Given A Choice…

November 4, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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Given the choice, would you rather be productive or happy? I remember posing that question to six high school students from independent schools in and around New York City, 15 or so years ago. To a boy and girl, all said they would rather be happy. Being a New Englander to the core, I was surprised, even shocked. In the conversation that followed, I argued that the main road to happiness went through productivity. I don’t think I convinced any of the kids.

What’s your answer?

Here’s another forced choice: Which is of greater importance, the quality of the teacher or the work that students are expected to do? And while you ponder that, let me go back to the first question, because I now believe I know why those young people answered the way they did.

Frank McCourt had an idea about the true purposes of schooling from his days at Stuyvesant.

They didn’t choose ‘happiness’ because they were spoiled and overprivileged (although some were). Nor did they opt for ‘happiness’ because of their youth. Rather, I think they simply weren’t capable of understanding the question because their life experience — especially their schooling — hadn’t allowed them to experience the joys of being productive. I was asking them to choose between something they knew, happiness, and something that was foreign to them, and so of course they went with the known concept.

In the vast majority of schools, including theirs, students don’t experience the hard, often painful but ultimately satisfying work of creating real products; instead they most often give back to their teachers the answers that are expected. That’s what’s rewarded, and kids are smart enough to get with the program. They have been taught to follow the that road leads to a better college, a better job, and a comfortable existence.

When I interviewed Frank McCourt, the author of Angela’s Ashes, back in 2000, the issue of expectations came up. Here’s part of what he said:

One parent in my 18 years at Stuyvesant (High School), one parent said to me, “Is my son enjoying school?” And I was up to say “I think he is.” Only one. Because the rest say, “Oh God, is he doing his work? I’m worrying about his PSATs and his SATs and his application to Yale and Cornell ” and the rest of it.
And that forced me to think about what the hell was I doing in this classroom? And then I had to say to myself “Well, it sounds banal, but you’re doing it for freedom. To go from fear to freedom, because we all suffer from some kind of fear. To have the kids think for themselves and not to be afraid to think for themselves. But they’re discouraged from thinking for themselves because they’re told all the time “the test, the test, the test.” We don’t, in any Socratic way, pursue wisdom. And I think that’s what it’s all about. The pursuit of wisdom.

How does one successfully make the journey from fear to freedom? Only by confronting fears, trying, falling short, and getting up and trying again. Being able to point to something of significance and say or think, “I did that” or “We did that” is liberating.

The one arena where students are expected to fail and learn and try again — and the only places where students regularly create and produce real work — are the so-called extra-curricular activities like sports, theatre, music, art and journalism. Whether it’s shooting free throws or trying to achieve perspective in a sketch, failure and second effort are assumed. When a kid flubs a line on stage or double faults, she’s expected to suck it up and try again. Coaches are there to help kids get better, and everyone understands the rewards of hard work. And it’s real work, with a product: a newspaper, a successful musical or a strong team effort on the court.

That’s why so many kids are willing to work as hard as they do in their extra-curricular activities. For some kids, that’s their main reason for coming to school!

Can schools figure out ways to incorporate the attributes and demands of extra-curricular activities into the regular curriculum? I hope so.

To my second question: What’s more important, the quality of the teacher or the work that students are expected to do? The conventional wisdom puts teacher quality at the top of the pyramid, of course, and everyone has heard about the research that seems to suggest that having outstanding teachers three years in a row is life-changing.

I don’t buy it . Teachers matter, but I think the work matters more. If we designed schools so that students were challenged to create knowledge, instead of regurgitating, we would see kids soar — even if they had average teachers. And today’s technologies allow young people to connect with just about anyone, anywhere. I have written about this in The Influence of Teachers and in a few blog posts over the past year and so won’t rehash those arguments here.

But I hope we will, after the election, begin a serious conversation about what we’d like our young people to grow up to be. Recall the wisdom of Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do.” If we want our youth to be productive and happy adults, then we must create opportunities for them — now, while they are in school — to enjoy the joys of genuine productivity.

Your thoughts?

The First Step

October 25, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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If you had the power to make one change in public education right now, what would it be? I’m not talking about some sort of magic wand fantasy, so suggestions like “End Poverty” are not appropriate. What I am looking for are changes that could be made.

When Michele Norris of NPR asked that question this week, it got me thinking, and I hope it will stimulate your thinking as well. I left the panel discussion, posted the question on Twitter, asked a few friends, gathered my own thoughts, and then put together this short piece.

The panel that Michele was moderating was titled ‘How All Children Succeed.’ It was organized by TurnAround and JPMorgan/Chase and featured Paul Tough, author of “How Children Succeed,” TurnAround CEO Pamela Cantor, Scott Palmer of Education Counsel, and KIPP co-founder Dave Levin.

Dave Levin had the simplest — and perhaps the most profound — suggestion. “Change the sign,” he said. He reminded us that virtually every school has signs trumpeting a familiar slogan, “All Children Can Learn.” That should come down, Dave said, and be replaced by signs reading “All Will Learn.” Not ‘can’ but ‘will,’ reflecting a new determination and responsibility. And ‘all’ means ‘all,’ he said, including the adults! Changing the sign was, for Dave, an important first step toward changing the way adults in schools approach their jobs.

My change is similar to Dave’s. I would have adults change their fundamental question. Stop asking “How intelligent are you?” and ask instead, “How are you intelligent?” Changing that mindset would (could) lead to vastly different schools. School could become places where children are encouraged to find and follow their passion. An end to ‘one size fits all’ education.

paul-tough-credit- — Paul Tough was one of the panelists on NPR's discussion that helped inspire this post.

Along that line another necessary change — the importance of connecting — emerged in the discussion. Kids growing up in low income environments face stresses that well-off children can’t begin to imagine, and we know that children who are severely stressed simply cannot focus on learning. We also know that all children need the love and support of some adults. “It doesn’t have to be the parent,” Pam Cantor said, “But it has to come from someone.” I was reminded of E.M. Forster’s cry from the heart, “Only Connect.”

For her ‘one change right now,’ Pam Cantor suggested that all teachers reach out to parents with positive comments. That resonated with me because I saw my daughter Elise doing it a dozen or more years ago when she was teaching in a middle school in Harlem. Nearly all of her kids were Hispanic, and she made a point of calling their parents early in the year and praising their children — in fluent Spanish — for something they had done in class. With a few kids, she admitted, it was a stretch to find something worth cheering about, but she felt that it was absolutely critical that the parents’ first contact with their child’s teacher be a positive one. That’s also what Pam stressed. She pointed out that school was rarely a positive experience, suggesting that schools failed them, not the other way around. “We need to break that pattern, teacher by teacher.”

Paul Tough encouraged home visits by teachers when kids are older but recommended earlier connections (I noticed that he didn’t say ‘interventions’) of the type done by Ounce of Prevention in Chicago. The earlier the better, he seemed to be saying, a view echoed by Scott Palmer. That’s not ‘government meddling’ but help that most families are hungry for. Dave Levin echoed that: “We can’t let a vocal minority scare us away from helping the majority, when we know they want help.”

One Twitter follower focused on teaching: “Ease 1st year teachers into the classroom with reduced teaching load combined with support, prof development, peer observations.”

Another didn’t need anywhere near her 140 characters: “End High Stakes Testing!” was all she wrote. Aristotle, who wrote “We are what we repeatedly do,” might well agree.

