Editor's Note: This week, Jim Shelton and John Easton of the Education Department will provide the question and join in the discussion. Shelton heads the Office of Innovation and Improvement, and Easton leads the department's research branch, the Institute of Education Sciences.

The federal government and private institutions such as graduate schools, foundations, and nonprofit groups spend billions of dollars on promoting educational innovation, developing and designing new programs, supporting research, evaluating programs, and disseminating their findings. But these resources are not organized, prioritized, or leveraged for maximum impact. Innovations are often not scaled because of lack of evidence; research is frequently separated from the problems of practice; and evaluation findings provide little insight into why a particular program succeeded or not. These disconnects demand a new vision, one that binds the work of researchers, evaluators, developers, practitioners, and policymakers and builds a cohesive structure for school reform.

Given this need, what are the essential components of an effective innovation, research, development, and dissemination infrastructure in education? How can we tap into the collective expertise of practitioners when designing and refining new school programs? Finally, what are the capabilities that need to exist at the local, state, and national levels and how should organizations that provide them fit together into a coherent whole? Our ultimate goal is to ensure that all students can benefit from well-designed and thoroughly tested best practices.

-- Jim Shelton and John Easton

In reading all 16 comments already posted, it is easy to see the lack of agreement on many vital educational issues, including the value and meaning of innovation, the role of 'competition,' and I think the purpose(s) of education.

I want here to simply point out that the most common metric of success, in education or educational innovation, is a test score. But we now know that state test scores are terribly inflated by teaching to the test.

We also know that the tests do not measure most of what most folks would reasonably consider 'higher order thinking' – whether students can use their minds well in and across subject areas and other valuable areas of life parents and the public have repeatedly indicated they want youth to explore and learn (see Rothstein's "Grading Education").

So having one metric won't work, and our most common metric type is far to limited and too polluted to be of much use. A new set of 'common tests' will provide no solution.

Reaching agreement on a range of plausible goals (if we do as public opinion seems to want) requires developing a range of useful indicators in each goal area, hopefully ones that do not get too polluted by accountability measures. That means also changing the punitive approach to accountability. Only then can we tell if 'innovation' – or indeed education - has succeeded, that it has led to progress on worthwhile goals without undue expense and damage – perhaps even benefit – to other worthwhile goals.

Perhaps the federal government can fund local and state efforts to develop and try out a range of indicators, evidence of learning and other valued attainments, that can signal a wider range of valued goals and provide evidence on a wider range of important outcomes than can scores on mainly multiple-choice tests. That is what the provision in the Miller-McKeon draft NCLB reauthorization bill to allow states to develop local and state assessment systems would have done, at least in part.

First, making anything happen within school systems is difficult, let alone something new or unique.  The processes are arcane, and inertia favors inaction.  Whether it's budget, contracts, acquisitions, procurement, or some other operational dimension, it will always be difficult to get stuff done.

Second, there is a perverse mantra in education, which I often hear in reference to new initiatives: "Failure is not an option."  Failure is a regular - and meaningful - part of innovation in the private sector, yet the tolerance for failure is much lower in the public sector.  There are good reasons for this, and we certainly can't take willy-nilly bets with public money.  The reality, however, is that failure isn't just an option, it's an everyday reality in many of our schools and school systems.  We shouldn't let fear be an excuse, because the status quo is inexcusable.

Finally, we don't have reliable metrics.  Even if something truly revolutionized our approach to a systemic problem (i.e. dropouts), there would be plenty of debate over whether or not we were measuring the right outcomes.  We need a standardized way of measuring success. (Put a nickel in the "standards" jar!)  In the private sector - where barriers to entry are lower and outcomes are clearer -  the market tends to reward innovation.  It's just not the case in education.

So, I realize this is supposed to be a solution post, not a problem post.  I outline the problems to suggest that the federal government lower the risk threshold, for both the supply and the demand sides of education.  Change the incentive structure to incentivize innovation.  Give districts and states the political cover and the leverage they need to engage in promising innovations.  Folks will argue that government shouldn't invest in "unproven" practices, but there's no plausible argument that what we're doing now works, especially in our failing schools and districts.  We can do this with financial incentives for doing good stuff and stopping the flow of federal money to stuff that we know doesn't work.

Second, we should set out with a problem to solve. "Education reform" is too nebulous.  Pick an issue - like turning around failing schools, for instance.  Then create a big reward for the first organization - LEA or non-profit - that closes the achievement gap in a cluster of schools that they manage.  Then encourage more entrants into that space with incentives.

