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.

Mixed Messages

May 24, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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Lately, I have been living a bipolar life. Here’s why: Our production company, Learning Matters, has two editing rooms, and the sounds emanating from them couldn’t be more different.

“You want to become a civil rights leader? Become a teacher. You want to get involved in the greatest chapter in the American civil rights movement, dedicate yourself to the education of our young people.”

I hear those rousing words almost every day as we work on our film about New Orleans. They were delivered, sermon-like, by Paul Vallas, then the Superintendent of the Recovery School District in Louisiana. That message, and similar ones from Barack Obama, Wendy Kopp of Teach for America and Richard Barth of KIPP, have resonated, and thousands and thousands of idealistic men and women have answered the call.

Meanwhile, in our other edit room I regularly see these video clips of school leaders in another city, from another film we are editing:

MERROW: If you had your druthers, what percentage of your staff would you replace?
PRINCIPAL: Probably somewhere in the range of about 25 to maybe 50 percent
and
MERROW: You said you have a number of teachers who really need to be fired.
ADMINISTRATOR: Yes.
MERROW: How big is that number? What’s the number?
ADMINISTRATOR: I’m not sure I should say that number. (pause) At least 50 percent. I think there are many of us who have said as high as 80 percent.

You see what I mean about my bipolar life?

However, I am fortunate, because I am only living it vicariously. Unfortunately, for our country’s 3.1 million teachers, this mixed message isreality: they’re called upon to sacrifice and serve — and they are vilified.

Is the tide changing? Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Washington DC School Chancellor Kaya Henderson have now come out against publishing student test scores grouped by teacher, joining Bill Gates and Wendy Kopp. But Henderson doesn’t need public demand to remove teachers. DC’s controversial teacher evaluation system, IMPACT, has allowed her to fire hundreds of teachers in the past two years. IMPACT relies heavily on how students do on a test known as the DC-CAS, a standardized test that has been plagued with a high rate of erasures (almost always from wrong to right) for a number of years.

Secretary Duncan’s change of heart (he supported releasing scores in 2010) is easily interpreted as evidence of the Administration’s awareness of its shaky standing with teachers. Expect more olive branches going forward, because President Obama probably cannot be re-elected if teachers sit on their hands.

But those are what might be called ‘headline changes’ that probably do not affect the bipolar conditions teachers face. However, on the ground, ordinary citizens are questioning the wisdom of putting so many eggs in the basket labeled ‘high stakes tests.’ The recent fiasco in Florida, where the state lowered the passing bar on the writing test because so many students failed, must be food for thought at school board meetings and around dinner tables across the country. And the continuing flood of cheating scandals –cheating by adults — is eroding support for high-stakes testing. In fact, hundreds of school districts in Texas and elsewhere are publicly objecting to the amount of time being devoted to testing and test-prep; here in New York City and elsewhere parents are organizing to keep their children home when standardized tests are being given.

Being against “too much testing” is not the same as being supportive of classroom teachers, however.

The war that I wrote about in The Influence of Teachers continues, between those who want to “fire and replace,” and those who want to change the working conditions of teachers to let them have more say over the curriculum and assessment.

“Fire and replace” is pure folly, because who is going to want to step into a profession that vilifies its practitioners?

If we believe that education is “the next great civil rights issue of our time,” then we ought to be enabling the ‘human capital’ now in the profession to succeed (while weeding out those who, after help, cannot cut the mustard). That approach will send the right message to the large pool of young Americans who want to contribute to our country.

A Pot Luck Meal Of Ideas

May 16, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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Remember pot-luck suppers, when everyone brought a dish or two? What follows is the the equivalent — although substituting ideas for food. Because the last few entries on this blog have been pretty grim, this week I want to share some good stuff that has come across my desk or into my professional life somehow. My pot-luck includes books, and school and service programs. I hope you will click on at least a couple of the links — and add your own to round out the meal.

A national program I’m keen on is the Arts Education Partnership, which describes itself as being “dedicated to securing a high-quality arts education for every young person in America.” Its 25 (and counting) partners include national groups like Americans for the Arts, state and local arts councils and two major foundations (Wallace and Ford), but the key player seems to be the Council of Chief State School Officers. I spent some time with AEP folks this spring (moderating a panel, giving a speech, and hanging out), and, if we could bottle the positive energy that arts advocates give off, we would be a long way to solving some of schooling’s problems.