Paul Tough spoke thoughtfully about the challenge of helping children learn to manage adversity and failure. Too often, he said, well-off parents want to keep their kids from ever falling down, even though it is only by falling down that one learns to get up and try again. Conversely, poor kids have so much adversity in their lives that what they need is more protection, more encouragement. (You ought to read his book, if you haven’t done so).

The conversation naturally expanded to cover other ways schools could be changed so that all children can succeed. On one significant point there was complete agreement: this country needs to make a long-term commitment to children, meaning a serious effort to help parents of infants and toddlers. “We need to make a 20-year commitment,” Dave Levin said.

One prominent American couple actually has the power to make one change that would reshape public education. I am referring to Edy and Eli Broad. Earlier this week I attended the annual Broad Prize festivities honoring the nation’s most outstanding urban school system. After being a runner-up for four years, Miami-Dade finally won, based on its remarkable accomplishments in raising achievement scores among Latino and Black students. That’s certainly notable, of course. But suppose that the Mr. and Mrs. Broad decided to emphasize — big time — two additional criteria: the vibrancy of the arts programs and the effectiveness of the social/emotional programs? Suppose school systems, eager to win the national acclaim and the $1,000,000 in college scholarship money, knew that they had to get serious about attending to the needs of the whole child if they wanted the judges to view them as contenders for the Broad Prize? Suppose systems knew that, if they weren’t providing opportunities in the arts, the judges would turn their backs?

You know darn well what would happen: The arts would come back to life. Counseling, mentoring and supporting would be center-stage, where they belong. And schools would be happier places for young people.

So here’s the burning question: If you could make one change right now, what would it be? Perhaps if enough of us put forth ideas, we may end up with a workable list of 10 or 20 changes that could be made now. Then we’d be on to something.

I look forward to your responses.

Obama, Romney and Education

October 19, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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Are there great differences between the presidential candidates on education? What would a Romney presidency mean? A second Obama term?

Unfortunately (from my point of view), education has not been front-and-center in the campaign. Perhaps the low point came in the second debate when both men endorsed education as an antidote to the proliferation of assault weapons. Talk about bizarre!

Neither man was asked about No Child Left Behind, easily the most intrusive federal education effort in our history. They weren’t asked about the seemingly inexorable move toward national education standards; the growing body of evidence about the importance of early education; or the coming teacher shortage, to mention just a few of the pressing issues Americans might have been interested in hearing about.

In the second debate, the President recited how he’d changed the rules on student loans, taking bankers out of the equation and thus saving borrowers millions of dollars. The number of students receiving Pell Grants has grown, from about 7 million to 11 million, another point in his favor. Governor Romney boasted that Massachusetts ranked No. 1 in the nation on his watch. (I wrote a little about that in May.)

The night before the second debate, Columbia’s Teachers College hosted a debate between the candidates’ education advisors. There, a genuine difference emerged: one candidate would sharply restrict the federal role to data-gathering and promoting variety and choice for parents, while the other candidate apparently believes that the federal government should do what’s necessary, with no apparent limit to federal authority.

Both positions are a little scary, frankly.

Speaking for President Obama was Jon Schnur, a longtime political operative working in the education sphere. Governor Romney was represented by Phil Handy, co-chair of the candidate’s higher education advisory committee who has held top education positions in Florida and the U. S. Department of Education’s research wing.

Mitt Romney, Barack Obama — Which one would be better for our students and our schools between now and 2016?

Mr. Schnur praised the Administration’s “Race to the Top” campaign for its impact on school reform. He touted the expansion of the “RttT” concept to include school districts and providers of early childhood education.

He noted that the Common Core was not federal but was instead a voluntary partnership among states. Washington was ‘seeding’ the effort, which he said was the proper federal role. And he praised the Administration for its pragmatic response to gridlock and the failure to amend the widely-discredited No Child Left Behind Act. The Administration, he reminded us, has granted waivers to 35 states, with more in the offing. That was genuine leadership, he suggested.

In response, Mr. Handy pointed out that Washington was still making the rules, because only states that jumped through Washington’s hoops got waivers. That, he said, was the issue: who knows best?

We learned from Mr. Handy that Governor Romney favors a return to an amended No Child Left Behind, largely on the philosophical grounds that states know better. He also would put bankers back into the student loan equation, again for a philosophical reason: competition produces better results.

Mr. Handy did say that a Romney administration would honor the long-standing commitment to underprivileged children and those with special needs, but he rejected out of hand the Obama Administration’s efforts to circumvent No Child Left Behind by issuing waivers. He warned that the ‘waived’ states would begin playing fast and loose with the rules, citing announcements from several states (including his own state of Florida) that they were establishing separate standards for different groups of students (IE, one passing grade for whites, another for blacks).

“We will nullify those (waivers) on the first day in office,” he told me after the debate.

In sum, the choice seems clear. A second Obama term would continue the expansion of the federal role in education, but Romney Administration would back off.

While I believe the former, I am skeptical of the latter. I expect that the winner, whoever it is, will continue to expand the federal role in public education. After all, George W. Bush arrived in Washington as a “states’ rights” guy, and look what he did (albeit with Democratic help). Something in the air down there must make men and women think that they know best. Or maybe that’s what happens to people when they suddenly have power.

The most heartening development in public education that I have seen in 38 years on the job has been what’s happened in New Orleans since Katrina and the flooding. A key to that success has been the willingness to cede power to others, to acknowledge that what they’ve been doing hasn’t worked.

We’re finishing our film, which we are calling “Rebirth: New Orleans” now. I believe you will want to watch it, and I certainly hope that our next President, whoever it may be, will pay attention.

The Pioneer Spirit

October 11, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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(Full disclosure: The longer I work as an education reporter, the more skeptical and more bandwagon-adverse I am. And I am in my 38th year on the beat….so read on at your peril.)

A clever ad for Xerox a few years ago showed an executive at his desk listening to a succession of pitches from unseen salesmen, all of whom ended their pitch by saying “It’s almost as good as a Xerox.” As the last salesman began his windup, the (by now exasperated) executive interrupted, “I know, I know, ‘it’s almost as good as a Xerox,’” to which the salesman responded, “No, sir, it IS a Xerox.”

That old ad popped into my head the other day as I was listening to folks extolling the virtues of ‘blended learning’ and ‘the Common Core,’ two hot-button issues in education these days. Everybody in education seems to be on board for one or the other, often both, but I can’t help likening them to those earnest, well-meaning men pushing a product that is ‘almost as good as…..’

Recently I visited a school that was supposedly practicing ‘blended learning,’ but what I mostly saw was 6th graders tethered to their computers. They weren’t being lectured to by a teacher in the front of the room; instead they were reacting to the prompts of whoever designed the software they were using. There was nothing ‘self-directed’ about what they were doing, as far as I could tell. Instead, their ‘teacher’ was some team of software engineers somewhere, and the kids were — paradoxically — passively reacting. It may have looked like active learning, but there was nothing remotely creative about it.

Later the principal and chief academic officer explained how the school was using ‘blended learning’ as its path to achieving ‘the Common Core’ standards.

Let me unpack that. “Blended learning” is defined as schooling that is both brick and click, some combination of school-based education and online education, with the implication that the two are interrelated in significant ways so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Note, however, that there is absolutely nothing in that definition that is evaluative in any way, and so ‘blended learning’ could be what I saw that day: half the day on the computer, half the day in teacher-directed activity.

For an analogy, think about the term ‘restaurant.’ What does that tell you about the food served there? Nothing. Even ‘French restaurant’ says nothing about the quality of the (French) food on the menu.

