Public Schools Need a Wake Up Call!

John Merrow Op-ed, school reform, teaching , , , , , , ,

“Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer.”

President Obama’s speech to students, September 9, 2009

Those lines imply support for a progressive, child-centered view of schooling: educate through the strengths a child possesses.

President Obama gives education speechBut the President went on, “And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.”

And when and if a child discovers those interests and abilities, what happens? Are classrooms set up to work with individual kids and nurture their talents, or do other pressures force teachers into cookie-cutter behavior?

Kids want to believe. Visit any elementary school on a morning of the first few weeks of school, and you will see joyful youngsters cavorting, laughing and shouting with glee. Their giddy anticipation is palpable and infectious, because they are actually happy to be back in school. “This year will be different,” their behavior screams. “This year I will be a great student, I will learn everything, and teachers will help me whenever I need help.”

However, this celebration, a child’s version of the triumph of hope over experience, is generally short-lived, and for most children school soon becomes humdrum, or worse.

What goes wrong, and what can be done about it? Continue reading →

” I don’t see any headlong rush to abandon NCLB…quite the contrary”: An Interview with Margaret Spellings

John Merrow Op-ed, school reform , , , , , , ,

Margaret Spellings served as George W. Bush’s Secretary of Education during his second term and was his White House advisor on education before that.  A Texan since third grade, Margaret SpellingsMs. Spellings was never a teacher or school administrator but worked for the Texas School Boards Association and on a school reform commission for a previous Texas governor.  Ms. Spellings is generally acknowledged to be a principal architect of No Child Left Behind, which she continues to defend with vigor.  Always a feisty interview when she was in office, she clearly has not lost a step, as you will see.

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The Interview

Let’s start by talking about tomorrow.  There was a lot of talk about your running for Governor of Texas. I know that’s not happening now, but are you interested in replacing Kay Bailey Hutchinson in the U.S. Senate?  Or in the governorship down the road?

I have no plans to re-enter the public arena any time soon in either an elected or appointed capacity. I am currently loving life after public service.

And now the past, specifically No Child Left Behind.  What are your feelings about what strikes me as a headlong rush to abandon No Child Left Behind?  Some hard-core Republicans don’t even use the name any more, unless they’re talking about drastic repair work.   And many Democrats have gone back to calling it ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the original name from 1965.

Huh? John, I am not seeing any headlong rush to abandon NCLB…quite the contrary. While you are right in that the name (NCLB) is often attacked, I am thrilled that the major policies are very much in place and supported by the current administration, which supports standards, data, pay for performance and charters.  I believe we did something very significant with NCLB in creating a unique coalition of supporters, largely from the civil rights and business communities, who continue to stay strong in the face of vested stakeholder groups and those who argue against a federal role. Besides, No Child Left Behind actually describes the policy embodied in this law, and if they walk away from those policies and decide to leave kids behind they should change the name.

You famously compared NCLB to Ivory Soap–99.44% pure, meaning that it needed only some tinkering.  Do you still feel that way?

I sure do. The core principles of the law – annual assessment, real accountability with consequences and deadlines, a focus on teacher quality, and confronting failing schools—are still the right issues, and I am pleased those in states all over this country and the new administration agree.  Having said that, no legislative body has ever passed a perfect law.  Continue reading →

Re-evaluating Teacher Evaluations

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What prompted this post was my discovery that only 15 of the 714 Chinese drug factories get inspected every year. On average, foreign medical factories that bring products to the US are inspected once every 13 years. Our 300+ ports receive 18.2 million shipments of drugs, cosmetics, food and devices a year, and the Food and Drug Administration has only about 450 inspectors. Do the math!!

Teacher EvaluationThat got me thinking about teachers and how they are ‘inspected.’ For a few months now I have been corresponding with teachers I know. Here’s what they told me, with a few of my own thoughts stuck in here and there.

