An Apology

August 23, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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I owe our PBS NewsHour audience an apology, and, although I know that this blog will reach only a fraction of that audience, it’s the best I can do. In our NewsHour report about a summer program in Providence, RI, on Monday, we inadvertently conflated race and poverty, an egregious error on our part.

PBoat — This is some of the filming we did in Providence.

The piece begins with language about how summer highlights social and economic inequalities in our society. To wit, well-off children get to travel, go to museums, go to camp, et cetera, while children in poverty hang out with little or nothing to do. The result is what educators call ‘summer learning loss’ and a widening of ‘the achievement gap.’

That’s all true. What we did wrong was to show only white children in the travel-camp-museum part, and only black and Hispanic children in the poverty/learning loss/achievement gap section.

That is just plain wrong. Most of the children in poverty in America are white, and this country has a substantial middle- and upper middle-class black and Hispanic population.

The error was pointed out by Robert Putnam, the Harvard professor and author of “Bowling Alone,” in a strongly worded letter that he sent to Paul Solman, the NewsHour economics correspondent who is a friend of Dr. Putnam’s (and mine). Paul made certain that Dr. Putnam’s letter got to the right party, me.

Here is part of that letter, reprinted with his permission:

The unambiguous subtext (of your report): Poverty in America is exclusively about race. That is factually wrong, as your fellow editors surely know. … Indeed, most poor kids in America (including most poor kids who are harmed by the summer break, the nominal subject of the story) are white, but you’d never ever guess that from the Newshour story. A deep, deep cultural problem in America-and the biggest single obstacle to addressing these issues in our politics-is the fallacious racialization of poverty. Newshour should be fighting to overcome that racist fallacy, but last night’s program reinforced it. I don’t use the emotion-laden term “racist” lightly, but the segment was racist-unintentionally racist, no doubt, but just as racist as if it were a program about miscreant bankers that depicted only bankers who were stereotypically Jewish. The producers could have found examples of poor white kids who are harmed by the summer break, and many examples of summer programs addressing that problem that serve all races. (Indeed, there is a great one right here in Jaffrey, NH, 95% of whose kids are white.) But your editorial colleagues chose to highlight a racially homogenous program and thus, through negligence, to reinforce a deeply misleading stereotype. Whatever the intent, the visual subtext of this segment was: ‘Virtually all poor kids who need summer help are non-white.’ That is racist nonsense.

It’s clear that our presentation was misleading, wrong and uninformed, but was it ‘racist nonsense,’ as Professor Putnam said? I asked two prominent African American educators whom I have gotten to know over the years. Here’s what Linda Darling Hammond said:

I think it’s helpful to point out the demographics of poverty if you can, but I don’t think it’s racist to report on what’s happening for poor black and brown kids in Providence. It is still true that poverty is disproportionate in these communities.

And Dr. James Comer:

Racist or not, it is good reporting to provide a correct context — that race and poverty are not inextricably linked and that more children in poverty are white. The absence of context contributes to the collective unconscious belief among many that all Blacks are poor because of their performance. This contributes (for example) to the White store clerk who told me that I could not afford a camera that was expensive in his mind but not in mine; or the Black clerk who did not show my wife her best hats until requested.

During the week, Professor Putnam and I exchanged emails, and in a second letter he wrote, “I recognize that you are a serious professional, and that Newshour is not the only media outlet that commits this error. The trope that equates poverty with race lies deep in our culture and is therefore embedded in all our minds, mine as well as yours. You are a victim of that trope, not its creator. But that does not lessen the damage that your program has done, unintentionally, to the very cause you were admirably seeking to promote. With sensitivity to the pervasive misperception, instead of fostering it, Newshour could help overcome this crucial, irrational impediment to effective action against class disadvantage in America.”

Professor Putnam also called my attention to Martin Gilens’ work “Race and Poverty in America: Public Misperceptions and the American News Media,” as well as Gilens’ 1999 book “Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Anti-Poverty Policy.” In both publications, Gilens documents the prevalence of images of black urban poor in coverage of poverty.

I responded, in part: “We have spent a lot of time today talking about our process and how we missed what is now obvious. One problem was that …. (we) never thrashed it through face-to-face, as we should have. End of the day, however, I did not catch it, and I should have. We see now that we should have opened the piece with visuals of privileged white, black and brown kids engaged in stimulating activities. Then we should have segued to visuals of impoverished white, black and brown kids. We could also have made the point about the distribution of poverty in our language as well, but first we should have gotten the visuals right.”

That’s what we are now doing. Sometime in the next week, we will have the revised piece up on our website and YouTube Channel.

We learned a great deal from this experience. I am grateful to Professor Putnam for taking us to the woodshed and I apologize to our audience.

Stop Your Whining

August 14, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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“The college graduates we hire can’t even write a clear paragraph.”

“Kids today don’t read.”

“The freshmen coming onto campus today don’t know how to express themselves. They’re inarticulate.”

I hear at least one of those complaints — and sometimes all three — at every public appearance I make. These adults are saying that young people today can’t write, can’t speak, and don’t read. A few of the complainers blame technology, but eventually most point fingers at teachers and the schools.

I used to just listen — but no more. From now on my response is going to be, “Stop your whining. You need to find out what’s really going on. Then, if you really care, do something about it.”

I will tell them this: if they want college graduates who can write well, they have to get involved in public education. Go to their public schools — starting in elementary schools — and find out how much (or how little) writing, reading and speaking kids are doing — and why.

If you want to be good at something, you need two things: instruction and practice. The only way for kids to learn to write well is by writing, rewriting, and rewriting again. They become better readers only if they read. They can learn to speak well by speaking often, with some direction, some coaching. It’s no different from how children learn to play a musical instrument well or make jump shots consistently: Practice, Practice, Practice.

Ask teachers about reading. How often do kids get to read for pleasure? (They should, you know.)