So let’s not get all gooey-eyed when educators tell you they are practicing blended learning in their schools. Before you jump on that bandwagon, ask how the brick and clicks are integrated. Ask how much time students are spending on computers. Ask what they do on those computers. Ask, ask, ask….and ask some more.

Now to the “Common Core’ bandwagon. The highly-touted ‘Common Core’ standards spell out, often in great detail, what children are expected to be able to do at various points in their schooling. These standards — adopted by nearly every state — are very specific and purportedly ‘higher’ than what now exists. We can agree that standards are good, and that higher standards better than low ones, but let’s take a second look.

What I fear is that these specific standards, intended to be the floor, will somehow become the ceiling. These benchmarks have the potential to calcify our already rigid, age-segregated system, at a time when flexibility is essential. In his brilliant book, The One World Schoolhouse, Sal Khan writes, “At a time when unprecedented change demands unprecedented flexibility, conventional education continues to be brittle.” He adds that the educational establishment seems “oddly blind (or tragically resistant) to readily available technology-based solutions.”

As I have argued elsewhere, age segregation has harmful effects on children, although it is of course convenient for the adults. The now-conventional wisdom of the Common Core will, I fear, harden the attitudes and practices of our ‘brittle’ system and keep kids segregated by age.

Too much of education is about consumption and regurgitation when it ought to be about production. Kids need to be encouraged to ask more and more questions. They need to learn how to sort through the flood of information that engulfs them, to separate wheat from chaff. If students can meet Common Core standards by spitting back answers, we’re making matters worse, not better.

On the flip side: Well-designed blended learning invites and allows kids to soar. But when a 6th grader soars past 6th, 7th and 8th grade math Common Core standards, she must be celebrated, not held back, ostracized or shamed in any way.

Despite the crowded bandwagon for blended learning and the Common Core, these men and women are often called ‘pioneers.’ But are they really pioneers? According to dictionary definitions, pioneers are “men and women who venture into unknown territory to settle, or who open up new areas of thought, research or development.”

It seems to me that rather than being true pioneers, many of these educators are simply looking for faster and more efficient ways to get to the same old destination.

Folks who care ought to be knee-deep in the struggle over measurements. We need to measure what matters, which to me means opposing those support our current ‘One Size Fits All’ approach to schooling, even when they have wrapped themselves in the glowing robes of blended learning and the Common Core.

Thanking Teachers

October 4, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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The bumper sticker “If you can read this, thank a teacher” is a clever way of reminding us that teachers deserve our thanks. I agree and wish I had taken the time to thank Mr. Sullivan, my high school English teacher many years ago. He taught me that I had some ability and convinced me — after a long struggle — that it would be disgraceful, even sinful, to waste whatever talent I possessed.

I happened to mention my regret to one of my colleagues, producer Cat (neé Cathlin) McGrath, and a day or two later she shared a story with me. She had gone home that night determined to thank her special teacher, Mr. Roberts, who taught her in fourth grade. Through an internet search she learned that he is now a school superintendent in a Chicago suburb and that he had earned three advanced degrees, including his doctorate from Teachers College in New York City. Cat wrote to tell him that she still had a book he gave her, Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, The Places You’ll Go,” signed with a lovely inscription. In her e-mail thank you note she told Mr. Roberts that she often read it to her young daughter.

He responded immediately, as follows:

Dear Cathlin,

I cannot begin to tell you how much your note means to me! Arlene (my wife) and I have thought of you often over the years. We exchanged Christmas Cards with your parents for a while and always asked about your exploits! It is difficult to think of how many years have passed since that 4th grade experience; but I remember you, and a good number of your classmates, as though it was yesterday! What a kind, caring, and intelligent group! Oh! don’t let me forget to say an energetic group as well – your class was a handful; but in the nicest way.

I am so happy to hear you have a daughter; and I can just picture you reading to her! We have a 7-year-old granddaughter and she loves to have her Grammy read to her. Again, thank you so much – you made my day! Please keep in touch and pass our best wishes along to your parents.

Al Roberts

So go ahead, dear readers, make your most important teacher’s day by reaching out to say thanks….

Cat’s story got me energized, and so I sent a note around (via Twitter) about thanking teachers. Anthony Cody, a Board-certified teacher I have gotten to know over the years, responded with his own story, one that demonstrates the impact that teachers have on our lives, not necessarily because they taught us math or science or English, but because they connected with us when we needed it most.

Here’s Anthony’s story:

About eight years ago I saw a news story on TV about a teacher doing amazing things with Shakespeare. The name of the teacher ran by, and I thought perhaps it was Harvey Sadoff, my 5th grade teacher at Lincoln Elementary in Berkeley, from the year 1968. I hunted for his name online, and found I had been mistaken about the person on the news — it was not my teacher. But I did find a Dr. Harvey Sadoff working as a principal at an elementary school in North Carolina. I emailed him a note, and it was my old teacher.
Once I knew it was him, I sent him a longer note with some of my memories and things I appreciated. As as teacher, he was funny and self-effacing, and he allowed the class to adopt a stray dog that wandered onto the playground one day. Back then it seemed like a big deal to know the teacher’s first name, and “Harvey” seemed just right when we discussed what to name the dog. We were not sure how Mr. Sadoff would take it when we told him the dog’s new name, but he just smiled. We took turns taking it home on the weekend, hoping the principal would not find out and banish it. After a month or so, we were found out, and the dog had to go.
I corresponded a bit with Mr. Sadoff, sharing how I had followed his lead and become a teacher myself. Then he sent a note that said that had been his last day as principal. He had cancer and was retiring mid-year because the treatment was making him weak. A few months later I got a note from his wife saying he had passed away.
I cannot remember much about what Mr. Sadoff taught me in terms of reading or math. But I remember his kindness and acceptance, and that was what I needed when I was nine years old. And that was what I tried to bring to my classroom every day.

It’s your turn, folks. Please make the effort. And, if you are so inclined, please share what develops.

Education Nation: Year Three

September 27, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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For those in the NY area: John will be speaking live with Merryl Tisch, the Chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, on October 24th at the JCC in Manhattan (Upper West Side). You can purchase tickets here.

NBC News put on its third iteration of Education Nation earlier this week and did an even better job this year. I suppose that could be considered faint praise, because year one was pretty bad and year two was only fair-to-middling. I’d give the 2012 version a B or maybe a B- for “performance,” but NBC News deserves an A for effort, because no one else is even attempting to create a national dialogue about what has to be recognized as our country’s greatest challenge.

For those who weren’t there or following events online, on NBC, MSNBC or CNBC, here’s some basic information:

Three days of activities, including a couple of “Town Hall” meetings, dinner with General Colin Powell, interviews with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Governor Romney, the President on video, three former Secretaries of Education and the current Secretary; the premiere of “Won’t Back Down,” and dozens of short and generally tightly focused panel discussions.

A superb venue: the elegant New York Public Library.

Hundreds of eager and capable folks there to make sure we got to the right places.

In short, Education Nation is now a “must attend” event for wonks like me, and a lot of us were there.

I imagine many more were watching on the various NBC networks, and we ought to give them credit for such blanket coverage, almost always live. It was, as veteran newsman Tom Brokaw said, “NBC’s version of a moonshot.”

(And, as a sad commentary, this might turn out to be the most air time the two candidates spend talking about education, so we should thank NBC News for that as well.)