Finally, the federal government should help innovations be more scalable and portable.  These things are intertwined, because the markets in which many innovations operate are too small for meaningful scale.  Add to that the radically different operating conditions that exist across LEAs/SEAs, and you have a recipe for really limited scale.  Giving states and districts the flexibility and incentives to expedite the adoption of models that were successful at solving problems in other jurisdictions will help.

Mike Antonucci argues that school systems have “fallen into the trap of funding great ideas instead of great results.” So let’s extend his metaphor just a little farther: we know miracle diets (read: silver bullets) don’t work in the long run, and will end up leaving our unhealthy schools even more sick and bloated. But like dieters, education reformers want fast results. And while this impatience may be unrealistic, it is justifiable.  After all, waiting four years to see the results of even the most promising new curriculum or teacher induction program can feel like an eternity; that’s a high school graduating class, come and gone.

So how do we connect the dots between innovation and research? How do we keep innovations from being “rejected out of hand” at schools weary of the “plethora of programs showered upon them by non-educators,” as Diane Ravitch argues. We do it  by actively engaging practitioners—not just by telling them what to do with data and what to learn from our rigorous studies, but by asking practitioners to let their experience shape our research agenda, and as part of that engagement, to help test and improve promising innovations. If we want schools to be stable, coherent organizations, then we should model that goal in our research. We don’t want to invite schools to the table only to offer them one meal; we need to work together to create a menu of healthy options.

To that end, Steve Peha weighs in with a means for bridging the disconnect between schools and R & D. We agree that education researchers need both technical experience and grounding in school practice. We also want our research to create those “good tools” for principals and teachers and kids, so we have a vested interest in striving for the “right level of granularity.”  Finally, we know that the principal is a key lever for school improvement, so it makes sense to make the Principal’s Office an important pipeline for research and innovation .

Why do new practices and technologies have to be “crammed” (to use Clayton Christensen’s pungent term) into the $600 billion enterprise of public education, when every other sector is voracious for anything that will improve performance?

I’m with VanderArk and Keegan in believing that the bureaucratic, non-competitive K-12 system inhibits early adoption. If a teacher is hungry to learn a new skill, what autonomous funding can she invest in the training, and how many permissions does she need? If a principal spots a new platform for self-paced instruction, how long will it take to persuade the district to adopt it, factoring in lengthy debate by a politically-elected school board?

This is where charter schools should have a tremendous advantage, what with their curricular freedom and site-based budgets. In fact, the preambles that explain the purpose of many state charter laws include a reference to innovation. But realizing that purpose is complicated.

First, there’s misunderstanding of what “innovation” means. It shouldn’t connote inventing something that has never been seen before on the face of the earth. It can well mean packaging effective practices together in a new way and coming up with a solution that didn’t exist before –which is how many successful charters have created their models. And it ought to be focused on results rather than gizmos. Putting a great school in a neighborhood with failing ones is one hell of an innovation in the lives of kids.

Second, some of the most important innovations in the charter sector are in areas like finance and governance, making them hard to adopt in systems that are centrally-managed. The notion of “charter” itself is a huge breakthrough: a contract that conditions the right to manage a school upon evidence of performance. This is a fundamental shift away from the notion that a public school is part of a permanent civic structure that owns, manages, and oversees the entire enterprise. The new concept has taken root in the broader education sphere – consider NCLB’s restructuring provisions, or Arne Duncan’s “turnaround” proposals – yet it is rarely credited as a charter-led innovation.

There are many more examples in this vein: merit pay schemes made possible by charter autonomy; the idea of governance by a school’s own board of trustees; longer school day and year; virtual charters and state-based authorizers that supersede the traditional idea of geographic districts. These are not necessarily brand-new concepts, and some have existed in private schooling or in other sectors, but this is the first time they’re being implemented in a rapidly scaling sector of public education.

Third, there isn’t any current vehicle for identifying, evaluating, and disseminating innovation in a movement of nearly 5,000 individual schools. The best charter networks are starting to replicate their models at greater scale, but three-quarters of charters are not affiliated with networks and many have no intention of growing beyond a single campus. Yet some are doing amazing things in the classroom, the board room, and the business office, and there is no public or private agency trying to harvest these innovations. So we need to do the “R” and research what’s working; and then we should radically rethink the “D,” replacing the show-and-tell approach to “dissemination” with a new set of incentives so that the best innovations get into the cycle of new-school creation -- and help shape a new generation of great public schools around technologies, practices, and habits of mind that build student success.