Ask them about public speaking. Are children encouraged to speak in public to their classes? Are they taught how to address a group: eye contact, and so forth? (They should be, you know.)

Here’s what you are going to find out when you dig a bit into what goes on in schools today. You will discover that teachers don’t have time to develop speaking skills in their students, don’t have time to let kids ‘read for pleasure,’ and don’t have time for rewriting papers.

Public education has been quantified and diminished, and the numbers that count are, of course, test scores. Therefore, teachers are expected to teach their students how to take and pass tests. (And they know they might lose their jobs if their kids don’t bubble well.)

There’s no time, teachers and principals will tell you, for writing and rewriting, for reading, or for public speaking.

If you want visual proof, watch our piece about the school in the Bronx where the first graders were reading competently and confidently but the fourth graders couldn’t pass the state reading tests. The joy had been squeezed and scared out of them, by the incessant test pressure and test prep:

Aristotle told us a long time ago that “We are what we repeatedly do.” Take that to heart and insist on lots of writing, reading and argumentation in our schools.

The rest of the quote is noteworthy and relevant: “Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

And so, Mr. and Mrs. Citizen, stop complaining. Stop attacking public education and criticizing teachers. Teachers are doing what they are told to do, not what they know is right.

If you want young people who can write fluently and speak clearly and who are inclined to read for pleasure and elucidation, you must look to the people who tell teachers what to do. Want change? You have to look to the School Board, and you have to look to politicians, and to your neighbors.

And you have to look in the mirror.

Remembering Justin Morrill

August 2, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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Does the name Justin Smith Morrill ring a bell? Perhaps not, although I am sure you know about the Morrill Act, which President Lincoln signed into law 150 years ago. That legislation created the nation’s land grant universities and remains one of the most significant pieces of federal education legislation in our history. (That short list also includes the G.I. Bill, the National Defense Education Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the Pell Grant legislation.)

U.S. Representative Morrill, who never attended college, actually pushed the legislation through Congress in 1858, but President Buchanan vetoed it in 1859. Lincoln had a better grasp of the future and signed it into law in on July 2, 1862.

Mr. Morrill, responding to the power of the industrial revolution, was convinced that America’s future depended upon education — but not just the classical liberal arts curriculum offered in most colleges and universities. His legislation called for education to be ‘accessible to all,’ especially to working men, and to focus on practical agriculture, science and engineering.

Here’s part of what he wrote in support of his Act:

We have schools to teach the art of man slaying and to make masters of “deep-throated engines” of war; and shall we not have schools to teach men the way to feed, clothe, and enlighten the great brotherhood of man? It is just on the part of statesmen and legislators, just on the part of other learned professions, that they should aid to elevate the class upon whom they lean for support, and upon whom they depend for their audience.”

He went on: “Pass this measure and we shall have done:
Something to enable the farmer to raise two blades of grass instead of one;
Something for every owner of land;
Something for all who desire to own land;
Something for cheap scientific education;
Something for every man who loves intelligence and not ignorance;
Something to induce the father’s sons and daughters to settle and duster around the old homesteads;
Something to remove the last vestige of pauperism from our land;
Something to obtain higher prices for all sorts of agricultural productions; and
Something to increase the loveliness of the American landscape.

Morrill’s Act only envisioned the creation of a land grant institution in every state, but today the US has 110 of these colleges and universities, including 31 Native American colleges and most Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Almost all are public, although both Cornell and MIT began as land grant institutions and retain that designation.

These 110 institutions now enroll 1.8 million students.

UNH — The University of New Hampshire has seen a 41.3 percent slash in its funding.

Each state received land (30,000 acres for each Representative and Senator a state sent to Congress) and money to build these institutions, because Morrill wanted to provide a “sure and perpetual foundation” for higher education.

I am thinking about Justin Morrill because, in just a few days, a group will gather in Morrill’s hometown of Strafford, Vermont, to celebrate the Morrill Act and to contemplate the future of higher education. The symposium includes James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, and U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. I’ve been asked to provide a reporter’s perspective.

Now about those two phrases in bold, ‘sure and perpetual foundation’ and ‘accessible to all.’ The economic situation of much of higher education is perilous, and that includes land grant institutions. Ohio State, the third largest of our land grant universities, now receives less than 15% of its funding from Ohio, and that amount is being cut another 11.8%. New Hampshire has cut its appropriation to the University of New Hampshire by an astonishing 41.3%. Perhaps because it’s the home of Justin Morrill, Vermont has cut its funding for the University of Vermont by only 6.4%.

That’s a shaky foundation, not a ‘sure and perpetual’ one.

“Accessible to all” is increasingly problematic. The maximum Pell Grant is just $5,550, but the cost of one year at the aforementioned University of New Hampshire is now $26,186 (tuition, fees, room and board). That’s for a resident — add $10K for out-of-state students.

It’s over $20,000 at Ohio State for residents, and nearly $36,000 for out-of-state residents.

And in Justin Morrill’s home state, a year at UVM costs residents $28,463 and out-of-staters $49,135.

“Accessible for all?” I don’t think so.

Certainly Justin Morrill should be proud of what his law has accomplished. Millions of Americans have been educated at these institutions, and research done there has benefited agriculture, medicine, science, education and beyond.

But what lies ahead is the issue…

Schools Do Need A Weatherman

July 20, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

So sang Bob Dylan in “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” but the public schools are in desperate need of a weatherman, someone to point out that they are moving in the wrong direction. I grant that K-12 education is tougher and more complex than higher education, but that’s no excuse for what’s going on. It seems to me that most of the world is moving one way — and American K-12 education the other.

Some parts of higher education have figured out which way the wind is blowing and are moving aggressively to adapt to a changing world. Tamar Lewin of the New York Times provided a solid overview of the rapid expansion of massive open online courses (MOOCs) recently. The eye-opener was Stanford’s free artificial intelligence course last year; it attracted 160,00 students from 190 countries.