I am intrigued by Global Citizen Year, which says it is “building the next generation of American leaders though a bridge year in the developing world.” I’ve met the founder, a whirlwind of energy named Abby Falik, a graduate of the Harvard Business School. GCY is narrowly focused (“It’s not freshman year. Not a study abroad program. It’s a year of deep experience in the real world before college,” the website boasts). In other words, this may not be for you but for your children or grandchildren, or your neighbor’s kids, but it’s worth a look.

Boston Globe columnist Gareth Cook wrote about Global Citizen Year on March 4: “Harvard freshman Gus Ruchman did Global Citizen Year after high school, and found himself living with a host family and doing deeply fulfilling public health work a few hours east of Dakar, Senegal. He was on his own, navigating an Islamic culture, learning that not everyone on the planet shares the American obsession with being right on time – all experiences that changed him for the better and helped prepare him for the overwhelming experience of starting college.

“I absolutely loved it,’’ says Ruchman.”

The Future Project is a service program with an audacious goal: “Our mission is to put the world’s dreams into action — starting in the most historically underserved schools and neighborhoods across the nation.” It does this by connecting service-minded adults with adolescents with big dreams.

Now underway in New York, Washington, D.C., and New Haven, it was started by two recent Yale graduates, Andrew Mangino and Kanya Balakrishna. Tim Shriver, the Chairman & CEO of the Special Olympics and a TFP Board member, had this to say about TFP:

“The Future Project is all about saving the country and saving the world. It’s big ideas and big vision. It’s about saying no to apathy, and indifference, and defeatism. It’s about marshalling the energies of a new generation to believe in themselves, to believe that we can create a better world than we’ve got today, to trust in young people as the engines of that change and the engines of that vision. I can’t imagine anything more important.”

I’m a new fan of the Alliance for Catholic Education, a group I learned about when I spoke at Notre Dame on April 30th. ACE ‘exists to sustain and strengthen Catholic schools,’ surely a noble goal at a time when parochial schools are struggling. The easiest way to understand ACE is to say, “think Teach for America.” TFA and ACE began about the same time, roughly 20 years ago, and both programs recruit and train teachers and send them into classrooms. But ACE — unlike TFA — brings the rookie teachers back to Notre Dame (home base) for the summer after their first year of teaching, for R&R&R&R, which I guess means “rest, recuperation, renewal and re-education.” TFA does not do that, and the ACE retention record suggests that the second summer of training makes all the difference. About 80 percent of ACE graduates stay in teaching for at least a third year, and 75 percent are still in education within five years of graduating. By contrast, according to an independent review of TFA, more than 50 percent of Teach for America teachers leave after two years and more than 80 percent leave after three years.

I have read two of the three books I am enthusiastic about and hope to read the third this weekend. One of them, Liberating Teachers, isn’t out yet — I read the manuscript — but its subtitle, “What happens when we trust teachers with school success,” should be enough to make some of you want to get it when it appears. The authors are Kim Farris-Berg and Edward J. Kirkswager.

Zero Chance of Passage: The Pioneering Charter School Story is an engaging history of the origins of the charter school movement, written by the courageous Minnesota State Senator who pushed and pulled the original legislation through her legislature back in 1990. Ember Reichcott-Junge’s book came out earlier this month, and I hope you will pick up a copy. (Full disclosure: I blurbed it.)

By my bedtable is Dan Willingham’s new book, When Can You Trust the Experts? — subtitled “how to tell good science from bad in education.” (Jossey-Bass) This is help we all can use, from one of the most sensible guys around.

ReadWorks serves a need. We have a reading crisis in this country, and some of that stems from the harsh truth that many elementary school teachers aren’t well equipped to teach reading. Rather than curse that darkness, ReadWorks offers help — tons of it. I urge you to share this website with every teacher you know. It’s free.

Harmony is a program I love. It provides musical instruments (free) and music lessons (also free) to underprivileged kids, and we had the privilege of spending some quality time with Harmony kids in two New York City public schools, then later with Placido Domingo. Watch our NewsHour piece here, and I wager you will be a fan too:

Core Knowledge is the living legacy of one of education’s greats, E.D. “Don” Hirsch, Jr. If you saw our piece about reading and the Common Core this week, then you saw the Core Knowledge reading program in action. But Core Knowledge is more than a reading program. It’s a comprehensive approach to elementary school, based on the firm belief held by Don Hirsch, a ‘small d’ democrat, our culture has a core of knowledge that should be available to all, regardless of family income, et cetera. I’ve been in a fair number of Core Knowledge schools over the years and have consistently been impressed by the intellectual electricity of the place.

The more I learn about Blended Learning and Deep Learning, the more impressed I am. Both of these approaches to schooling are swimming upstream against the tide of bubble testing and superficial learning, and that’s enough reason right there to encourage them. For “Blended Learning,” think Sal Khan and the Khan Academy and take off from there.