Who is responsible for what?

Shelton and Eston ask: “What are the capabilities that need to exist at the local, state, and national levels and how should organizations that provide them fit together into a coherent whole?”

I think there is danger that the current flurry of activity at the Federal level could lead people to (mistakenly) believe that the Federal government and states are responsible for education success in America, not parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, and (gasp!) local school boards.

I suggest that the Federal government clarify its intended relationship to K-12 education. People need to hear: “Hey everyone, we know it is you folks out there who make education successful. Our goal is to support you.  You know better than we exactly what will work for your child/classroom/school/community. We’re here to help but you’re not off the hook!”

In this way, we can counter a trend that I see cropping up in the trenches: a sense of resignation that all of us out here beyond the beltway are just pawns in a grand scheme being run from Washington. I don’t think that’s what the folks in Washington have in mind; we need to nip this in the bud.

Education system design

Second, I think the Federal government needs to use it leverage to remove local system barriers that prevent innovation from taking hold.

I give it an ‘A’ for this so far this year!

Research & Development

I agree with several others on this board that we need to up the ante in this area. The “Kress-Ravitch Principle” makes sense to me. More good research conducted by people with direct experience of the problems. Three fertile areas:

• Defining effective teaching. I spent a fascinating day at the New Schools Venture Fund Community of Practice last week learning about recent R&D in this area conducted by the New Teacher Project, DC Public Schools, Teach for America and PUC Schools, among others. There is growing R&D activity in this area. The Federal government could lead.  
• English language learners. Educators need lots of help here.
• Assessments. If “what gets measured gets done,” then let’s get better at measuring what’s most important. (Great to see positive movement on this front at the Federal level.)

And there are many other areas.

The purposes of education in 21st century America

Finally, I’d suggest that there is a Big Topic that the Secretary and President need to weigh in on.

Chad Wick at KnowledgeWorks makes an interesting point. There is no “shared vision” for education in America….”until we answer the deeper question about the core purpose of public education and establish a vision that aligns our efforts, innovation will never be 'organized, prioritized, or leveraged for maximum impact'."

Well, I think that this is a good thing to a certain extent. If we’re going to invest “locals” with a lot of control, then we can expect them to make different choices about what they want. That’s good.

But I think we have a bit of a crisis of confidence at the national level that is being brought on by economic tough times and global shifts in the balance of power. Thomas Friedman is crying out that the World is Flat. China is standing up. Even college-educated kids are having a tough time getting jobs these days.

Given that the world is changing, exactly what kind of education do we need our children to get? To what level do they need to demonstrate competence on a multiple choice test? At what point should parents/ teachers/ principals/ school boards stop worrying primarily about driving those scores higher and start worrying about how to develop children’s minds and character in ways that will manifest results in other ways?

In other words, given that our kids are headed into a different world, how do we prepare them for it? And how do we know if we’re succeeding?

In my experience, the discussions on this topic beyond the beltway often get reduced to “more testing in English and math” vs “a more expansive view of education.” I think that is a false choice and we need leaders in all sectors, including the Federal government, who can help parents answer this question in more sophisticated and compelling ways.

Billions of dollars flowed into clean tech in the last three years wtih the expectation of changing consumer expectations and government incentives. The Department of Energy recently released $500 million in grants—all to private companies. Unlike Energy, Defense, Health, or Transportation, the Department of Education does not have (or has not exercised) the same authority. 

This problem runs deeper than USED authority, it’s a fundamental governance problem. The combination of local control intertwined with antiquated labor contracts reduces performance and innovation incentives. We won’t fix the investment and innovation problem without creating performance-oriented employment and governance.  When investors (philanthropic and venture) see some hope of innovation diffusion, they will invest. 

First, it is simplistic to think of education innovation in the same way we think of marketplace innovation.  The education sector is part of a large and complex social system. There are many forces at play and from multiple levels.  That’s not the case in business.  But while this is an important point, it is a sideline issue.

The real issue about why we don’t seem to sustain education innovation is that as a country we have no shared vision for what we want…no mental model.  We have not asked, let alone answered the much deeper question, “What is the core purpose of public education in America today?”  Until we have a shared vision, we operate out of many visions.  For instance, do we want a “world of schools,” even high-performing schools like KIPP, and make that approach our vision, or do we want a “world of learning,” like  New Tech, Big Picture and Envision and have that approach define our vision?   We have not yet addressed the most basic question: “schooling” or “learning.”