Today many of the nation’s leading universities are involved in one or more of the online learning efforts, pioneered by MIT and Harvard several years ago. Here’s a partial list: Duke, Johns Hopkins, Cal Tech, Michigan, Princeton and Rice. Richard DeMillo, the director of the Center for 21st Century Universities at Georgia Tech, told The Times, “This is the tsunami.”

1211344623396 — Tastes great! Less filling!

Many questions remain unanswered: How will students receive credit? How much will courses cost? What’s to prevent cheating? However, lots of smart people are working on those problems now, and institutions like Western Governors University, which is entirely on line, have carved out a trail.

The MOOC phenomenon — the prospect of millions of students studying online — threatens much of traditional higher education, particularly the less prestigious but nonetheless very expensive private colleges. Expect a shake-up even as opportunities expand for millions.

Higher education has huge advantages over K-12. It’s voluntary, and its clients are adults. Elementary and secondary schools must provide custodial care, and they are charged with the complex task of helping grow adults, in addition to teaching reading, math and other essential skills. ‘E pluribus unum’ is not part of the mandate at the University of Bridgeport or Yale, while learning to be a citizen is assumed to be part of the public school curriculum.

So what’s going on in K-12 education? Well, it is jumping feet first into the Common Core, an approach that accelerates schools on the path that they have been on since “A Nation at Risk” in 1983: higher standards and a more ‘rigorous’ curriculum.

The federal government has invested millions into developing ‘better’ tests, but they are also more expensive, which means that many states are supposed to spend additional millions on testing.

What’s more, the Common Core will eventually expand testing into the lower grades and more subjects. This will benefit Pearson and other testing companies and keep the test-makers employed, but the money will have to come from somewhere else in the budget, because no new education dollars are available. That’s likely to mean larger classes and cuts in ‘frills’ like PE and the arts. Or schools may continue to use cheap tests, which will not be aligned with the Common Core. That will mean disappointing test scores, more public disillusionment with schools, and so on.

The old Miller Lite TV Ad campaign keeps running through my head. These were funny faux debates, where one person would say “Tastes Great,” and the other would disagree by shouting, “Less Filling.” In my nightmare, we are going to end up with young people who “Test Great” but whose knowledge is “Less Filling.”

Joel Klein has a perceptive column in Time Magazine this week, cautioning against complacency. He’s upset because some people are cheering small upticks in scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and I agree. I would go further to suggest that the basic flat-line scores of the past 40 or so years on NAEP are strong evidence that our approach to ‘School Reform’ has been and is fundamentally flawed. Wrong-headed. And leading us seriously astray.

It’s not too late to change direction. In nearly 40 years of reporting about education, I have seen FOUR programs that work well. Happily, they are not mutually exclusive. Two are elementary school programs, one is pre-school, and the fourth high school.

This is what I would do if I were in charge: every elementary school would adopt James Comer’s approach, meaning that all the adults would be trained in child development and would be able to provide the nurturing and supportive environment that is found in successful families. At the program’s height, about 1,000 Comer Schools were operating around the nation, giving poor children the supports they need to be successful. You can read more about Comer Schools here. Jim Comer, an MD and a Professor of Child Psychiatry at Yale, is nearly 78, and his schools have been saving children since 1968.

The second program that would co-exist in all elementary schools, if I had my way, is E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge. The Core Knowledge curriculum prescribes roughly half of what every child should study, leaving the rest to the local and state authorities. Don Hirsch, now in his 80’s, recognized back in the 1970’s that, for all children to have a fair chance at succeeding in life, all must have a common ‘vocabulary’ of knowledge. All kids must be exposed to the rich ‘curriculum’ that middle and upper class children acquire at home.

I find it revealing that neither Dr. Comer nor Professor Hirsch is a professional educator. Perhaps education is too important to be left to educators, after all. Don was the classic mild-mannered Professor of English at the University of Virginia when he had his epiphany.

(Full disclosure: I consider both men to be friends, although our friendship grew out of my admiration for their programs, which I first met as a reporter.)

Quality pre-school is such a no-brainer that I am baffled by our national failure to insist on programs. We know that poor children start school years behind their affluent peers, and we know that well-planned programs close those gaps. Presidents regularly talk the talk, but that’s as far as it goes. I’ve seen really good programs in Chicago, France and Spain, but there are plenty of other examples.

Here’s a piece we did for PBS NewsHour in April 2011:

Is money for pre-school the issue? If so, then my fourth change can help with that. Early College High School is another long-overdue change. Everyone knows that American high schools aren’t working for most kids, who put in the required seat time so they can be with their friends, participate in extracurricular activities, and get that piece of paper. Where high school students can begin their college (or technical) education early, good things happen. We reported on this recently for the PBS, but this is not unique to south Texas.

About 10% of high school students are taking college courses in Minnesota, New York and elsewhere. I would open up “early college” to anyone who’s motivated, because it’s a win-win all around.

Eventually, in this approach, senior year will disappear, and perhaps junior year as well, as education becomes seamless. The savings should be used for pre-school programs.

I don’t foresee MOOC’s in high school, but technology must be pervasive. Kids will still be coming to buildings, but their studies should take them outside the walls. Students in Berlin — Germany, Connecticut and New Hampshire — could be working together on projects. Columbus, Georgia, and Columbus, Ohio-you get the idea. Young musicians in different towns could be practicing together on Skype. And so on.

My four changes won’t solve the problems of poverty, poor nutrition, substandard housing and inadequate health care, but they will open doors for more children, doors that I believe our current approach is closing.

We should be asking “Who Benefits?” when the wind blows as it does. I see a lot of so-called experts making a decent living ‘turning around’ schools, and the test-makers must be smiling all the way to the bank. However, teachers aren’t benefitting from the pressure to raise test scores or be fired. Students learn the cruelest lesson of all: at the end of the day, they are test scores, numbers to be manipulated.