Biggest disappointment: No session on cheating. That’s a glaring omission, because there’s a lot of it these days — by students, teachers and administrators. We explored this in a piece for PBS last spring:

I didn’t get to everything because of my own production demands, but I was on hand for about three-fifths of the program. From what others told me, I was in the audience for the best and the worst of the program.

Easily the best: “True Grit,” subtitled ‘Can You Teach Character?” Brian Williams did a superb job of orchestrating a lively and informative conversation with Carol Dweck of Stanford, Angela Duckworth of Penn, the writer Paul Tough and columnist David Brooks. That’s well worth your time (click the link above).

Just Awful: “The New Standard: The Common Core in the Classroom.” It was jargony, often incomprehensible and sometimes just plain stupid. One of the cheerleaders on the panel told us that, with the Common Core, a teacher will now be able to devote attention to a child who is falling behind. Hey, d’oh, that’s what all good teachers have always done.

But that session, bad as it was, brought into view a flaw in Education Nation’s design: it is too much cheerleading, not enough inquiry. I think a lot of the audience wanted the moderator, Rehema Ellis, to ask tough questions about the Common Core, but the only tough question came from an audience member who identified himself as a parent and a school board member. He told of hearing a presentation about the Common Core by New York Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky that, he said, was ‘incomprehensible.’ However, no one on the panel proceeded to make it comprehensible. Instead, we heard that the Common Core would make schools better, more rigorous, blah blah blah.

The focus of this year’s Education Nation was on “Solutions,” and there was a lot of talk about our international rankings and our high dropout rate, the implication being that those were the “Problems” that were being addressed. But rankings and dropouts are “Symptoms,” not problems, just as a high fever is symptomatic. What is causing so many students to drop out without graduating? Why are other nations doing better than our kids on international tests?

In some way it’s kind of silly for NBC News to devote three days to “Solutions” without first making more of an effort to identify the underlying problems.

For some, of course, the “Problem” was teacher unions. That view was pushed hardest on Sunday, when Education Nation celebrated the new parent-trigger film “Won’t Back Down” and hosted a discussion about the role of Parents that featured just one (largely silent) parent and two panelists, Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein, who are far better known for their hostility to unions than for parenting.

The elephant in the room at Education Nation (and in the public education sphere) is poverty and the ability of schools to ameliorate its effects. Everyone acknowledged that we are living in a time of unprecedented childhood poverty, but no one — not one person — was angry or embarrassed about it. In fact, everyone seemed to accept poverty as an unchangeable reality (even though it’s changing — by getting worse).

Many speakers touted “Great Schools” and “Great Teachers” as the solution to poverty, which is laughable on its face. Maybe they are one way out for some children, but the solution? Spare me.

EdNation — Year 4 is coming next fall. What will that hold?

For me, a revealing moment came during Governor Romney’s presentation. He spoke with justifiable pride about Massachusetts’ educational accomplishments during his tenure there. He described a meeting with teachers that was being filmed. He asked teachers if they could tell which children were likely to succeed and, if so, how. He said the teachers told him they couldn’t speak freely with the camera rolling, so he banished the film crew. Then, he said, the teachers told him that they could easily identify the likely dropouts just by noting which parents came to “Back to School” night. If parents showed up, those kids were likely to do well. If no parents bothered to attend, then those kids were probably going to be failing students.

That was tantamount to saying that what they did as teachers didn’t make a difference, and I found the Governor’s lack of reaction striking. If some teachers said that to me and I were in a leadership position, I would have gotten upset. I would have told them that we have come to a fork in the road here. “We have to figure out how to change your attitude, or you have to find work elsewhere, because we cannot have teachers who accept that reality. We need teachers who will redouble their efforts to change that kid’s trajectory, and if there are things you need from me to enable you to make that difference, tell me now.”

Think about it: What those teachers were telling Governor Romney was that, as far as they were concerned, schools and teaching don’t make a difference!

But perhaps they don’t. In fact, the unspoken subtext and unexamined contradiction throughout all the talk at Education Nation and elsewhere is the shameful truth of the close correlation between a child’s zip code/parental wealth AND his or her life outcomes. What that reveals is that, for most kids, education apparently does NOT make a significant difference. Schools do NOT change most lives significantly. Why don’t we talk about that? Is that too depressing?

If we just created more “Great Schools” and found more “Great Teachers,” would that actually solve the problems of poverty? Shouldn’t that question be on the table?

If it is true that most schools fail to change lives, why is that so? Is it because too many teachers think the way those teachers Governor Romney described? Or could it be because we are so obsessed with metrics that we haven’t taken the time to figure out what schools are supposed to be doing? (I think it’s the latter.)

Some politicians, usually Republicans, want school funding to be portable so that, for example, a poor kid in Stamford, CT, could travel on a bus for 20 minutes to the wealthy town of Darien, where the schools are strong, or take their dollars to private or parochial schools. Their belief is that the competition would force the lousy inner-city Stamford schools to improve.

This is all talk because it glosses over competing interests. “The nation” may — in the abstract — want poor kids to have the chance to go to great schools, but parents in Darien and other wealthy towns don’t want the Stamford kids in their schools. They believe that they have earned the right to better schools by working hard and moving up the ladder.

Education Nation is a great platform for digging into these complexities. But that would require a willingness to tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity and contradictions.

Brian Williams ended this year’s Education Nation by announcing that there would be a fourth one a year from now. I would love it if next year’s event were not so rigidly structured. Perhaps the organizers could include two “Wild Card” or “TBA” sessions and wait until the last minute to decide what topics would be explored. Welcome the challenge of unanswered questions and the likelihood of leaving us with even more questions.

NBC News and Education Nation are providing a real service to us all. I am writing and thinking about these complex issues because of the sparks provided by Education Nation, and I am sure that I am not alone. Thank you, NBC News.

PS: Speaking of thank you notes, I urge you to think back and remember the teacher who changed your life—and sit down right now and write her or him a thank you note.

Five Truths

September 20, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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On Tuesday I received the highest honor of my professional life, the McGraw Prize in Education. The list of those who have been honored includes men and women I have reported on and admire: Ted Sizer, Jim Comer, Governor Richard Riley, Governor Jim Hunt and many more.

The black tie gala was held at the New York Public Library, and 14 members of my immediate family were on hand to help celebrate. There was a short video profile to open:

After the video, I spoke briefly. My topic was “Five Things I Know to be True about Education” (after 38 years of reporting).

Below is what I said Tuesday night. I apologize for the caps, as I posted from the draft on my computer. I’m told that McGraw-Hill Companies will have video of all the honorees speaking posted online soon; when that happens, we’ll also embed the speech here.

HOW APPROPRIATE THAT WE ARE CELEBRATING TONIGHT IN ONE OF THE WORLD’S GREAT PUBLIC LIBRARIES, BECAUSE I GREW UP IN A LIBRARY FAMILY, IN A SMALL TOWN IN CONNECTICUT. THE PUBLIC LIBRARY WAS PART OF OUR LIVES, AS MY SIBLINGS, MARTY, HATTIE, AND ROB CAN ATTEST. WE MADE LOTS OF VISITS AS KIDS. OUR MOM DEVOURED BOOKS. NO SURPRISE THAT MY SISTER MARTY BECAME A LIBRARIAN IN THAT SAME SMALL TOWN IN CONNECTICUT.