What about “Deep Learning”? The astrophysicist Neal DeGrasse Tyson spoke at Teachers College graduation this week and, without mentioning Deep Learning, used a wonderful example of what I think of as Deep Teaching. Imagine a spelling bee, he said, and the word is CAT. The kid who spells it C.A.T. gets an A. The two others spell it incorrectly, K.A.T. and Q.Z.P. Both get an F, which makes no sense at all because, Dr. Tyson said, one student came very close while the other kid had no clue. But in a system — ours — that rewards only the precisely correct answer, much is lost. It’s time, he said, for teachers to dig deep into how kids’ minds work — and, it follows from that, encourage them to dig deeply into subjects that interest them.

There’s a network of “Deeper Learning Schools” that includes EdVisions Schools, Big Picture Learning, ConnectEd, High Tech High, New Visions for Public Schools, Expeditionary Learning, New Tech Network and the Asia Society. I know some of those organizations and the people behind them, and, I promise you, that’s a lot of positive energy and brain power. We will be doing some reporting on this, with the help of the Hewlett Foundation.

If I had my way, every week a school devotes to test-prep and testing would have to be matched by a week of project-based work, allowing students to delve deeply into what matters to them.

Early College High School is an approach, when done well, that changes the game. I’ve just come from spending some time in an Early College program in Texas. Would you believe that the school district that adopted this approach has cut its dropout rate from about 40% to below 5%? Or that nearly 100 students are getting both their HS diploma AND the AA degree from the local community college this spring? We’re editing a piece for PBS NewsHour now, and it’s going to change the way you think about high school.

Please feel free to share your own favorites.

A Fantasy Public Statement

May 10, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs

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Last week I wrote about a grim reality: the murder of young students in New Orleans. This week I turn to what is probably a fantasy: the idea that our most influential educators would speak out against this stain on our culture and threat to our future.

That raises two questions:
1) Who are America’s most prominent and influential educators?
2) What could they possibly agree to say publicly that would go beyond generalities and grab the nation’s attention?

Because any list of influential educators would draw from across the political and ideological spectrum, wouldn’t that necessarily mean that the statement would end up being namby-pamby pablum, something about “supporting the right of all students to education” or some other equally bland declaration? The country is increasingly polarized, with our nation’s capital leading the way, and it takes real courage for people in power to speak out on anything controversial.

Want to start with the list, or should we try drafting a statement?

How about we do both at once? You may not recognize all of the names, but you will most likely know enough of them to grasp their political differences.

“As patriotic Americans and dedicated educators, we are speaking out with one voice today. We (Arne Duncan, Wendy Kopp, Diane Ravitch, Harold McGraw III, Alfie Kohn and Shirley Tilghman) are appalled by the senseless violence that too many of our youth are enduring.”

loudspeaker1 — The time for speaking up has come.

“Furthermore, we (Randi Weingarten, Michelle Rhee, Monty Neill, David Levin, Mike Feinberg, Drew Faust, Joel Klein and Ted Kolderie) believe that sensible Americans — the vast majority — must now confront the special interest groups that have cowed the U. S. Congress into cowardice.”

“As a group, we (Dennis van Roekel, Howard Gardner, Lamar Alexander, Rod Paige, Jonathan Kozol, Father Theodore Hesburgh, Jeanne Allen, Richard Riley and Margaret Spellings) represent all points on the political spectrum. Although we disagree on some issues, to a person, we believe that….”

Go ahead, finish the sentence.

These men and women have fundamental differences. Some believe that government is an essential part of the solution, while others see government as a barrier. Some trust that the vast majority of teachers are committed to the education of all children; others question what they see as protectionism of ineffective teachers as a core problem.

What do you suppose that all of these good men and women agree upon? What sort of strong statement would they all sign their names to, in an effort to wake this nation up?

I’m certain they think it’s wrong that about 25 percent of our children may be growing up in poverty, living in substandard housing, receiving inadequate nutrition and health care and attending substandard schools.

But how many of them would support the “Buffett Rule” that would have fabulously wealthy citizens pay more in taxes? Or require hedge fund managers to pay 35 percent on their gains, not the current 15 percent because, after all, they are NOT risking their own money and are taking a guaranteed 20 percent off the top even if their investments of other people’s money go south?

I am sure that the decent men and women mentioned above are appalled by the violence that afflicts children today, but how many would speak in favor of closing the loopholes that allow people to buy guns, no questions asked, at gun fairs in some states? Or speak out against laws that allow people to carry weapons openly? Or against laws that allow people to buy assault weapons (whose only function is to kill)?