“Tests Great, Less Filling” is not a campaign we should get behind.

What Are We Waiting For?

July 9, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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Low income, high poverty high school students earning their AA degrees while they are still in high school? If you saw our two-part report on PBS NewsHour last week, you know it’s not a fantasy:

What’s more, this is not a flash in the pan or a new idea. The University of Chicago had a version in the 1940’s and 50’s. I remember great programs at LaGuardia Community College in the 1980’s, and Minnesota has had a vibrant post-secondary options programs in its high schools for years. Today, the Early College High School Initiative includes 270 schools serving more than 75,000 students in 28 states. In my experience, however, many of these programs tend to attract the highly-motivated — often honor students who are already on a fast track.

Daniel King has taken early college to the next level in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school district in southeast Texas by making it part of the routine and by creating a culture of high expectations in a community without a strong tradition of education.

It’s working because the experience is challenging, and we know that most young people rise to meet challenges and expectations. They’re given options, and many of them are able to see the benefits, even if it means turning down ‘opportunities’ to hang out at the mall for hours on end.

And it’s working because high school itself is such a deadly experience for so many young people: a matter of hanging in there to meet the seat-time requirements.

Luckily for us, the NewsHour audience is well-informed and not shy about speaking up. And so, after those pieces appeared, I got mail — and want to share some of it with you.

Nancy Hoffman, vice president at Jobs for the Future (which manages the Early College High School Initiative), wrote that “Overall, the 2011 cohort from all the Early College High School programs across the country had 56% graduate high school either with two years of college or an AA.” As noted above, 270 high schools have ECHS programs.

Mary Filardo, who has worked hard and skillfully to improve schools in Washington, DC, was impressed — and saddened. “What Daniel King is doing is treating these young people like the adults they are. (What a contrast) to the way the students at our traditional high schools are treated. Many of these HS students have children, and jobs when they can get them; they take care of younger sibs, and are 2 or more years out of grade. They are 17, 18, and 19 years old and in 9th and 10th grade, and yet the adults treat them like a combination of kids or prisoners. This approach doesn’t motivate them, or capture their imagination.”

Filardo was wondering why more educators aren’t doing what Dan King is doing. Veteran educator Hayes Mizell could have been answering her question in his letter. He wrote, “Will, imagination, vigilant oversight, and a little risk taking are more critical elements to successful school reform than legislative language.”

My colleague John Tulenko reported on remedial programs in community colleges a few weeks earlier, demonstrating how two institutions in Maryland are making it easier for new students to correct deficiencies without derailing their college dreams:

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (my wonderful ‘home’ in Palo Alto for about a decade before we moved to New York City in 2010) has also been doing important work on this issue in a number of states.

What Dan King is doing, however, is preventive maintenance (to borrow jargon from the automotive world). Early investments in ECHS prevent problems and also make money. A study done in 2006 for Jobs for the Future reports a strong economic payoff from investments in ECHS. “The analysis suggests that in states like California and New York, two states with very different education finance structures, policymakers might expect to yield $1.33 to $2.11 more for every dollar invested in early college high schools than in traditional high schools over the course of 15 years, and $2.51 to $3.95 more over the course of 25 years.” This analysis does not include the additional economic benefits to students who have attained their college degrees earlier and at far lower cost.

A friend who prefers not to be identified wrote about some similarities and differences between charter schools and ECHS. “Both involve empowering families; both have been opposed by much of the educational establishment; and both involve expanding choices.”

Ah, choices. That brings me to the wisdom of my 6-year-old granddaughter, Valentina. Her Dad wrote to say that, “Yesterday she asked me what a university was. I explained that it is like school, but you’re older and you get to choose the classes you want to take and the teachers you want to work with. She thought about it and then asked, ‘Why do you have to wait until you’re big?’”

Why indeed? Why don’t we create schools that connect with children?

We’ve known for a long time what matters. As John Dewey wrote, “Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.”

John Gardner, a man of brilliant insights, was wildly optimistic when he observed in 1968, “I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder that we could have tolerated anything so primitive.”

Forty-four years later, most schools are still doing the same stuff — and some things (like mindless test prep) that are worse. I believe that’s why we are seeing a rise in homeschooling. Parents have known for a long time that something wasn’t right about their children’s schooling, but today more parents are in a position to act. Because of the internet and its cornucopia of riches, it’s really ‘world-schooling,’ not homeschooling. Widespread and persistent unemployment is another factor, perhaps the one positive from a sour economy.

If educators and politicians don’t come to their senses and challenge the status quo the way Dan King has, I predict a lot more homeschooling in our future.

Shoe’s On The Other Foot

June 28, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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After 38 years of asking other people questions, I find the the tables (occasionally) being turned. Some people want me to answer questions. Truth is, it’s actually kind of fun, because it forces me to think more deeply than I am perhaps inclined to.

It’s already happened four times this week.

On Wednesday a policy person asked me what I thought about the push for “College and Career Readiness” and the national policies that were developing around that notion.

Followed by a question about ‘digital natives.’

On Monday, I was with Arts educators, always a lively bunch, and one asked me how I felt about teacher training.

Followed by a question about No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and the Common Core.

In the interest of spurring some debate, here’s a shorthand version of how I responded.

I told the questioner that “College and Career Readiness” strikes me as a wrong-headed term. It implies that ‘College’ is a destination, when in fact it’s a way station on one of the roads to (one hopes) a fulfilling life. And putting ‘College’ first and ‘Career’ second implies to some that ‘Career’ is a poor cousin; it’s what you do if you do NOT go to college.

Sloppy language reveals sloppy thinking. And, I gather, a mish-mosh of policies and programs. I’d prefer government investment in, say, two years of education beyond high school and in what are called ‘early college’ programs in high school. (We’re reporting on the latter very soon on the NewsHour).