MORE THAN ONCE, MARTY TOLD ME ABOUT A STORY THAT I SHOULD DO FOR NPR OR, LATER, THE NEWSHOUR. THERE WAS THIS ONE MAN, SHE SAID, WHO REGULARLY VISITED HER LIBRARY, A MAN WHO WAS GALLANT, GRACIOUS, GENEROUS AND UNFAILINGLY POLITE. HE WAS, SHE SAID, HER FAVORITE PATRON.

“WHY IS THAT A STORY,” I ASKED HER? “WHAT’S SO NEWSWORTHY ABOUT THAT?”

WELL, SHE SAID, THIS MAN IS IN A POSITION TO HAVE ANY BOOK HE WANTED BROUGHT TO HIM. HE DIDN’T HAVE TO GO TO A PUBLIC LIBRARY AND TAKE OUT BOOKS, BECAUSE HE HAD HIS OWN PUBLISHING COMPANY, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. AND YET HE COMES TO THE LIBRARY ALL THE TIME.

I’M SURE YOU’VE FIGURED OUT BY NOW THAT I’M TALKING ABOUT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN DARIEN, CONNECTICUT, AND THAT SPECIAL PATRON WAS, OF COURSE, HAROLD W. MCGRAW, JR, THE MAN WHOSE LIFE WE HONOR TONIGHT.

AND I GUESS THE APPLE DOESN’T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE, BECAUSE THE MCGRAW FAMILY HAS CONTINUED HIS TRADITION OF GENEROSITY.

MARTY, YOU WERE RIGHT. I SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT STORY.

CHANGING GEARS: BY RECOGNIZING THE WORK OF THIS PARTICULAR EDUCATION REPORTER, YOU ARE ALSO HONORING EDUCATION REPORTERS AND EDUCATION REPORTING. ACKNOWLEDGING ITS IMPORTANCE IN THE COMPLEX WORLD OF EDUCATION. ON BEHALF OF THE 300 OR SO PRACTICING EDUCATION REPORTERS, THANK YOU.

YOU MAY NOT KNOW IT, BUT YOU ARE ALSO HONORING DOZENS AND DOZENS OF MY COLLEAGUES AT LEARNING MATTERS AND THE NEWSHOUR. TELEVISION IS A TEAM SPORT, BUT — BECAUSE I AM THE ONE PEOPLE SEE ON THE BROADCAST — I RECEIVE FAR TOO MUCH CREDIT. I HAVE WORKED CLOSELY WITH SOME AMAZINGLY TALENTED MEN AND WOMEN OVER THE PAST 38 YEARS. THEY’VE MADE ME LOOK GOOD, BETTER THAN I DESERVE, AND THEY HAVE ALSO KEPT ME FROM MORE THAN ONE DISASTER. THERE ARE TOO MANY TO THANK BY NAME HERE TONIGHT, BUT I WOULD BE REMISS IF I DID NOT MENTION JIM LEHRER, ROBIN MACNEIL, NEWSHOUR EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS LINDA WINSLOW AND LES CRYSTAL, AND MY LONGTIME COLLEAGUES JOHN TULENKO AND MICHAEL JOSELOFF.

TWO FOUNDATIONS HAVE BEEN WONDERFULLY CONSISTENT AND GENEROUS SUPPORTERS OF LEARNING MATTERS OVER THE YEARS, AND BOTH ARE REPRESENTED HERE TONIGHT. BARBARA CHOW IS THE HEAD OF EDUCATION FOR THE HEWLETT FOUNDATION, AND WILL MILLER IS PRESIDENT OF THE WALLACE FOUNDATION. MY SINCERE THANKS TO THEM BOTH.

MY WIFE, JOAN LONERGAN, HAS BEEN A ROCK AND A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION. THANK YOU, JOAN.

I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT, AFTER 38 YEARS OF REPORTING, I KNOW TO BE TRUE. QUICKLY, HERE ARE FIVE TRUTHS. (THERE ARE MORE, OF COURSE, BUT FOR THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR MY BOOK, IF I EVER FINISH IT.)

TRUTH #1. “IT TAKES A VILLAGE….” MOST SCHOOL PEOPLE TRY TO DO IT ALL, BUT THEY CANNOT. TEACHERS SEEM TO BE BORN WITH A “PUT ME IN, COACH” ATTITUDE, BUT I THINK IT’S TIME FOR OTHER AGENCIES IN SOCIETY TO PULL THEIR WEIGHT. “IT TAKES A VILLAGE….”

TRUTH #2. “TRUST BUT VERIFY:” TIME WAS, WE TRUSTED TEACHERS. THAT WAS WHEN OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN WERE VERY LIMITED, AND SO THE TEACHING FORCE INCLUDED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF IMMENSELY TALENTED WOMEN. WE TRUSTED THEM, OCCASIONALLY MORE THAN WE SHOULD HAVE.

THE WORLD HAS CHANGED. TODAY, AND LUCKILY FOR THEM AND US, MANY OF THOSE WOMEN ARE DOCTORS, LAWYERS, BUSINESS LEADERS, POLITICIANS AND MORE. SOME ARE STILL IN THE CLASSROOM, OF COURSE, BUT IT’S DEMONSTRABLY TRUE THAT THE ENTERING QUALIFICATIONS OF TEACHERS ARE NOT AS IMPRESSIVE.

HOWEVER, OUR SOCIETY HAS SWUNG CRAZILY TO A POINT WHERE WE DON’T TRUST TEACHERS AT ALL. NOW IT’S ALL ABOUT VERIFICATION.

RONALD REAGAN WASN’T TALKING ABOUT EDUCATION WHEN HE SAID, ‘TRUST BUT VERIFY.’ HE WAS TALKING ABOUT THE SOVIET UNION. BUT HIS WISDOM APPLIES TO EDUCATION. WE NEED TO FIND BALANCE. WE NEED TO DEVELOP TRUST, FAITH IN THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO TEACH OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN. AND WE NEED TO WORK WITH THEM TO DEVELOP SENSIBLE AND RELIABLE MEASURES OF EFFECTIVENESS. ‘TRUST BUT VERIFY.’

TRUTH #3. THE QUESTION THAT I LISTEN FOR WHEN TALKING WITH EDUCATORS (THE QUESTION I WANT TO HEAR THEM ASK) IS, “HOW ARE YOU INTELLIGENT?” TOO OFTEN, HOWEVER, I HEAR THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE ASKING, IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, “HOW INTELLIGENT ARE YOU?” THOSE WHO ASK “HOW ARE YOU INTELLIGENT?” ARE PROCEEDING FROM A HEALTH MODEL, BUILDING ON STRENGTHS. “HOW ARE YOU INTELLIGENT?”

TRUTH #4: “MEASURE WHAT COUNTS,” INSTEAD OF BEING SATISFIED WITH SIMPLY COUNTING WHAT’S EASY TO MEASURE. THE MCGRAW PRIZE AND ALL THAT IT STANDS FOR IS A PLATFORM AND AN OPPORTUNITY FOR US, AS A PEOPLE, TO TALK ABOUT WHAT MATTERS. WHAT DO WE WANT OUR CHILDREN TO BE, AND TO BE ABLE TO DO? THE BUSINESS OF SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS IS NOT LIMITED TO TEACHING READING AND WRITING AND ‘RITHMETIC. THE SCHOOL’S PRIMARY FUNCTION IS TO HELP GROW ADULTS. “MEASURE WHAT COUNTS.”