In the old days, teachers closed their doors and did their thing, for better or for worse. As long as things were quiet, administrators rather bothered to open the door to see what was going on, and teachers never watched each other at work. That’s changing, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. In some schools today, teachers are actually expected to watch their peers teach, after which they share their analysis. In other schools, however, principals armed with lists sit in the back of the class checking off ‘behaviors’ and later give the teacher a ‘scorecard’ with her ‘batting average.’

No Child Left Behind was supposed to close what is called ‘the achievement gap’ by forcing schools to pay attention to all children. Unfortunately, the gaps persist: Only 14% of Blacks and 17% of Latino 4th graders are proficient in reading, compared to their Asian American (45%) and White (42%) counterparts on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress. NCLB’s critics claim that the law has narrowed the curriculum to a single-minded focus on reading and math, eliminated programs for the gifted, and turned schools into ‘drill and kill’ factories, and those claims are, in some places, supported by facts.

NCLB’s biggest change may be in teaching itself. For better and sometimes for worse, what teachers used to do behind closed doors is now scrutinized, often on a daily basis. That is, someone, often the principal, drops in regularly to watch the teacher at work. Whether these observations are diagnostic in nature and therefore designed to help teachers improve or a ‘gotcha’ game is the essential question. The answer seems to vary from school to school.

What were ‘the good old days’ like? Continue reading →

“Pay teachers what they are worth (think six-figures)”: An Interview with Rick Hanushek

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Economists, whether liberal or conservative, don’t think about education the way most educators do, and that’s healthy. My friend Eric Hanushek is in the conservative camp, as his affiliation with the Hoover Institution at Stanford indicates. Eric HanushekRick has been interested in education–no, strike that–in doing something to improve education, for many years. He’s active on a number of fronts, particularly in Texas and with the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education. Professor Hanushek has a new book out, but, because he manages to sneak in two plugs in our interview, I won’t repeat the title here.

The Interview

Before we turn to No Child Left Behind, tell me your take on the current so-called “Race to the Top.” Secretary Duncan has an unprecedented amount of discretionary money, $5B, to give away. States seem to be falling all over themselves promising to do what Washington wants. Is this good?

I absolutely think the Secretary is doing the right thing, and I am actually encouraged by the positive reactions of the states. He has chosen particularly important issues to take to the states: developing systems for ensuring that there are effective teachers in every classroom; encouraging more competition in education through expanding charter schools; and developing good data systems that allow for reliable evaluation of programs and teachers. These are central elements of the funding and policy proposals in my recent book (Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses), so I am thrilled that the Secretary is putting the force and the funding of the federal government behind these ideas. The essential unifying idea is that we should provide strong incentives to improve student performance – and each of these policy thrusts fits into that overall structure. I applaud the Secretary and the President for their forceful leadership in these substantive matters. Moreover, he has done this in a way that respects the states’ central role in education, while encouraging their movements in productive directions.

The Department says there will be winners and losers, but will that fly politically? Educators are accustomed to getting money based on formulas, not in a competition. Can you imagine the political pressure Arne Duncan is going to be under?

There is no doubt that the Secretary has taken a courageous position, because many resist the idea that policy should intrude on the way we have always done things. And his are not the positions that have been championed by the educational establishment. But, while there are political difficulties with standing firm, I think of the issue more from the viewpoint of what happens if he does not succeed. I frankly worry for the nation.  Continue reading →

Current Efforts at ‘Reform’ Will Produce Minimal Change: An Interview with Herb Kohl

John Merrow Op-ed, school reform , ,

Herb KohlHere’s some of what Wikipedia has to say about my friend Herb Kohl: “Herbert Kohl is an educator best known for his advocacy of progressive alternative education and as the acclaimed author of more than thirty books on education. He began his teaching career in Harlem in 1962. In his teaching career, he has taught every grade from kindergarten through college.”