The question about “digital natives” was a softball pitch down the middle of the plate. To me, many adults say ‘digital natives’ as part of their confession of feelings of inadequacy, as in “The kids are digital natives who just get this technology naturally, and I can’t keep up.” Maybe so, but adults have important responsibilities here, because being a ‘digital native’ is NOT the same thing as being as ‘digital citizen.’ Developing good citizens — digital or otherwise — is an adult responsibility and obligation. ‘Nuff said.

John has made a career of asking the big questions. But sometimes ... he gets asked them, too.

As to teacher training, we need to do better. I found myself reaching for a sound bite on this issue: “We need to make it harder to become a teacher but easier to be one.” Raise the barriers to entry by making training more demanding. Internships and time with master teachers. Visits to classrooms in countries like Finland. But once in the classroom, teachers need to be treated like professionals. We need to get off their backs and involve them in curriculum development and student assessment. From what I hear, Stanford’s STEP program is a pretty good model to follow. STEP, for Stanford Teacher Education Program, pairs would-be teachers with carefully selected mentor teachers. In its own words, STEP is “where theory and practice meet and where, in turn, learning takes place. The links between theory and practice, university and school, experience and standards, are the links of learning.” I’ve been impressed by STEP graduates and hold the program’s leader, Linda Darling Hammond, in the highest regard.

Programs like STEP make it tougher to become a teacher (high admission standards, a demanding curriculum) and equip their graduates with a skill set that will make it easier for them to succeed in the classroom. More has to be done to make it easier for teachers to succeed, of course, including an end to the current ‘gotcha’ game that’s dominating education politics.

The last question thrown at me had to do with NCLB, ‘Race to the Top’ and the Common Core. What, the questioner wanted to know, did they have in common, if anything? I hope you will weigh in with your thoughts on this. As I stood there thinking (while saying “That’s a great question” — which is what you say when you don’t know how to answer!), the notion of ‘power’ popped into my head. Think about it: George W. Bush came to Washington as an avowed ‘states rights’ Governor and immediately proceeded to enact, with Democratic help, the greatest Federal intrusion into public education in our history. Secretary Duncan was a harsh critic of NCLB when he ran the Chicago public schools but has replaced it with a program that is only marginally less intrusive. He’s granting waivers so that states don’t have to follow NCLB’s orders — as long as they follow his. And the Common Core looks as if it’s going to continue the pattern of centralization.

The lesson here may not be that “Power corrupts,” but instead something akin to “Power corrodes.” To me, NCLB has proved conclusively that Washington cannot run public education, but maybe I feel that way only because I am not in Washington and do not have any power.

Your thoughts?

Thinking About Charters

June 22, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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I have been hanging around charter school operators for the past few days, and the experience has left me with some complicated — and perhaps contradictory — thoughts about a movement that I have been following since 1988.

I love the energy, intelligence and dedication of the people I spent time with, but I left the annual meeting of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools in Minneapolis with some concerns. I think they need to do a better job of choosing their friends and of refining their message, among other issues.

For what it’s worth, here’s my thinking.

Remember: the “charter movement’ is a still blip on the screen. It consists of 5,000 charter schools and 2.4 million students. But America has more than 100,000 schools and more than 55 million students, making it not all that much bigger than the homeschooling movement, which encompasses close to 1.5 million students. This is not Hertz and Avis, more like Hertz and Acme Rent-a-Car of Poughkeepsie. (I made that company up, so don’t bother taking me to task about it.)

I left Minneapolis with the sense that the leadership believes that Charter Management Organizations and Charter Networks are the future. Stand-alone charter schools are put down as ‘Mom and Pop’ schools, and only the biggies are eligible for the newly established Broad Prize for Charter Schools of $250,000 (which went to Houston’s YES Prep Network).

Much of the talk was about “going to scale,” the notion of mass replication of apparently successful strategies. Just what would ‘going to scale’ mean, anyway, in the charter school world? Tripling or quadrupling in size? Big deal! (Go back to the numbers in the fourth paragraph above, and do the math.)

And what is it that they want to take to scale? Seems like it’s all about test scores, and that sounds like school district talk, like Washington’s “Race to the Top” talk.

Another problem with embracing “replication” is the stifling effect on innovation. If I were going to apply for a charter school, I wouldn’t stand a chance, because the school I would want to create would not have ‘senior year’ as you recognize it. I might even eliminate ‘junior year.’ Instead, I would spend those dollars on the early years, enrolling three- and four-year-olds. My ‘juniors’ and ‘seniors’ would be taking college courses and would finish school with high school diplomas and Associates Degrees or Career Certification.

I will wager that there are lots more wild ideas like that out there, but, with the dollars flowing to networks and schools that can supposedly ‘go to scale,’ what chance do they have? Perhaps the guiding spirit of the charter movement ought to be “Let one hundred flowers bloom.”

The Broad Foundation could help here, by establishing a “Rookie of the Year” award, a la Major League Baseball. It wouldn’t have to be $250,000, but it should be substantial. Eli Broad got where he is by taking chances, as his recent autobiography makes clear. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation ought not to be creating disincentives to future risk-takers.

Another problem for me: From day one, charter schools have had problems getting their message across, and even now I will wager that most Americans have no real clue as to what charter schools actually are. I think that charter schools ought to be saying — often and loudly — “We are public education!” Let that sink in, and then go into the weeds with an explanation. Because, after all, charter schools are public schools.

And that’s why I think the charter movement has to do a better job of choosing its friends. I believe that its natural allies are the other men and women who work elsewhere in public education, the 3.2 million public school teachers. I know all about the narrow-mindedness and selfishness of many leaders of school boards and unions, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s within the army of teachers that charter school people are most likely to find understanding and support.

In the keynote panel I moderated, Howard Fuller, the legendary firebrand and former superintendent of schools in Milwaukee, pointed out that charter schools were supported across the spectrum by folks who don’t agree on much else: pro- and anti-vouchers, for profit and not for profit, liberals and conservatives, and so on. Well and good, but those who believe (as I do) that charter schools represent an opportunity to provide unprecedented educational opportunity for millions of children ought to be examining the motives of those who embrace charter schools.