It’s a given that research and data will be important to ultimately support success; however, until we answer the deeper question about the core purpose of public education and establish a vision that aligns our efforts, innovation will never be “organized, prioritized, or leveraged for maximum impact.”  

Over the past few decades, virtually every sector of our society has experienced a revolution in the way it operates and achieves success – except for education. Meanwhile, the graduation rate stagnates at 50% in many of our urban districts, and our students continue to fall behind their peers across the globe.

We can no longer hesitate to try radically new approaches and tools to improve teaching and learning. But as we do so, we must adhere to the exacting standards that characterize research and development teams in medicine or industry. We need to introduce innovative practices strategically, with rigorously designed pilots to evaluate the effectiveness of new programs before they are expanded. This approach will enable us to identify the best strategies to improve student achievement, to determine whether particular interventions yield better outcomes for particular students, and to measure the cost-benefit impact of different strategies. We can then make informed choices about replicating policies and programs that work given diverse student needs and budgetary realities that demand tough choices.

To be successful districts will need access to a rich trove of student data to support careful research and evaluation of new programs. In 2008, New York City introduced the Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS), which synthesizes unprecedented levels of student information within a single database. ARIS provides a detailed understanding of each of our students’ performance while supporting rigorous, empirical analyses of innovative programs and existing practices in our schools.

None of this is to say that innovation only takes place at the level of educational policy. It also occurs daily in creative lessons delivered by talented teachers and in schools where principals introduce new programs that build student achievement. We need to focus on improving instruction in every classroom and every school, fostering opportunities for educators to share best practices and engaging lesson plans proven to improve student outcomes. For this reason, ARIS also includes an online library of instructional resources as well as collaboration and social networking tools that allow educators to share ideas with colleagues within their school and across the city.

New York City is proud to be at the forefront of the movement to ensure that educational innovations are conducted with the tough-minded, scientific approach required to truly transform our educational system for the better. And I’m delighted that the U.S. Department of Education is not only working to spur innovative educational practices, but also to identify proven solutions to improve our schools and ensure that every student at last has the opportunity to succeed.

Improvement of student outcomes in public schools is particularly vexing to many in the Washington, DC policy community who although they mean well have not had the effect on public education they seek. The Washington based policy and research community, including the US Department of Education, has two profound problems that cause them to repeatedly stumble when trying to implement innovations. First they persist in one size fits all innovations even though schools vary greatly in nearly every aspect . Second many innovators have a political and ideological agenda, rather than an educational agenda. The most visible of the political innovators, including at times the U. S. Department of Education,  seek to move public education from a public good to a private good. 

The implementation of NCLB has definitively demonstrated that one size innovation doesn’t fit all. 

Research seeking data to support a political agenda is as old as politics, but has been polished into a high art by the Washington think tanks and foundations and to its discredit every department of education since the formation of the U. S. Department of Education. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if teachers, principals and superintendents whose business is education, see through politicized research and reject the proposed solutions. In fact it is may be a violation of the act creating the department of education for federal employees to try to direct critical processes of public schools, and if it isn’t it should be.

People seeking to foster innovation ought to be able to see both the common threads and the many differences in people, capacity, resources and culture in local public schools around the country. Although Milbrey McLaughlin’s seminal research on change in school districts identified potential pathways for innovation years ago, seeing complexity and commonality simultaneously has eluded folks from Washington. 

Fortunately seeing commonality and complexity simultaneously has not eluded everyone studying learning and the organization and facilitation of learning. Similarly excellent research is being done studying policies that will likely result in application of the state of the art knowledge about learning and the organization and facilitation of learning.  The work of the policy research group at Arizona State University under scholars like Gene Glass and David Berliner is a good example of good work providing solid guidance to the complex task of applying research to schools where individually unique students and teachers work influenced by their unique communities. This is as complicated as rocket science and curing cancer and ought to be treated with the same rigorous approach as figuring out how to apply research in physics to send rockets into space or and biomedical research to treating a individuals cancer. At 30,000 feet it sounds simple, but once you get to children, who are all one of a kind, it gets much more complicated. Getting innovation right is made more difficult if the research data have been rigged to fit a preconceived political conclusion. 

Funders of innovation, scholars and school people need to collaborate, following the tried and true methods of applying scientific knowledge to real life situations like student learning and the organization and facilitation of learning. Sure it’s complicated, expensive and time consuming but the benefit in improved student learning and educational outcomes will more than offset the expense and time invested. The children in public schools deserve no less. 