Of course, a ringing statement doesn’t have to be crafted out of whole cloth. The United Nations, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the International Red Cross, UNICEF and other related groups have spent years on this issue (see ‘Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child’ in 1924).

Or this, from 1959: “The child shall enjoy special protection, and shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and by other means, to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity. In the enactment of laws for this purpose, the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.” (United Nations resolution)

In recent years, these international groups have paid special attention to children in war zones.

Hello! What are many of our inner cities, if not the equivalent of war zones?

Educators often present themselves as occupying the moral high ground, dedicating their lives to the nurturing of our children and youth. It’s easy to live up on the hill when things are chugging along, but that’s not the case now. So now, at least as I see it, it’s time for the university presidents, the school reformers and everyone else who claims to be devoted to children to put aside their political allegiances and make their voices heard.

A Deafening Silence

May 4, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs Brandon Adams, Christine Marcelin, Gun Control, guns, Higher Education, KIPP, KIPP Believe, new orleans, NOLA, Universities, University Presidents, violence

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“I want to be a veterinarian, and I want to go to Princeton University,” a smiling 15-year-old girl told us when we were filming at KIPP: Believe, a high-performing charter school in New Orleans. Tell us more, we said. “I want to finish college because I want to have that pride in myself that, to know that I finished something, that I went somewhere and I finished it,” Christine Marcelin added.

Watching her speak, one senses that Christine has what it takes, and it’s easy to imagine her becoming a successful vet, or perhaps a doctor or business leader.

Her history teacher, Scarlett Feinberg, shared that view. “Christine always cared how other people were feeling, she put her team first always. She really cared that her friends were successful too, and she would talk to her classmates about being better. She embodied hope that we could be the change we want to see in New Orleans, and no matter how hard things were, she believed that we could all work together and make a difference. She was counting down the days to start high school because it was a step closer to college, getting her degree and beginning a career helping others.”

If you read that paragraph carefully, you noted that Ms. Feinberg spoke about Christine in the past tense. She won’t be going to Princeton, won’t be a veterinarian, and won’t have a long life dedicated to rebuilding New Orleans and helping others.

Christine Marcelin was brutally murdered a few days ago.

So was another KIPP: Believe student, 15-year-old Brandon Adams. The 8th grader was fatally shot a few days before Christine was killed. Brandon was a successful student, a good athlete and a student leader, according to published reports. The two 8th graders were dating.

The school held a vigil, which you can see here.

The speculation is that Brandon got into a playground scuffle a day or two before he was murdered and that the likely killers were the young men he argued with. They went gunning for him and then, perhaps fearing that he had told his girlfriend the names of the guys he had fought with, kidnapped and executed her, then dumped her body in a deserted part of the city.

Six other New Orleans students have been shot and killed this year.

Kids murdering kids is not unique to New Orleans. We’ve seen mass murders on college campuses in Virginia and California, and school killings since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 have become almost routine.

This is not happening because today’s kids are different. Adolescents are no more volatile, insecure, energetic and full of doubt than any previous generation. What’s different is that guns are available. We tolerate the proliferation of handguns because we won’t confront the radical minority known as the National Rifle Association, the NRA. Although the NRA apparently doesn’t even speak for the majority of gun owners, it has become one of the most powerful forces in American politics, powerful enough to scare politicians into silence or — more likely — acquiescence.

(Not all politicians are afraid. I live in a city whose mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has been forceful and courageous on this issue. He knows that the flood of guns endangers his police officers and his constituency, and he’s willing to speak out. But even when other mayors join with our Mayor, the Congress remains dominated by a collection of cowards.)

Because of the NRA, we are courting anarchy. A growing number of states have laws that allow proto-fascist vigilantes to strap on a gun and go searching for trouble, knowing that, even if they kill someone, they can walk because the law allows them to ‘Stand Their Ground.’

The NRA’s mantra, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” is nonsense. People with access to guns kill people. The autobiography of charismatic educator Geoffrey Canada describes in vivid detail how things have changed. In fact, his brilliant title says it all: Fist Stick Knife Gun.

When I was a kid, we wrestled and maybe threw some punches when we were out of control mad. Today, we shoot someone.

But this column is not an assault on the wackos who run the NRA and people who believe that carrying a gun — anywhere and everywhere — makes everyone safer.