Some offer their support — and their money — because they see charter schools as a necessary step toward their ultimate goal of dismantling (destruction) of the public school system. Privatizing is their end game. They don’t want any public schools! So wake up and recognize that a permanent network/system/movement of public charter schools does not figure into the plans of those particular ‘friends’ of yours.

To me, that means charter folks, and their associations, ought to be denying entrance to the tent to those whose end game is inimical to their own health. Reject their support and their money, difficult as that may be to do. Like Othello, you think you know who your friends and enemies are. Like Othello, you are wrong. Unlike Othello, you can do something about it before it’s too late.

Another concern: I believe in going to scale, but what has to get to scale is not one brand of charter school, or even charter schools more broadly. What needs to go to scale are effective ways of educating children. Let’s recognize that this can be done in charter-like public schools. It can be done in any public district that renounces “command and control” as its MO.

That’s why I think the charter movement must be reaching out to create alliances with superintendents who have embraced charter schools and with school boards that support authorization of, or provide facilities for, charter schools. How about a third Broad Prize here?

And finally, if you’ve heard me speak about charter schools, you know I compare them to restaurants. To wit, the name ‘restaurant’ tells you nothing about the quality or even the kind of food being served, just as ‘charter school’ tells you nothing about the education being offered inside. You have to have a meal to even begin to know anything. It’s not enough to read the menu (or the course syllabus and mission statement).

The analogy is apt in another way. We inspect our restaurants because it’s in the public interest to make sure they are following appropriate health procedures. And we close down ones that fail to comply, to keep ourselves from being poisoned.

One thing we have learned from New Orleans and its largely successful system of charter schools is that some form of central authority is essential. Someone must police even the finest ‘system of schools,’ whether charter schools or not. Someone must assure that every school’s behavior code is made public, that protections are in place against arbitrary action against students and teachers, that children with special needs are not discouraged from enrolling, and that the application process is fair for all.

“Trust but verify” is a useful mantra going forward, on many levels.

The charter school movement is the most promising development of my reporting career (which began in 1974). It’s painfully ironic that the dream of innovation is being challenged by the impulse to centralize, replicate and ‘go to scale.’ Maybe someday we will have a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to schooling, but right now we are not even close. Charter schools are a vital work in progress, nothing more. There’s a lot of work ahead.

I Have Seen The Future

June 13, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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Listen to John and Daniel King’s interview:
[audio:http://learningmatters.tv/podcasts/media/MerrowKing2.mp3%5D

“I have seen the future, and it works.” I write those words with some trepidation, because another journalist used those exact words in 1919 and lived to regret it, big time.

If you remember your history, Lincoln Steffens said that after returning from newly Communist Russia. Only later did he see with clarity the harsh cruelty of the Soviet dictatorship.

I’m playing on a much smaller stage, of course, and I am talking about high school, not one of the largest countries in the world.

In two weeks or so, you will be able to see for yourselves what I am so enthusiastic about, because Learning Matters producer Cat McGrath is now editing our two-part report for PBS NewsHour.

Update: it has now aired, and here it is:

But here’s the gist: in 2007, half of the high school students in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school district in southeast Texas, on the border with Mexico, dropped out without graduating, just as their parents had done. The district has 31,600 students — it’s 99% Hispanic and 89% economically disadvantaged. It was ‘dropout city,’ with a failure rate that was nearly twice the state average.

Then Daniel King came to town, with Texas-size ambition and three bold plans. First, the new School Superintendent went after the 237 kids who had left school that spring without graduating, to try to persuade them to come back to school. He organized volunteers to go door-to-door to talk with them, with a simple — and counter-intuitive — message: “High school didn’t work, so come on back and let’s try college.”

In an abandoned WalMart store, he created a dropout recovery academy, but he didn’t call it that. It was instead the “College, Career and Technology Academy,” where students would complete their high school requirements, take some actual college courses and develop a connection to a local college or career training facility.

King is a persuasive man. Of the 237 students, he and his team convinced 223 to give education a second chance. That was in the fall of 2007. Very soon his College, Career and Technology Academy will graduate its one thousandth student.

“High school didn’t work, so let’s try college.” What a concept! We know in our gut that high school is a painful rite of passage for most young people, four years held together by friendships (if you’re lucky) but marked by boredom and, often, humiliation.

Why not attack boredom? Make the experience more challenging and interesting?

At the same time, he created a special school where everyone would go to college and high school at the same time. Admission to this small school would be by lottery. Students would spend half their time on the campus of a local college, half at their new school, which he named T-STEM, with the last four letters standing for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (the initial T is, of course, for Texas).

At graduation this spring, 55 of the 80 T-STEM seniors earned their two-year Associates degrees, which they received one week before getting their high school diplomas.

Who are these young people?

Meet 18-year-old Viviana Hernandez, whose parents work in the fields picking crops, as did she during the summers. Here’s part of what she told us.

Since I am a girl, I am required to get up earlier than everybody else. We usually get up at 5:30, get to the field at 6:00, and we don’t come back until like 5:00 or 5:30. Every day. There’s no Saturday, no Sundays. It’s every day, with no summer break at all. I stress out with my college work a lot, but I would rather sit in college classes and take a billion finals than work another day in the fields.

Viviana graduated from high school and community college this spring.

With the success of his dropout recovery school and T-STEM, King made the boldest move of all: import this approach into a huge, comprehensive high school, where being indifferent about education is the standard M.O., where it’s just not cool to be interested in learning.

This idea, ‘early college,’ began appearing in the 1950’s, and, while firm numbers are just about impossible to come by, it’s widely believed that at least 10% of high school juniors and seniors are in some sort of ‘dual enrollment’ program. By and large, these programs attract gifted and/or highly motivated students. What King is doing is pushing the inside of the envelope, in a big way.