I would add my own memories. I remember being inspired by his first book, 36 Children, when I was a beginning teacher in New York. When I was at NPR, I visited Herb and his family at their home in the Redwoods in northern California. He took time away from directing “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for his daughter’s elementary school. The challenge, he explained, was that four or five girls wanted to play Puck and had the talent and energy to do it well. His solution was to rewrite the play–they all got to star! Many years later I ran into Herb, then around 70, in New York and learned that he was studying Chinese calligraphy!

A restless intellect who has stayed true to his progressive principles, Herb is also an interesting interview.

The Interview

What’s your quick impression of Arne Duncan’s “Race to the Top” plans, which include what sounds like serious competition for dollars—and that means winners and losers?  Is this political courage, or is it more federal encroachment on public education?

Arne Duncan, on the official Department of Education website said, “For states, school districts, nonprofits, unions, and businesses, Race to the Top is the equivalent of education reform’s moon shot.”  I thoroughly agree with him.  Remember we went to the moon, not to improve science or the quality of life in our country, but to face down the Soviet Union.  We spent a lot of money doing it, got little return, and never went back. I believe Duncan’s analogy should be taken seriously.

One of the goals he articulates for the program is to be first on international standards of performance.  Good luck – there are no agreed upon international standards.  Another goal is to digitize education information and treat it like the digitize medical information the Administration proposes.  But that simply entrenches specific high stakes tests into the system without delivering any substantial pedagogical change. Continue reading →

Privatization Will Not Help Us Achieve Our Goals: An Interview with Diane Ravitch

John Merrow Op-ed, school reform , , ,

Diane Ravitch is a prominent historian of education, the author of a dozen books including Edspeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords and Jargon (2007), The Language Police (2003) and Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms (2000).  Diane Ravitch

Diane is not a political type, but neither is she afraid of controversy.  In recent years she’s become a lightning rod for controversy.  She has been embroiled in an ongoing battle in the press with Joel Klein, the Chancellor of the New York City public schools, about academic achievement.  Here she takes on both Arne Duncan and NCLB!
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The Interview

The Obama Administration and nearly every state have now endorsed national or common standards.  Is this a good thing?  Or is now the time to get worried, the logic being that, when ‘everyone’ is for something, the rest of us should watch out?

I have favored common standards for a long time. When I worked for Bush I in the early 1990s, I helped to launch federally funded projects to develop voluntary national standards in the arts, English, history, geography, civics, economics, science, and other essential school subjects. Some of the projects were successful; others were not. The whole enterprise foundered because a) it was not authorized by Congress, and b) it came to fruition during the transition between two administrations and had no oversight, no process of review and improvement. So, yes, I believe the concept is important.

However, I worry about today’s undertaking, first, because it will focus only on reading and mathematics, nothing else; and second, because I don’t know whether the effort will become a bureaucratic nightmare. But I won’t prejudge the outcome. I will hope for the best, and hope that today’s standardistas learned some lessons from what happened nearly two decades ago.

If we have common standards, are national tests likely to follow?

Not necessarily. If the standards are worthy, then any testing organization should be able to develop test specifications that are aligned with the standards.

On balance, has No Child Left Behind done more harm than good?

I would say, sorrowfully, that NCLB has failed. Continue reading →

Struggles Can Breed Innovation: An Interview with Clay Christensen and Michael Horn

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A recent issue of Newsweek Magazine asked ‘What to read this summer?’  And the answer included Disrupting Class, the provocative book by Clay Christensen, Michael Horn and Curtis Johnson.  Disrupting ClassI talked with two of the authors–Clay and Michael–about the book, the economic crisis and the importance of innovation in education.

My interview with Clay and Michael is particularly relevant now that Arne Duncan has unveiled ambitious plans for the so-called Race to the Top and the $4B in stimulus money.
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THE INTERVIEW

Everywhere I go these past months, I’ve met people who were reading “Disrupting Class” and/or talking about your ideas. When you decided to turn your attention to schools, traditionally one of the most hidebound of our institutions, did you anticipate such a positive reaction?