I want to know where all the leaders have gone. Where are the university presidents, once moral and ethical leaders of our nation? Remember Clark Kerr, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, James Bryant Conant, Fr. Timothy Healy, Bart Giamatti, Kingman Brewster and Robert Maynard Hutchins? The nation once looked to them for counsel, and they were willing to speak forcefully on the key moral issues of our time.

We are living in an age of economic inequality that is unprecedented, but have the Presidents of Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Chicago or Princeton spoken out? They must be aware that nearly 25% of our children are growing up in poverty and being denied a fair shot at what we used to call The American Dream, and yet they are silent.

Gun violence is tearing our urban centers apart, and the blood that’s most often shed seems to be that of promising young children. Why the deafening silence from our leading campuses?

I was on the campus of Notre Dame earlier this week and had the privilege of spending 30 minutes with Fr. Hesburgh, now nearly 95. ‘Father Ted’ happens to be one of my heroes, but this was the first time I’d had the opportunity to shake his hand. Though hampered by failing eyesight, he is as bright, strong and forceful as anyone I know, and I walked away from our meeting inspired by him — but depressed by the resounding silence of those occupying university presidential suites today.

Why the silence? One Notre Dame sociologist suggested that presidents are too busy raising money these days. They can’t risk offending the hedge fund managers they are counting on to write big checks.

If so, it’s a bitter irony. As government continues to withdraw its support from higher education, higher education is becoming more dependent upon the generosity of the very wealthy…and that makes it difficult for university presidents to speak out about the dangers of income inequality (and perhaps other controversial subjects as well). By not supporting higher education, government is, it turns out, buying its silence! It’s not pleasant to envision where this downward spiral leads.

Whenever you vote, think about Christine Marcelin, Brandon Adams, Trayvon Martin and the other young lives snuffed out because we haven’t cared enough to insist on building a civil society.

Two Poems For The Month Of Testing

April 24, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs Bubble Tests, education, Education Models, Finland, Reform Efforts, Standardized Testing, Testing

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Can April be the cruelest month, as T. S. Eliot declares in his bitterly pessimistic “The Waste Land”? For Eliot, April’s inherent cruelty is — ironically — precisely because of its vitality. April’s burgeoning life force engenders hope in a world that is both dark and hopeless.

But for many public school students and perhaps for teachers as well, the line is literally true: April is the cruelest month of the school calendar. April days that are not devoted to ‘test prep’ are spent on testing itself.

And some of what is going on in this crazy month defies the imagination. For example, critics of testing are having a field day with what they are calling “Pineapplegate.”

Here’s part of what Beth Fertig reported:

A pineapple, a hare and a swift outcry against a handful of confusing questions on this week’s English Language Arts exams have led the state’s education commissioner to scrap a portion of the eighth grade reading test.

The disputed section of the test contained a fable about a talking pineapple that challenged a hare to a race. But students and teachers complained that none of the multiple choice answers to several questions made sense.

In response to the complaints, the New York State Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. concluded the questions were “ambiguous” and will not be counted against students.

“It is important to note that this test section does not incorporate the Common Core and other improvements to test quality currently underway,” Mr. King said in a statement, referring to a new teaching curriculum and standards that are being adopted in New York and other states. “This year’s tests incorporate a small number of Common Core field test questions. Next year’s test will be fully aligned with the Common Core.”

Pearson, a test preparation company, has a $32 million contract with the state to make the exams more rigorous.

Here’s more stuff that’s hard to believe. This is from The New York Post:

State Education Department officials were blind to the feelings of deaf students on this week’s English exams — heartlessly asking them questions about sounds such as the clickety-clack of a woman’s high heels and the rustle of wind blowing on leaves, educators claimed.

One sixth-grade teacher of hearing-impaired kids said they were completely thrown off by a lengthy listening passage rife with references to environmental noises — such as a cupboard door creaking open or the roar of a jet engine.

The kids were then asked to write how a boy who hears those sounds as music in his head is like a typical sixth-grader.

“My kids were looking at us like we had 10 heads. They said they didn’t understand the story,” the teacher said, referring to herself and a sign-language interpreter.

“It was all based on music and sounds in the world they don’t know,” added the perturbed teacher. “They definitely were upset.”

The teacher’s sound criticism was among a host of complaints about the new exams administered to students in Grades 3 to 8 this week, part of a five-year, $32 million deal with the testing company Pearson.

You may have noticed those two stories have one thing in common: Pearson. The giant company is also ‘field-testing’ its questions for next year’s tests — by extending the testing period for young kids this year, sometimes actually doubling the amount of time kids are being tested.

Not to pick on Pearson, but the company is offering $5 Starbucks cards to educators who will fill in its survey … and the opening sentences in the accompanying letter from this education giant contain basic grammatical errors.