He had made this work in a Texas district one-tenth the size, so he was optimistic going in. He’s also a veteran (14 years as a Superintendent) who was named Texas Superintendent of the Year in 2006, the year before he came to Pharr-San Juan-Alamo.

Based on what I saw in PSJA school district, King’s approach has been successfully transplanted to a larger stage. Kids are kids, he might say, and they want to be challenged.

I hung out with some students who had just finished taking their final exam in Economics 101, taught by Laura Leal, an instructor from a local college who travels to Memorial High School to teach her classes.

Leal told me that high school students were in some ways ideal. “It’s kind of like the experience that Adam and Eve had, before the apple. High school students see every challenge as possible; they have their whole future ahead of them.”

And, she added, they haven’t been jaded or corrupted by the anti-intellectualism of the college campus. That culture shock awaits. “Students in high school aren’t really experimenting with life yet. They don’t have the culture shock of being in a dorm because they’re still at home.”

She believes they will enter college more self-assured, not to mention that they will also be quite a few steps down the road to a degree.

The thread that ran through my conversation with the students was ‘respect.’ And students welcomed the higher expectations, even when it meant they missed hours of just hanging out.

“We use a college textbook, it’s a college teacher, it’s college work,” one said proudly.

“The (college) teacher treats us differently. High school teachers are always like ‘do your work , do your work, do your work,’ but this teacher isn’t that way. With her, It’s like ‘there’s the work, there’s the syllabus, and it’s your decision whether you do it or not.’”

“High school teachers kind of baby you,” another said, adding that, if you are failing a high school class, “you’ll get a bunch of extra credit just so you can pass,” but “if you slack off at college, that’s on you” because “you are not considered a kid anymore.”

At Memorial High School, 40% of the graduates have earned at least three college credit hours. And 60 graduating seniors from the district’s comprehensive high schools earned Associates Degrees from a local college.

The State of Texas encourages dual enrollment with financial incentives for colleges and participating high schools, because it wants and needs more graduates and a larger skilled labor force. King saw that opportunity, and his success should encourage others.

Could this be a new paradigm for the American high school? Remember, King is making this work in a district whose dropout rate was almost double the Texas average, with families with no tradition or expectation of higher education.

One final thought: I spent a fair amount of time with Danny King, and never once did I hear him use the word ‘rigorous.’ He’s about challenges, expectations and respect.

I have seen the future. Whether it spreads is not up to me, but I sure hope it catches on.

The Commonwealth

June 6, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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I went to graduate school in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and taught at a college in the Commonwealth of Virginia. That makes me two-for-four when it comes to connecting with states that are officially designated as a Commonwealth (the other two being Kentucky and Pennsylvania).

The other 46 states are just that — states.

What brings this to mind is graduation season, a time of closure that ought to be a joyous celebration of life’s next adventure for the millions of young people who have earned diplomas from high school or college.

“Roots and anchors” was my theme when I was the commencement speaker at Richard Stockton State College (NJ) in 1991, where nearly all graduates were the first in their families to earn degrees. I encouraged them to take chances because, I said, they knew who they were (“Roots”) but weren’t constrained by debt (“Anchors”).

Couldn’t say that today, not when more than half of all college graduates leave with significant debt and, often, dim job prospects.

A trend that began during the “me, me, me” years of the Reagan Administration continues to accelerate: states are withdrawing their support for higher education; tuition and fees are going up; and student aid has gone from grants to loans.

Today only 7% of the funding for Ohio State University, the state’s flagship public institution, comes from the State of Ohio. Once “state-supported,” it is now “state-situated,” as the cynics say.

The cost of a year at an elite institution is approaching $60,000. A year of Community College — if you can find room — is now in five figures, and no one gets through Community College in just two years anymore, because so many classes have been eliminated. (My colleague John Tulenko has a piece about community colleges coming up on PBS NewsHour later this month.)

More students are borrowing, and they are borrowing more. The average borrower owes $23,000, and 10% of borrowers owe more than $54,000.

After World War II, America invested in higher education because we saw an educated populace as a common good. The GI Bill declared, in so many words, “If you have the determination and the brains, the country will pay for your college education.” It wasn’t entirely charitable: we didn’t want millions of veterans on the streets, preferring instead to have millions of working, tax-paying citizens. (Higher education largely opposed this, by the way.)

From that policy decision came our great middle class. Pell Grants to low income students opened the door even wider, but that door is also closing. A Pell Grant once paid almost half the cost of attending a state institution; today, less than 25%.

All of this makes me nostalgic for a Commonwealth and all the term implies: a public purpose, a sense of polity, an understanding of the importance of community, a shared belief in institutions, and the conviction that government is essential.

A significant portion of the voting population seems to see ‘government’ as the enemy, and those on the right talk about ‘government schools’ as a root cause of our national problems. The implication is clear: our ‘government’ is not theirs and does not represent them.

The trend toward the privatization of just about everything that moves is deeply disturbing to me. Because of my work, I see it most clearly in public education: profit-seeking charter schools, virtual schools, and voucher campaigns that undercut public education.

We once believed in national service and national sacrifice, but then George W. Bush took us into two wars without asking us to give up any comforts or pay higher taxes. In fact, he urged us to keep shopping. We no longer have a draft or a citizen military — the latter has also been privatized. We were told that we could have it all, without much regard for the other guy or the larger community. Now we know that we cannot.

It’s also true that public education has often been its own worst enemy, with adults protecting other adults while putting children, youth and learning on the back burners.

How do we refocus on the common good? Is that even possible in a time of scarcity, or does a sour economy make ‘every man for himself’ inevitable?

There’s evidence that our young people are ready to unite around a call for a Commonwealth, whether it’s the enthusiasm for Teach for America and other helping programs or the growth of community gardens, community schools, and project-based learning. We yearn to be part of community, to feel the satisfaction of being involved in meaningful actions that help others.