When we published the book, we really didn’t know what to expect. It’s been a pleasant surprise that so many educators have been mostly excited by the vision we put forth. Many educators realize that everyone learns differently from each other, and many wear the battle scars from their largely futile struggles to customize learning for every student from within a factory-based system built for standardization. It seems that our message struck a chord as it suggested a way to deliver innovation in a sector that has been so lacking in it and offered a vision for how to transform learning from our current monolithic world to a student-centric one that could spell great relief from these struggles.

In a recent column in the New York Times, Tom Friedman urged America to innovate, innovate, innovate, if we want to survive and prosper. You have, of course, made a persuasive case for innovation and provided recipes and a road map. In the book, you urge educators to innovate. Are educators listening, or are they so wrapped up in trying to survive that innovation is just not on their list?

Many of Friedman’s themes in that piece have echoed our own thoughts and writing–from why America seems to have been the only country to be able to disrupt its own economy in the past to how necessity in times of struggles can breed innovation (a step beyond invention). In many pockets it really does seem as though educators are innovating in creative ways. For example, the main disruption we identified in the book–online learning–is booming at the moment as it is growing well over 30 percent a year, and many educators are pushing it well beyond its initial versions to allow it to serve many more people with quality options. Doing this is vital so that we can offer more with less. Continue reading →

Wasting Talent

John Merrow Op-ed, school reform, teaching , ,


‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air’

In Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” those flowers are a metaphor for talents and gifts.  I have always loved both the poem and those lines, but I wonder whether they accurately describe what is more likely to happen to talented youth today?  What happens to talent that is not nurtured?

Wasting Talent - The Achievement GapI remember the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan—the gifted son of hardscrabble Irish immigrants–telling me that ‘cream rises to the top,’ which was his own experience.  My experience as a teacher in a federal penitentiary suggests otherwise.  More importantly, so does hard data from solid research.

Let’s put one important fact on the table to start: Talent is randomly distributed.  It is not a function of social class, race, income or even education.  For more information on this, look at “The Achievement Trap” (PDF), a report by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. It notes that when they enter elementary school, high-achieving, lower-income students mirror America both demographically and geographically. They exist proportionately to the overall first grade population among males and females and within urban, suburban, and rural communities and are similar to the first grade population in terms of race and ethnicity (African-American, Hispanic, white, and Asian).

Continue reading →

“I want schools small enough to fail as they learn on the job”: An Interview with Deborah Meier

John Merrow Op-ed, school reform , , ,

Deborah MeierDeborah Meier is the founder of the modern small schools movement. After teaching kindergarten in Chicago, Philadelphia and New York, Meier founded Central Park East elementary school in 1974.  This alternative but still public school embraced progressive ideals in the tradition of John Dewey in an effort to provide better education for inner-city children in East Harlem, within the New York City public school system.

She then served as founding principal for two other small public elementary schools, Central Park East II and River East, both in East Harlem. In 1984, with the assistance and support of Ted Sizer’s Coalition of Essential Schools, Meier founded the Central Park East Secondary School. The story of these schools is told in David Bensman’s Central Park East and its Graduates: Learning by Heart (2000), and in Frederick Wiseman’s High School II (1994). In 1987 Meier received a MacArthur ‘genius’ Fellowship for her efforts.

I’ve known her for at least 20 years and have admired her for more. Now 78, Deb is still going strong, as this recent interchange proves.

Continue reading →

“I’ve Got a Lot More Questions Than Answers”: An Interview with Chester Finn

John Merrow Op-ed, school reform , , , ,

Chester FinnChecker Finn has been a player in American public education for a long time.  To many liberals, he’s been a burr under the saddle–or worse–but no one can deny that he’s thoughtful, articulate, productive and tireless. Checker, the president of the Fordham Institute, has written a zillion articles and books, most recently the aptly-titled “Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform” and another mentioned below.

In the first of a series of interviews and guest blogs on Taking Note, I asked my friend Checker a few questions.

Continue reading →