined.  Her absence infuriated her supporters even more when they realized that one of the authors at Education Nation was a Hollywood screenwriter/film producer and another a first-time author.

Why wasn’t Dr. Ravitch there?  That depends on whom you ask.  A spokesman for Education Nation said that she was sent the general invitation asking her to hold the dates because, he said, “We had her here last year and wanted her here again.”  Later, he said, they asked her to be on a panel, and she declined.

I emailed Diane for her side of the story and got back this explanation:

I received an invitation to sit in the audience.

I received a second invitation to sit in the audience.

Then the list of speakers and panelists was published.

I was not invited.

I heard that many people complained–not me–that I was not invited.

Three days after the list of speakers was announced, I got a call from a producer asking if I would serve on a panel where they had an opening.

I said that they had already published their A list and I wasn’t on it. I don’t like the idea of being an afterthought. I also found it offensive that their A list was heavily weighted with CEOs and right wing governors.

I said no thank you.

So it is true that I was not invited. And true that when they reacted to pressure and invited me, I turned them down.

Here’s the irony: The media room distributed a 5-page fact sheet (.pdf) about the state of American education, including these bold points:

HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION RATES ARE AT THEIR HIGHEST LEVEL IN 40 YEARS.
HIGH SCHOOL COMPLETION AMONG MINORITY GROUPS HAS IMPROVED DRAMATICALLY.
NUMBER OF STUDENTS ATTENDING COLLEGE CONTINUES TO INCREASE.
U.S. RANKING FOR COLLEGE COMPLETION CONTINUES TO IMPROVE.

Where else could you find that kind of positive information?  (Answer: “Reign of Error”)

Wouldn’t it have been valuable to debate whether these improvements are occurring because of the accountability movement–or in spite of it?  And who better to argue one side of that than Dr. Ravitch?

Many accuse “Education Nation” of tilting to the right and blame Pearson, Exxon-Mobil and the University of Phoenix, three of its five lead sponsors.  That’s not my problem.  My issue with the enterprise is that its tone is almost relentlessly positive, focusing on ‘What It Takes’ but then failing to ask tough follow-up questions like ‘What Stands in the Way?’ or ‘Who Benefits from Failure?’ or any other questions whose answers might afflict the comfortable.

Because Education Nation is purporting to show America that we know ‘What It Takes’ to succeed, then someone must ask logical follow up questions like ‘Why Aren’t We Doing It?’

But, that criticism aside, NBC deserves great praise for the venture, which is, after all, a work in progress. More than any other education conference, Education Nation has the potential to move the needle.  The event has become education’s Super Bowl, which is why I’m already looking forward to attending “Education Nation V” next year.{{5}}

—-

[[1]] 1. Plus three Innovation Competition segments and a bunch of breaks.[[1]]

[[2]] 2. I was part of the final event, a gaggle of journalists ably moderated by Chelsea Clinton.  The panel (Jane Williams, Andy Rotherham, and Rehema Ellis were the other three) was a last-minute addition when the government shutdown prevented the First Lady from making a ‘surprise’ appearance.[[2]]

[[3]]3. Joel Klein of Amplify, Jose Ferreira of Knewton, Diane Tavenner of Summit (Charter) Public Schools and Joel Rose of New Classrooms Innovation Partners.[[3]]

[[4]]4. Amanda Ripley (The Smartest Kids in the World), Anne Henderson (Beyond the Bake Sale), Alison Stewart (First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America’s First Black Public High School) and M. Night Shyamalan (I Got Schooled).[[4]]

[[5]]5. If I am invited……[[5]]

How do we–the collective we–feel about teachers? The granddaddy of all surveys about public education is The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher. It established the brand in 1984 and has, to this observer anyway, become better,deeper and more nuanced over time. {{1}}

There are other education surveys, of course.{{2}} The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic produce an important survey of 40,000 US teachers they call “Primary Sources.”

And every year Gallup and Phi Delta Kappa survey registered US voters on their attitudes toward public education.

Surveys can be misleading or wrong; much depends on the quality of the process, the reliability of the sample and the way the questions are phrased, but, that said, it’s worth surveying the surveys, especially now that there’s a new kid in town, an international (21 countries) survey of public attitudes toward teachers and teaching [.pdf].

The Varkey GEMS{{3}} Foundation reports that it surveyed 1000 representative adults in each of 21 countries{{4}} including the United States. A major conclusion drawn by the Foundation, which is based in the United Kingdom, is that teaching is not held in high enough esteem. “Unless teaching is valued culturally, then the incentive of better pay will not be enough,” the introduction notes, adding: “There are many fictional representations of heroic doctors saving lives on television — from Grey’s Anatomy to ER and House — but hardly any equivalent stories of teachers turning lives around. Every year International Nurses’ Day is celebrated in the UK with a service in Westminster Abbey. President Reagan introduced National Nurses’ Day in the US, which is an opportunity for the media to highlight the achievements of nurses. However, the equivalent in education, World Teachers’ Day, is mostly ignored. We need to think harder, push further, and dream bigger, if we are to find ways of truly celebrating the ‘noble’ profession.”

But the finding that jumps off the page is the overwhelming support for pay-for-performance.

If you don’t have time to go through the document, I offer this review of the highlights regarding teacher status, pay and respect; the role of unions; and that always-interesting question, “Would you want your child to become a teacher?”