In an effort to learn more about the challenges being faced by K-12 educators, would you please spare a few minutes to complete an online survey? It should take less than 15 minutes, and will provide us with very valuable feedback to improve our services and offerings.

The opening phrase, ‘In an effort….by K-12 educators,” modifies the closest noun or pronoun, which is YOU. So Pearson is asking me to fill out the survey so I can learn more?

Pineapples have caused an issue on some state tests.

The second sentence is compound, one subject (it) and two verbs (‘should take’ and ‘will provide’), and the grammatical rule is clear: no comma.

Much of the uproar seems to be coming from teachers, and cynics may suggest that’s because their ox is now being gored; after all, these tests are now being used to grade — and fire — teachers, so of course they are paying closer attention. Perhaps some teachers are late to the party, but so what! They’re here, and teachers like Anthony Cody have been in the forefront all along.

Some parents are fighting back against high stakes testing. Parents in Colorado, California, New York, New Jersey, Florida and Indiana have opted out of high stakes testing for their children and have kept (are keeping) them home. A group with the impressive-sounding name of United Opt Out National is trying to coordinate the effort.

Peggy Robertson, a former public school teacher turned stay-at-home mom, leads the group, which she acknowledges has about 1,427 members — and no money — right now. “We are not against either testing or assessment, just this high stakes testing madness,” she told me. The number of Colorado families who kept their children at home last year was “five times more” than in 2010. It’s still only a few hundred, but Robertson is convinced that the numbers will grow “as more people become aware of the harm these tests are doing.”

And not just parents. Peggy shared a link to a letter from a New York principal.

There’s also a national effort, one that began in Texas, to slow down the testing express. As of April 23rd, 380 school boards in Texas, representing 1.8 million students, have signed this petition; that’s been rolled into a national petition.

What’s the alternative? This short piece was written by Pasi Sahlberg, the author of Finnish Lessons (Teachers College Press). It may make you think twice about the course we are on.

But it doesn’t follow that we could just ‘blow up’ our increasingly centralized approach and do what Finland does. Ted Kolderie of Education Evolving believes we need a new kind of school, one in which teachers have largely autonomous control. I’ve just finished reading the galleys of a new book, Liberating Teachers, that argues that position persuasively. Currently there are around 60 schools with autonomous teachers, cutting across all sorts of arrangements — district, chartered and independent. Some are union-affiliated, others are not. Urban, suburban and rural, serving students from preschool to age 21.

These schools are invariably small (like schools in Finland) and less reliant on standardized assessments (like Finnish schools).

And now — a final poem for April, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s lovely sonnet, “How Do I Love Thee?”

I first thought it should be “How Do We Test Thee? Let Me Count the Ways” until I realized that we basically have a ‘one size fits all’ approach to testing. No way to get a sonnet out of that.

So I went back to the drawing board and produced the following (with apologies to EBB):

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Is it A? “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.”

Or B? “I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

C? “I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;”

D? “I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.”

Or “All of the Above?”

Please mark your answer below with a No. 2 pencil, taking care to fill in the box completely without marking the area outside the box. If you do not follow directions, the machine may not be able to read your answer, and you will be marked down accordingly.

___________________________________________________

Asking Questions

April 17, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs education, Forums, Live Events, Moderating, public education, public schools, Questions

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Question: You moderate a lot of panel discussions at education meetings, and you have a reputation for doing a pretty good job at it. In fact, some of those appearances are embedded above in this post. Can you pass along some tips to the rest of us?

John: Sure, but why are you asking me now?

Question: Well, you’re not getting any younger, are you?

John: Fair enough. There’s really just one unbreakable commandment for running a worthwhile panel discussion: No opening remarks!

Question: Why not?

John: Because if I ask panelist so-and-so to make a few remarks, I have given up control of the microphone. That means when he or she goes off on a tangent or goes on too long, I cannot interrupt without being rude. But if it’s all Q&A, it’s always my microphone, and I can interrupt without being rude. Remember, it’s supposed to be a ‘discussion,’ not a series of presentations or ‘opening remarks.’ How many of these events have you been to where they never even get to a discussion because each panelist takes 10 or 15 minutes — even though the moderator had told them ‘5 minutes max!’

Question: What are your other ‘rules’?

John: There are two expressions I try to use as often as possible. One is “I don’t understand,” and the other is “Tell me more.”

Question: Tell me more.

John: That’s cute.

Question: Well, I’m just trying to follow your example.