FINALLY, TRUTH #5. “WE ARE WHAT WE REPEATEDLY DO.” THAT IS THE WISDOM OF ARISTOTLE, WHO ADDED: “EXCELLENCE, THEN, IS NOT AN ACT BUT A HABIT.”

LET ME PUT THAT IN THE VERNACULAR OF YOUTH. “WE ARE, YOU KNOW, LIKE WHAT WE, LIKE, REPEATEDLY DO. SO, YOU KNOW, EXCELLENCE IS NOT LIKE AN ACT, BUT, LIKE, A HABIT. YOU KNOW?”

I PUT ARISTOTLE IN THE VERNACULAR NOT TO MOCK YOUNG PEOPLE, EVEN THOUGH I HAVE, LIKE A LOT OF YOU, COMPLAINED ABOUT HOW CASUALLY, EVEN INARTICULATELY THEY SPEAK. MANY DON’T WRITE WELL, MANY DON’T SEEM TO READ AT ALL. AND A LOT OF US HAVE HAD THAT AWFUL ENCOUNTER WITH A KID AT A CHECKOUT COUNTER WHO CANNOT MAKE CHANGE.

BUT, REMEMBER THIS: ARISTOTLE’S WISDOM — WE ARE WHAT WE REPEATEDLY DO — APPLIES TO OUR CHILDREN. SO LET’S ASK THE CENTRAL QUESTION: WHAT DO THEY REPEATEDLY DO IN OUR SCHOOLS?

YOU MAY WANT TO GO LOOK FOR YOURSELVES, BUT I CAN TELL YOU WHAT YOU’LL SEE. YOU WILL SEE THREE ACTIVITIES, OVER AND OVER AND OVER:

1. INANE REGURGITATION OF ANSWERS. TOO MANY OF OUR SCHOOLS ARE ‘ANSWER FACTORIES,’ BUT THIS FAST CHANGING WORLD NEEDS CITIZENS WHO CAN FORMULATE QUESTIONS, CAN SIFT THROUGH THE FLOOD OF INFORMATION THAT ENGULFS THEM, 24/7. FORMULATE QUESTIONS THAT HELP THEM DISTINGUISH BETWEEN WHEAT AND CHAFF.

2. TEST PREPARATION.
A. PRACTICING FILLING IN BUBBLES,
B. STRATEGIES FOR ELIMINATING OBVIOUSLY WRONG ANSWERS AS A PRELUDE TO GUESSING THE BEST FROM THOSE THAT REMAIN.
C. WRITING THREE-SENTENCE ANSWERS TO A ‘PROMPT’ AND MAKING SURE THAT THEY REPEAT THE PROMPT IN THEIR THREE-SENTENCE ANSWER. DOES ANYONE HERE BELIEVE THAT CONSTITUTES GOOD WRITING? WHO WOULD HIRE THOSE GRADUATES?

3. TEST-TAKING. AMERICAN KIDS ARE THE MOST TESTED IN THE WORLD.

THAT IS WHAT THEY REPEATEDLY DO. NO WONDER THEY ARE SLOPPY AND INARTICULATE IN THEIR SPEAKING, WRITING, ET CETERA. WE DON’T ASK THEM TO DO MORE. IT’S ON US.

IF WE WANT YOUNG PEOPLE TO BECOME CITIZENS WHO THINK AND SPEAK CLEARLY, WHO READ WITH UNDERSTANDING, AND WHO WRITE THOUGHTFULLY AND PERSUASIVELY, THEN THAT IS WHAT THEY SHOULD BE DOING — REPEATEDLY — IN SCHOOL.

TO ASK LESS OF THEM IS TO DEPRIVE THEM OF THEIR BIRTHRIGHT. IT IS ALSO A THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY.

IT’S NOT ABOUT UNIONS, CHARTER SCHOOLS, USING TEST SCORES TO EVALUATE TEACHERS, MERIT PAY, CLASS SIZE, OR ANY OF THOSE OTHER HOT BUTTON ISSUES. THOSE ARE SKIRMISHES AND DISTRACTIONS THAT DIVIDE US.

IT’S ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN SCHOOLS, HOUR AFTER HOUR, DAY IN AND DAY OUT. THAT SHOULD BE THE ISSUE THAT UNITES US.

THE MCGRAW PRIZE HONORS MEN AND WOMEN LIKE YVONNE CHAN, FREEMAN HRABOWSKI, LARRY ROSENSTOCK, JIM COMER, SAL KHAN, TIM DALY, ARELIA ROZMAN AND OTHERS WHO SHAPE THE DEBATE (AND ONE WHO TRIES TO REPORT ON IT). THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY WE MUST NOT PASS UP.

I SAY, “STOP CURSING THE DARKNESS. LIGHT CANDLES INSTEAD.”

IT’S LONG PAST TIME FOR PREDICTING THE DELUGE. LET’S BUILD ARKS INSTEAD.

I THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART FOR THIS HONOR…AND HOPE TO PROVE WORTHY OF IT.

Blended Learning, But To What End?

September 17, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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One high point of an interesting week was a meeting of The Philanthropy Roundtable, where a few hundred people were wrapping their heads around “Blended Learning,” the latest and most promising next new thing in education. Most in the audience were funders focused on education, and, judging from their body language and comments, most were sold on the idea.

Quickly, blended learning is some mix of traditional classroom instruction (which in itself varies considerably) and instruction mediated by technology. The latter can be one student with a tablet or laptop, or small groups of kids working together on devices.

The best known practitioner of what everyone at the meeting shorthanded to ‘blended’ is Salman Khan, whose Khan Academy is serving 5 million unique users every month, and about 15,000 classrooms were using Mr. Khan’s lessons as part of their regular instruction. His inspiring story, already told on 60 Minutes and in Time Magazine, will be widely available next month when his book, The One World Schoolhouse, comes out. And on Tuesday he will receive the McGraw Prize in Education, arguably the field’s most prestigious honor.

I am inclined to be a fan of blended learning because I have watched kids at work, and the contrast between what happens in too many classrooms and what blended learning makes possible is striking.

For blended learning, to soar, teachers cannot be controlling the action, and they don’t have to. They aren’t walking away, of course, but they are mentoring and monitoring and coaching, and sometimes instructing. This article speaks to that point.

However, my enthusiasm is tempered by three fears; you can call them ‘concerns’ if you like. They involve faddishness, greed, and limited vision.

Faddishness: I worry that blended learning will be increasingly vague and undefined as it grows in popularity. Right now almost everyone in education seems to be waving the blended flag, saying “We’re doing blended learning,” even if they don’t have a clue. At the Philanthropy Roundtable meeting a number of very savvy people, including Dave Levin of KIPP, emphasized that blended learning begins with, and relies upon, skilled teachers. So be skeptical when you hear educators endorse blended learning; ask a lot of questions.

Greed: The faddishness is an open invitation to hucksters, who can sense when educators are desperate to prove they are au courant. Technology is big business, and I can just hear the marketing guys pitching their products as ‘perfect’ for blended learning, blah blah blah. See Dave Levin’s comment above — it begins with teachers and teaching.

Limited Vision: My biggest fear is that blended learning is going to turn out to be just another crash and burn disappointment. This will happen unless its adherents also participate in a serious conversation about the goals of schooling. Right now it seems to me that blended learning is being used to get to the same old benchmarks, just faster and more individually. But those benchmarks — basically bubble tests — are limited and limiting.