Unfortunately, many of our leaders tap into and inflame our lesser angels of selfishness, reckless individuality and ‘us versus them.’

Who will ask more of us — and trust that we will respond?

Mitt Romney And Wilfredo Laboy

May 31, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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What would the election of Mitt Romney mean for education? Observers are parsing his recent speech and examining his record as Governor of Massachusetts, as they should. Politics isn’t my beat, but I hope some reporters will ask the candidate about Wilfredo Laboy.

Laboy is the former superintendent of schools in Lawrence, Massachusetts, who is probably doing time as you read this. In March he was sentenced to 90 days in a House of Correction, followed by a year of house arrest, 600 hours of community service, and an unspecified amount of restitution, after being found guilty of embezzlement (five counts) and one charge of possession of alcohol on school property. At the sentencing the presiding judge, Essex Superior Court Judge Richard E. Welch, described Laboy’s actions “plainly criminal conduct” and said he “abused his position of trust” as superintendent. Laboy was fired in 2010.

What does this have to do with Mr. Romney? Here’s an excerpt from a column I wrote nine or so years ago, on the subject of hypocrisy in education.

What happens when the school superintendent, 21 certified teachers and more than 40 percent of the town’s high school seniors fail tests they’re required to pass? (In the superintendent’s case, it’s the third time he had failed the basic literacy test.)

(A) No one is punished, and all receive extra support so they have a better chance of passing the retest.
(B) Everyone suffers the consequences. The seniors don’t graduate on time, and the adults are suspended without pay until they pass their tests.
(C) The students don’t graduate, but the educators keep their jobs.
(D) The students and teachers are punished, but the superintendent is praised by his state’s governor and receives a 3 percent raise to $156,560.

“A” is an unlikely choice in the current “get tough” educational environment, which calls for real consequences.

If you chose “B,” you deserve praise for consistency, but you’re also naïve. Maybe hopelessly so.

If you selected “C,” you have a better grasp of how the system works. You know that the world often operates on a double standard, with one set of rules for kids and another for adults. It’s perfectly logical to assume the system would blame kids for failing to learn but not find fault with adults who failed to teach them, or the adult who failed to lead his teachers. But “C” is also a wrong answer because Lawrence, Mass., was operating on a different kind of double standard.

That’s right. Believe it or not, “D” is the correct answer. At a news conference in August 2003, then-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney praised Lawrence superintendent Wilfredo Laboy and indicated that, as long as teachers were literate, the superintendent apparently didn’t need to be. “I’m not sure the superintendent of schools is in the same level of importance to me in terms of English skills as are the teachers in the classroom teaching our kids,” said Romney.

Laboy liked the governor’s reasoning. He told The Eagle-Tribune, which first reported the story, that the test had little relevance. “It bothers me because I’m trying to understand the congruence of what I do here every day and this stupid test,” said Laboy. “I didn’t meet the bar. But I think truly and honestly it has no relevancy to what I do every day. The fruits of my labor speak greater than not passing a test.” Laboy did not comment about the apparent inconsistency of suspending employees without pay for failing to meet state requirements while he continued on salary. And if he had doubts about the relevance of the graduation test to the real world that students live in, he kept them quiet.”

What were “the fruits” of Mr. Laboy’s labor? According to the Massachusetts Department of Education, only 254 out of 430 enrolled seniors in Lawrence passed the state exam, known as MCAS, in 2003. That’s a graduation rate of 59 percent or, put another way, a failure rate of 41 percent. Dig deeper and you find that in ninth grade, the Lawrence Class of 2003 had 917 students, meaning that 487 students disappeared along the way. 254 graduates out of 917 students is a pass rate of about 28 percent, giving Lawrence the lowest pass rate in Massachusetts.

Mr. Laboy finally managed to pass the test – on his fourth try.

At the time, I was taking a whack at the Animal Farm-like hypocrisy, a situation where the rules don’t apply to the bosses. But now, in light of Mr. Laboy’s criminal conviction and Mitt Romney’s nomination, I have two more questions:

1) What should we expect to happen when the people in charge lower the bar in order to hire someone who, by the state’s own standard, is not qualified?

2) What was Mitt Romney thinking when he said it was OK to hire someone who had failed the qualification test three times?

Apparently Superintendent Laboy concluded that, since the rules about hiring did not apply to him, neither did any of the other rules, regulations or laws. I say that because the record indicates that he proceeded to run the school system to suit himself, and to benefit himself. When he was fired, it was alleged that he had school employees doing electrical work at his home, picking up his grandchildren after school, and taking out his trash. “This was all about him,” Assistant Essex District Attorney Maureen Wilson Leal told the court. “He thought he was untouchable.”

Now about Governor Romney. Remember, he was Governor of the state where public education originated. And education is, of course, a state responsibility. So here comes a soft pitch down the middle of the plate, something like, “Governor, what do you think about Lawrence hiring a man who has failed the literacy exam three times to be school superintendent?”

It doesn’t get any easier than that, does it?

The Governor could have said, “It’s the wrong message to send to students and teachers.”

Or: “We need confidence in our leaders at all levels, and, if a man can’t pass a qualifying test, then he’s not qualified and shouldn’t be hired.”

Or: “Why do we give these tests if we aren’t going to pay any attention to the results?”

Or: “It’s hypocritical behavior by the Lawrence School Board, and I am ordering my State Department of Education to look into it, immediately.”

As we know, Governor Romney said none of these things. I suppose one could argue that this incident reveals more about Mitt Romney the politician than Mitt Romney the educator, but that’s cold comfort.

The Merrow Report

Author: John Merrow

An Apology

Stop Your Whining

Remembering Justin Morrill

Schools Do Need A Weatherman

What Are We Waiting For?

Shoe’s On The Other Foot

Thinking About Charters

I Have Seen The Future

The Commonwealth

Mitt Romney And Wilfredo Laboy