John: OK. Here’s why. When I hear jargon, even if I understand it, I will say “I don’t understand’ because that forces the panelist to come down to earth and speak in understandable English. He may be thinking that I am pretty stupid, but he will invariably provide a better, clearer explanation. “Tell me more” works on that same principle.

Question: So those are the secrets?

John: Well, there’s more. The moderator has to listen to what people are saying and respond to that. Some moderators seem to feel that it’s their job to ‘balance’ the conversation, giving equal time to everyone. I don’t worry about that. In fact, I often tell panelists that they have to speak up if they want to be heard. Life is unfair, and so are panel discussions.

Question: What else?

John: I always ask panelists ahead of time if there’s a question they want to be asked. If there is, I ask it, because that allows them to say what they would have said if there had been opening remarks. Everyone has a set speech, a shtick, and I want to make it easy for them to get it out there for the audience.

Question: How do you see the moderator’s role?

John: Good question. Kind of like a conductor.

Question: Orchestra or train?

John: Both, I guess. If the panel has been chosen well, then there will be different voices (instruments), and a good conductor will help them create something worth listening to. But a moderator is also driving a train toward a clear destination, greater understanding of the issue. Remember, the operative word is ‘discussion,’ but if you look at most convention programs, these events are usually billed as ‘panels,’ whatever that means. It’s all about having a decent conversation, one that sheds light and holds the audience’s interest.

Question: You feel pretty strongly about this.

John: Sure, because pedagogy matters. We shouldn’t be lecturing when we know that the more interactive and participatory an event is, the more likely it will be interesting to the audience.

Question: Is there an ideal number of panelists?

John: No, but two is too few. I would say that three or four is probably best. I’ve juggled as many as seven, but that’s no fun for anyone.

Question: What about taking questions from the audience?

John: Essential, but here the moderator has to be tough and occasionally rude. A lot of so-called questioners really want to hold forth with their opinions. I always make it clear that I won’t tolerate that, but even so someone always gets up and tries to make a speech. I am always forced to interrupt someone and ask (or demand) ‘What’s your question?’

Question: Your blog is usually about education. In fact, you usually complain about something or other. What’s up with this?

John: I am taking a bold stand against boredom, against lousy pedagogy and stultifying panels. Pretty courageous, huh?

Question: Chances are most people won’t read this far. You OK with that?

John: Well, if even one moderator behaves differently because of this, I will feel I have actually accomplished something.

Question: I suppose you think you’re pretty clever, putting all this information about moderating into Q&A form.

John: You said that, I didn’t.

But Who Will Design The Robots?

April 11, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs Disruptions, Ed Reform, EdTech, Educational Technology, john merrow, new york times, pbs, Reform Efforts, Robots, technology, Vocational Schools

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In one of his always interesting “Disruptions” column in the New York Times, Nick Bilton held forth on how robots are replacing workers at Amazon and elsewhere. These robots, a researcher at Johns Hopkins told Bilton, “will help augment people’s abilities, allowing us to use robots for things humans cannot do.” And, the Hopkins guy adds, we will always “have to have someone who builds the robots.”

Columnist Bilton is upset for the workers who will lose their jobs, but his column is also a wake-up call. I read it as an implicit critique of a narrow curriculum that puts aside just about anything that encourages the imagination in favor of ‘the basics,’ meaning basic reading and basic math.

Stressing the basics is no way to make sure that we will produce people to design, build and operate robots, or create the future in other ways. We need schools that encourage the imagination, that allow and support deep learning, and that fan the sparks of creativity — not stomp out the fires.

EdTech — In the East Bay, new approaches to education are taking shape.

However, a narrow and unimaginative curriculum is not a new phenomenon. Just as armies are supposedly spending their time getting ready to fight the last war, many schools and colleges seem to focus on preparing young people for the day before yesterday — and have been doing so for a long time.

I have some direct experience in this. In the late 1960s, I taught for two years at a historically Black public college, Virginia State, in Petersburg, Virginia. For a privileged young white man from New England, it was a life-changing experience.

One sociological lesson stuck with me. The college stressed vocational training for its students, most of whom were the first in their families to attend college. While some studied to become chefs and barbers, a very popular major involved computers, which at the time were still pretty new. These students were being trained to be key-punch operators! (Ask your parents!!) It didn’t take a wizard to know that, in a very short time, absolutely no one would be able to make a living as a key-punch operator, but that didn’t slow down the training program. Disrupting that assembly line would have required more than foresight; it would have meant sticking one’s neck out and challenging the comfortable status quo –remember, this was Southside Virginia, not a safe place for African-Americans to challenge the system. Easier and safer to prepare students for yesterday than to make waves and risk one’s own career.