Defenders of using blended learning to get to the accepted benchmarks say, in effect, “First things first. Let us get our low performing children to pass reading and math tests, and then we will let them loose.” But those goals — truth be told — are of dubious value. Why go there?

The potential of blended learning is vast, perhaps unlimited. Why not use it to find other pathways to a larger set of skills that includes literacy and numeracy? I’ve seen too many classrooms where the focus on basic skills is of such intensity that achieving them has become both the floor and the ceiling. This piece we did for PBS NewsHour comes to mind:

I think there’s an analogy with charter schools here. The charter school movement, which I have been following since the historic meeting at the headwaters of the Mississippi River in 1988, has been generally disappointing — most charter schools do no better than traditional schools — for three reasons. Eerily similar reasons: Greed, deception and limited vision. We know about for-profit charter groups cutting corners and paying multi-million dollar salaries to their bosses; that’s greed at work. As for deception, we know how some politicians supported (and support) charter schools as a first step toward their goal of dismantling public education, leading them to create rules that allow just about anyone to give and/or receive a charter. In some places it’s almost impossible to lose a charter, short of a felony conviction.

But it’s the limited vision in the charter world that disturbs me most. As I see it, the charter school movement has fallen into the test score obsession that entangles regular public schools. That was not the dreamers’ vision — they wanted charter schools to take risks, to try stuff and then share what works and doesn’t work with traditional public schools.

I fear that blended learning is going to fall into this trap. I believe that those who champion blended learning must be showing the rest of us how it allows students to travel new roads and reach new destinations, while their teachers ensure that they are also writing clearly, calculating accurately, et cetera.

Education needs to “measure what counts,” and the blended learning community has to be part of that conversation about what really matters.

Most classrooms and schools are outmoded ‘answer factories,’ and regurgitation is not a skill that is marketable. Kids today are growing up in a sea of information, 24/7, and schools must be helping them formulate questions, encouraging them to dig deep, to prepare them for a world which values the ability to formulate questions and then find answers to those questions. Who is going to hire young people skilled at regurgitation?

Of course, blended learning can turn out better workers for those answer factories, but what a waste that would be. But if its advocates limit their vision to merely producing kids who do well on standardized tests, blended learning will end up being yet another disappointment, and we will all lose.

Poverty’s Evil Twin

September 7, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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In this deeply polarized nation, I have found something that unites Republicans and Democrats: neither party talks about poverty, despite our current epidemic of child poverty and its consequences for the life chances of millions of children. From what this political junkie has seen and heard, both parties have studiously avoided talking about it at their respective conventions. Democrats in Charlotte talked incessantly about ‘the middle class,’ while in Tampa the Republicans gave off a distinctive vibe: “If you are successful, you did it yourself. If you are poor, you messed up. Not our problem.”

Poverty is on my mind, however. As readers of this blog know, in an otherwise inspirational profile of a forward-looking summer program in Providence, RI, we inadvertently conflated race and poverty in the opening 45 seconds. The opening visuals conveyed the message that poor people were black and that well-off people were white. That inaccuracy — the number of whites in poverty is actually larger than the number of Blacks and Hispanics — has been edited to present an accurate picture, but I haven’t gotten over how easily I made that mistake. It was a teachable moment for me, a chance to grow.

I have been reading a lot about poverty and have come to believe that the problem of poverty has an evil twin, greed. We cannot solve one in isolation.

Poverty, as one reader pointed out, is complex, because it is distributed unevenly. Although poverty is not Black or Hispanic or any other color, proportionally many more Black and Hispanic children live in poverty than do white kids.

Black, American Indian, and Hispanic children under 18 represent 38% of all children but more than half — 54% — of low income children. They are more than twice as likely to live in a low-income household compared to white and Asian children.

Consider these numbers, from the National Center for Children in Poverty:

31 percent of white children – 12.1 million – live in low-income families.
64 percent of black children – 6.5 million – live in low-income families.
31 percent of Asian children – 1.0 million – live in low-income families.
63 percent of American Indian children – 0.4 million – live in low-income families.
43 percent of children of some other race – 1.3 million – live in low-income families.
63 percent of Hispanic children – 10.7 million – live in low-income families.

Perhaps you are now doing what I did when I read those numbers — adding them up. It comes to 30 million children of all colors.

That’s the national disgrace, millions of children growing up in poverty. It’s an epidemic, and professional politicians ought to be embarrassed by their failure to address the issue at their conventions.

It turns out there is poverty, and then there is ‘deep poverty.’ In a brilliant article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine a few weeks ago, Paul Tough examined President Obama’s record on this issue through the lens of Roseland, a high poverty area in his hometown of Chicago. Mr. Tough draws a sharp distinction between ‘deep poverty’ and normal (shallow?) poverty and shows just how difficult it has proven to be to ameliorate the former. Children in ‘deep poverty’ — their family income is 50% below the poverty line — tend to go to what William Julius Wilson calls ‘truly disadvantaged schools,’ further tipping the scales against them.

And in 2010 one in ten American children was living in deep poverty. That’s about 7,000,000 kids who don’t get to go to preschool, who are likely to be developmentally disabled and who will go to school hungry. To quote from Mr. Tough’s piece:

Neuroscientists and developmental psychologists can now explain how early stress and trauma disrupt the healthy growth of the prefrontal cortex; how the absence of strong and supportive relationships with stable adults inhibits a child’s development of a crucial set of cognitive skills called executive functions. In fact, though, you don’t need a neuroscientist to explain the effects of a childhood spent in deep poverty. Your average kindergarten teacher in a high-poverty neighborhood can tell you: children who grow up in especially difficult circumstances are much more likely to have trouble controlling their impulses in school, getting along with classmates and following instructions.

Mr. Tough doesn’t propose solutions, although he does quote Valerie Jarrett, perhaps the President’s closest advisor. Ms. Jarrett said that the President was proposing inclusive approaches that benefited all citizens economically, not just one specific group (the poor).

“I think our chances for successfully helping people move from poverty to the middle class is greater if everyone understands why it is in their best interest that these paths of opportunity are available for everyone,” she told him. “We try to talk about this in a way where everyone understands why it is in their self-interest.”

That approach, “A rising tide lifts all boats,” strikes me as doomed to fail as long as greed rules. And, make no mistake, greed is in the saddle. Over the last 30 years, the salary of the typical CEO has increased 127 times faster than workers’ salaries.

To put this in perspective, the average Fortune 500 chief executive is paid 380 times more than the average worker. In 1982, the ratio stood at 42:1.

Most Boards apparently set their CEO’s salary based on comparisons with those of other CEO’s, not with the company’s own workers. And that means that scant consideration is given to the effect of that inflated salary on employee morale, loyalty, effectiveness and turnover.

It’s not just CEOs. A shrinking percentage of our population controls a growing percentage of our national wealth. In fact, the gap is as great today as it was just prior to the Great Depression. Today the wealthiest 1% control about 40% of our wealth. Those in the bottom 80% control less than 7% of the nation’s wealth. Those in poverty aren’t even on the chart.

The starting point for the CEO-worker comparison was 30 years ago, just after the Presidencies of Nixon, Ford and Carter. We weren’t Socialists then (and never have been). Thirty years ago was when the worldview of our newly-inaugurated President, Ronald Reagan, began to dominate Washington and the country. It was later summed up, without much exaggeration, by Gordon Gecko in a popular movie: “Greed is good.”

One of Reagan’s predecessors saw the world differently. “We have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals, we now know that it is bad economics,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

I have no quarrel with a CEO earning a lot more than the average worker, but 380 times more! How much money does one person need? How much is one person worth?