STATUS: Teaching ranked 7th of 14 professions across the 21 nations, highest in China, where teachers are most often likened to doctors, and lowest in Israel. In the US, teachers are seen as culturally similar to librarians. These findings struck Andreas Schleicher, the guiding light behind PISA, as questionable because, as he notes in his lukewarm introduction to the survey, Finland ranked 13th {{5}} in public status, while Greece ranked 2nd despite its poor academic performance on PISA. In fact, public status was often inversely correlated with academic performance. Go figure. (See Fig. 11 [.pdf])

TRUST: As the PDK/Gallup survey also reported, teachers are generally trusted. Across the 21 countries, the average “trust” score for teachers was 6.3 out of 10, and no country scored below 5. Finland and Brazil score highest in this category, while Israel, South Korea, Egypt and Japan are the least trusting of teachers.

PAY: Respondents in most countries think teachers should be paid more, but many adults have no clue about how much they actually earn. Respondents in the US are a great example. They think that teachers make about $36,000 a year but believe they should paid about $40,000. However, the true average salary, the study says, is $46,000. This falls in the category of “If they only knew…..”

PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE: In a section that is unrelated to the actual survey, the Varkey GEMS report links PISA scores and teacher pay, and reports that there is little or no correlation between the two. In other words, right now most teachers are not paid according to their students’ performance. That sets up what follows.

The report poses a question: “Should teachers be rewarded in pay according to their pupils’ results?” That elicited an overwhelmingly positive answer in every country. The US was one of eight countries where 80% of respondents said “Yes.{{6}} That’s higher than I’ve seen in other surveys, but, if the question was actually phrased that way without any discussion of the complexities of the issue, how else could it have turned out?

Scroll down to the bottom, and you can read the actual questions. Here’s how the “Pay for Performance” approval numbers were produced, not by a direct question but by this list.

Q11 To what extent do you agree or disagree with each of
the following statements?
A. Being an effective teacher requires rigorous training
B. It is too easy to become a teacher
C. The quality of teachers is too variable
D. Pupils respect teachers
E. The teachers in my children’s school are respected
by their pupils
F. Teachers work hard
G. Teachers should be rewarded in pay according to
their pupils’ results
H. Teachers should be rewarded in pay for the effort
they put into their job

Unfortunately the survey does not report how the public feels about pay for effort, or whether people believe that teachers work hard. And wouldn’t you like to know if most people feel it’s too easy to become a teacher?

UNIONS: Do unions have too much influence? The results are mixed, but the interpretation is fascinating. Here’s the relevant passage: “Interestingly, some of the countries with the most recent history of teacher union unrest and direct action, such as Japan, Greece, France and the US, have the highest proportions of people who think teacher unions have too much influence. In contrast, the Czech Republic, China, Egypt and Turkey have the lowest number of people who suggest that teachers unions have too much influence. It is also these countries where teacher unions have played a less important political role.”

They seem to be telling us “The less people know about teacher unions, the more they like them.” And its converse: ”The more they know about unions, the less they like them.” I wonder whether that passage reveals more about the survey’s funders and designers than about the survey results.

To me, the money questions are the personal ones, such as “Would you want your child to be a public school teacher?” According to the survey, only ⅓ of US respondents would ‘probably encourage’ or ‘definitely encourage’ their child to become a teacher. Still, that’s higher than in 14 other countries. At the bottom are Israel, Portugal and Japan, but supposedly only 20% of Finnish adults would encourage their child to teach. Parents in China, South Korea, Turkey and Egypt are most likely to give encouragement to children to become teachers.

Surveys like this one are broad-brush at best. As for this particular study, I am reluctant to place much trust in its conclusions, because I suspect the folks in charge began with some biases about teacher pay and the role of unions.

The nitty-gritty requires a fine-tuned instrument. I want to know whether the chef eats in his or her own restaurant. Do teachers and administrators enroll their own children{{7}} in the schools they work in? If the answers are in the negative, then I would choose another restaurant for my family and would want my grandchildren in some other school.

—–
[[1]]1. I learned recently that the parent company, Met Life, is seriously contemplating abandoning the survey. I hope that’s not true because it really has branded Met Life as a serious and socially-concerned company.[[1]]

[[2]]2. When the US government reopens for business, go here. ‎[[2]]

[[3]]3. Varkey GEMS seem to have some skin in the game. From the company website: “GEMS Education is the largest kindergarten to grade 12 private education provider in the world.” and “GEMS Education is an international K-12 education company that owns and operates high performing schools. It also offers consulting services to both the public and private sectors. For over 50 years, GEMS Education has provided high quality education to hundreds of thousands of children around the world.
GEMS has a global network of award winning schools which provide high quality holistic education to more than 142,000 students from 151 countries. It employs over 11,000 education professionals, specialists and staff. GEMS has a world class leadership team that combines business and education expertise from around the globe.
The GEMS Education school model is unique in the world because it offers a broad range of curricula across a range of tuition fees making private education more accessible to the broader community. GEMS Education also supports Governments’ education reform agenda by working with Ministries of Education to lift school performance and improve the standards and expertise in government schools across the globe.”[[3]]

[[4]]4. This was not the normal face-to-face or telephone survey but instead a computer-based process. That process was cheaper and more efficient (only 4 weeks), the survey report explains.[[4]]

[[5]]5. Every other report I have come across says that teachers and teaching in Finland are highly respected.[[5]]

[[6]]6. In Egypt the figure was over 90%, while in Israel, China, Brazil and New Zealand the figure was over 80%. The Czech Republic and Finland hit an even 80%. Portugal and Turkey were in the high 70s.[[6]]

[[7]]7. I just returned from a school where virtually all the teachers with school-age children enroll their children there. Watch for it on the NewsHour soon.[[7]]