I’ve often wondered what happened to those young men and women. I hope they found other work, and other opportunities to learn new skills.

What about today? Not only are we not challenging the status quo of ‘basic education,’ we seem to be cutting to the bone and getting rid of ‘frills’ like the arts. While I am hearing and reading stories about larger classes and fewer ‘non-essential’ programs in lots of places, Texas seems to be leading the way in cutting education (big surprise).

But, wake up, folks. The arts are basic, as this report from Florida demonstrates. Some of you may have seen our piece for the NewsHour on this topic:

So what do we do about a narrow, boring curriculum and the failing schools that generally seem to accompany that approach? It takes courage to challenge the runaway train of the current approach. As the metaphor suggests, standing in front of a train is not a recipe for a long life. The money and the power are with the status quo.

Some corporations are getting involved, although maybe not as a direct challenge. If you watched the Masters Golf tournament, you saw ExxonMobil commercials about improving America’s competitive position in math and science. That company’s foundation has spent millions on math and science education. (I also liked that many of the ads said ‘Support our Teachers,’ a too-rare message these days.)

Better news comes from San Francisco. Some high tech entrepreneurs there are resisting school-as-usual and getting their hands dirty trying to change things. Right now they seem to be involved because they have children of their own, but let’s hope they are intent on helping other people’s children as well. Let’s hope these interesting approaches to schooling become models, not just boutique luxury items for the privileged.

Cursing the darkness never did anybody any good. Let’s celebrate — and copy — those who are lighting candles to show us the way.

A Trifecta Of Sins

April 4, 2012 John Merrow 2012 Blogs Bubble Tests, cheating, dc, Forgery, Michelle Rhee, Standardized Testing, Testing

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A comprehensive report in late March by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution provides strong evidence that adults in as many as 200 school systems have been cheating on their students’ standardized tests.

We looked at this for NewsHour in 2011:

Because I spent three years chronicling the tenure of Michelle Rhee in Washington, DC — another city with a spate of thus-far-unexplained ‘wrong to right’ erasures on standardized tests — I am interested in this story. I’d like to know if anyone cheated in the DC schools. If so, who and why?

But a teacher I correspond with occasionally brought me up short recently. My focus on actual, literal cheating — physically changing answers or giving kids answers in advance — is too narrow, this teacher wrote.

Here’s part of a recent letter:

“While I know that the cheating scandals may be considered important, I’m frankly a bit disappointed that this is the focus because the cheating scandal doesn’t really matter in terms of the students and their futures, which should always be the focus of anything related to education. What matters is the lasting damage that is being done to them as a result of the increased pressures being put on the school system over these tests. The lasting damage is the closing of schools with no thoughts as to the repercussions on the community, the constant rotating principals, the removal of teachers connected with the community, the privatization of public schools and property, the fact that schools budgets are getting slashed while the administrative central office expands and gives money to private contractors in huge quantities that accomplish nothing, the constant lack of knowledge about our future in the schools, the increasing class sizes and removal of resources from our neediest schools, etc. The cheating scandal is next to nothing; that is a product of the testing obsession as a whole, something that Michelle Rhee certainly fed, but it is far from the worst part of her tenure. Those test scores mean nothing about how prepared our children are for their futures–whether or not there was cheating.”

Testing — Some think we haven't hit bottom yet.

Supporting her argument that the real issue is preparing kids for their futures is a new report about the arts in our schools, hard data confirming what most reporters have known for a long time: for at least 10 years, the arts have been disappearing from schools populated largely by low-income kids. The report is from the U. S. Department of Education. It tells us that fewer public elementary schools today offer visual arts, dance and drama classes, a decline many attribute to budget cuts and an increased focus on math and reading. Most high schools with large numbers of low income students do not offer music. Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, told reporters that cuts are likely to continue into the next two years because education funding has been slow to pick back up. “We haven’t hit bottom yet,” he said.

In other words, we’re cheating kids on their tests and stealing essential courses like art and music from them! Add to that, we are lying — because when kids get phony scores telling them they are proficient when they need help, that’s an out-and-out lie.

At what point does this trifecta — lying, cheating and stealing — become a felony? Seriously!

In the face of this disheartening news, one has to ask, “who benefits?” I’m stumped. Certainly not children, parents and teachers. Could it be the testing companies? Perhaps it’s the bevy of expert ‘consultants’ who advise school systems on how to raise test scores, how to calculate the ‘value added’ that individual teachers provide, and how to make education more ‘businesslike’ and efficient?

A far more important question than ‘who benefits?’ is: What are we going to do about it?