Why not return to sensible capitalism and recognize the value of the team? It doesn’t have to be 42:1. Go ahead and pay the CEO 100 times what Mr. or Ms. Average Worker makes. The boss gets $5,000,000 if the average Joe or Joan earns $50,000. Want to pay the boss $6,000,000? Then boost the average salary to $60,000.

That would be a genuine rising tide, one with widespread benefits, because we know that, while rich people tend to squirrel away money, middle class people spend it.

And if we backed away from greed, we would be more open to recognizing the scourge of poverty and the long term threat it poses to our nation. If we were genuinely disgusted by greed and not merely embarrassed by it, our hearts would not be so hard, and our intuitive generosity would rise to the surface.

We cannot solve the problems of poverty, whatever its colors, without tackling its evil twin, greed.

A Polarized Education System

August 28, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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Polarization has come to public education, big time. If it persists, at the end of the day we all are going to lose.

As the political campaign heats up, public education is caught in a direct crossfire. Here’s one example from the run up to the Republican convention:

While the fact that quite a few countries outscore our children on international tests is reason for genuine concern, I think we ought to be even more disturbed about some other numbers, such as:

Half our kids get no early education;
22% of our children live in poverty, and
25% have a chronic health condition like asthma or obesity.

These numbers and more are from The Center for American Progress report, “The Competition that Really Matters,” about American, Chinese and Indian investments in education.

A second report, this one from Share our Strength, documents the extent of, and damage done by, childhood hunger. It found that 60% of K-8th grade teachers say that their students “regularly come to school hungry because they aren’t getting enough to eat at home.” If you’ve ever taught, you know that is impossible to get through to children whose stomachs are growling or who are energy-deprived.

How are we polarized about education? Let me count the ways, seven in all.

1. We are polarized about accountability. We have gone from an excess of trust of teachers to an obsessive concern with verification. Right now the verifiers are in the saddle, and test scores rule. One consequence of the mania over test results has been widespread cheating by adults, who are breaking the rules (and no doubt their own moral code) to try to save their jobs. How did we get to such a position, where our leaders mistrust teachers? We need balance when it comes to holding teachers accountable: “Trust but Verify.”

Lost in all this is student accountability. We ought to be concerned about assessing student learning, and not just by simple bubble tests. That’s the discussion we are not having, perhaps because we are so polarized.

2. We are polarized about achievement. The achievement gap is real. In some places a gap of three years in achievement between whites and (wait for it) Asian-American students. We must do something about this. Why don’t we eliminate recess for white kids and replace it with drill and practice and test-prep? That’s what we do for (to) black and brown kids, isn’t it?

3. We are polarized about how schools should be run. The argument is between freedom (charter schools) versus what is called “command and control,” top down management. As I have learned from spending a lot of time in New Orleans since Katrina and the flooding, even an all-charter district has to have a serious system of oversight in place to make sure that charter schools don’t play fast and loose with the system (turning away special needs children or suspending tough-to-educate kids just before the state tests are given). Washington, DC, has embraced charter schools but has also expanded its central office by adding people whose job it is to watch and evaluate teachers. Is that working? That argument is raging.

4. We are polarized about the power of school/the limits of school. Some regularly attack schools for overreaching and for failure, while others expect schools to feed, clothe and attend to health issues (such as eye exams). Is it a school’s job to solve social problems, problems that the larger society doesn’t seem willing to tackle?

And when teachers step up to the plate, why do we reward them with vicious attacks?

5. We seem to be polarized about the role of technology. In my experience, educators generally use technology to manage data and people. That is, for control. A much smaller number uses it to invite kids to create, to let kids soar (or move at a slower pace, if that’s appropriate). Some use it for control; some for learning.

Kids may be digital natives, but that does not mean they are digital citizens. Helping them become citizens is an adult function, and we ought to be able to come to agreement on that point.

6. We are polarized about the job of teaching. In “The Influence of Teachers,” I write about how some are saying we can solve education’s problems by recruiting better people into our classrooms, while others say we must make teaching a better job. On the ‘better people’ side are Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and some big foundations, and their attacks on tenure and seniority have been successful in changing policies in more than a handful of cities and states.

On the other side are Diane Ravitch, the teacher unions and many teachers.

School — What is the role of school in 2012? What do we hope to have our students achieve?

I once thought this ongoing battle was irrelevant but now understand that it damages kids. My solution is twofold: 1) Ignore the battle insofar as it’s humanly possible but at the same time 2) elevate the profession. We must make it harder to become a teacher but easier to be one. Raise the entry standards but make the job more professional and enjoyable.

7. We are polarized about assessment. Companies like Pearson are getting rich while we blather and battle. They step into the vacuum and measure everything that’s measurable. We should be measuring what counts, instead of counting whatever we are able to measure.

Our school and political leaders ask, “Can kids read?” but they and we must also be asking, “Do kids read?”

Are are we also polarized about the purposes of public education? I am not sure whether we are polarized, indifferent or excluded from the conversation, but we have a real problem. The goal of school is to help grow American citizens. Four key words: help, grow, American, citizen. Think about those words:

Help: Schools are junior partners in education. They are to help families, the principal educators.

Grow: It’s a process, sometimes two steps forward, one back. Education is akin to a family business, not a publicly traded stock company that lives and dies by quarterly reports.

American: E Pluribus Unum. We are Americans, first and foremost.

Citizen: Let’s put some flesh on that term. What do we want our children to be as adults? Good parents and neighbors, thoughtful voters, reliable workers? What else?

Let me be clear about one thing: The solution to this epidemic of polarization does not necessarily lie in the middle between the two poles. Sometimes one position is correct, or largely correct. Sometimes people’s strongly held convictions are just plain wrong. While we must ‘reason together’ and work everything out, I do not believe that ‘Let’s compromise and meet in the middle’ is a rule to live by.

So are we hopelessly polarized, or are we suffering from fatigue? I think many of us are just tired, worn out from listening to the rants and negativity. We are tired because — at least since the publication of ‘A Nation At Risk’ in 1983 — we have been working hard to change schools, and children’s lives.

“We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle told us. If we complain all the time but do nothing to change the situation, that’s who we are: whiners.

But — and this is the important point — children become what they repeatedly do. So if our kids spend an inordinate amount of time practicing to take tests, and taking tests and more tests, what will they be like as adults?

Will they be avid readers? Articulate speakers? Good writers? I don’t think so.

One part of the solution is strong, thoughtful leadership, but I don’t think we should wait around for that to emerge.

We need to get beyond polarization and figure out what we agree on. Do we agree that children should learn to write well? We know that the only way to learn that skill is by writing and rewriting, guided by someone who is knowledgeable. If we value good writing, we ought to be insisting children write and rewrite all through school.

Do we, like, want our children to, you know, be able to speak clearly, persuasively and articulately? The road requires practice, practice, practice.

The way to develop readers is by reading, not by practicing to pass reading tests.

Once again, we are what we repeatedly do. Here is the essential second half of Aristotle’s observation: “Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Want change? Maybe we need to stop pointing fingers at others and look in the mirror.

The Merrow Report

Author: John Merrow

Given A Choice…

The First Step

Obama, Romney and Education

The Pioneer Spirit

Thanking Teachers

Education Nation: Year Three

Five Truths

Blended Learning, But To What End?

Poverty’s Evil Twin

A Polarized Education System