All of our efforts to regulate, certify, and guarantee quality in the education industry will only be successful to the degree we underpin the industry with competition. The basic lack of choice in schooling is a foundational flaw that we must correct.

We can’t go on blithely ignoring this. By continuing to assign students to schools without regard to their specific needs as it relates to a school’s specific strengths, we evince a belief in our own ability to match every child with exactly what they need… without knowing the child or the school.

Come to think of it, get a Hayek two-fer for the holidays…add “The Fatal Conceit” to your reading list.

There is not one best way to learn. There are myriad examples of successful practice, multiplying faster than ever in this technological age. The incredibly rich amount of data we have available on success is a potential wealth to the system. But it does no good to try and efficiently foist it on those who need not seek it.

A single school choice, made by millions of parents on a daily basis, becomes a massively influential feedback mechanism for the larger system, far more powerful than the best public report card.

In a truly competitive education system, the need to know what excellence looks like and how to create it is very real. And today, we lack that essential force everywhere but at the margins.

The answers, I think, begin with the importance of solid, rigorous research. Continuing to make big spending decisions on innovation and much of everything else without resort to this sort of research is unacceptable. And that's so both for new programs that are proposed with all the excitement of the innovator who proposes them as well as those existing practices that are defended by the forces of the status quo with equal verve. They all must be scrutinized with the basic attitude, "prove it works!"

I would even say, yes, we must talk about scientific research. That does not necessarily entail "gold-level" research, but, as in the IES practice guides, it does mean a reliable level of strong research upon which practitioners can reasonably base decisions.

This research, second, must be conducted primarily in the areas where practitioners are most in need of solutions. That sounds kind of silly to say. One might think it's obvious, but Easton and Shelton are right - there has too often been a disconnect between research and practice. We must respond to the needs of educators and other decisionmakers in the field. Helpfully, we now have rich data from assessments and other sources that make graphically clear what those problems are.  

How do we prevent dropouts? How do we achieve higher levels of proficiency in reading? How do we best help students navigate the journey from arithmetic to algebra? How do we best bring English language learners to proficiency, especially in academic English? What is leadership, and how is it best manifested in schools? What makes for truly effective teaching? How do we turn around struggling schools?

We want "innovation" to solve these and other major problems. But - much more - we want effective practice that is tied to research-based solutions. Sometimes we may find that the best "innovation" is a return to practice that had given way to the last "innovation."

If, as I expect they will, our two questioners use their offices and their tools wisely, in coordination with the states and districts and alongside educators, then we may make good strides to their goal, to "ensure that all students can benefit from well-designed and thoroughly tested best practices."

Since at least 1867, when the U.S. Office of Education was established in the federal government, it has been the responsibility of the federal government to gather information and report to the public on the status and progress of education. Since the creation of the National Institute of Education (NIE) in 1972 (and even before then), the federal government has been responsible for funding research and evaluations, and promulgating research findings.

We now seem to be in an era where education decisions are made and imposed by non-educators, who look to the business world for answers. Education and business work under such different principles that this is not a useful model. The endless pursuit of innovation is typical of the business world-who can come up with the newest slogan, the newest packaging, the newest shape, the newest of the new?.

Educators do not need to reinvent the wheel. They need schools that are stable, a curriculum that is coherent and balanced, sufficient resources to do their job, and a host of other uncontestable features that are invariably found in excellent schools. What they do not need is a plethora of programs showered upon them by non-educators who know everything about how to "turn around" a failing school (but have never done it themselves), who know everything about how to teach (but have never done it themselves), and who know everything about school leadership (but have never done it themselves).

Diane Ravitch

These types of connected, longitudinal education data systems provide at least one avenue to begin answering the questions.

Florida was one of the first states with a P-20 data capability, for this reason, the system is among the most "mature," including data back into the 1990s.  One consequence is that the system has attracted the attention of many researchers seeking access to detailed data housed within. In the 1990s we treated requests for access as requests we would support if we could muster the necessary staff time to provide assistance (so long as requests for access observed several protocols related to privacy protection and responsible handling). With the dawn of the 21st century however, it became increasingly clear that we should treat requests as opportunities to leverage research around state education policy, evaluation, and the identification of successful practices.  We instituted agency-wide, (interagency, where appropriate) weekly reviews of requests involving partners from P12, community colleges, universities, and workforce preparation programs. We established criteria for reviewing and prioritzing requests.  We regularly informed higher level policy makers of research requests "in the queue."  We regularly sought policy-maker direction and decisions.  At several junctures, we produced "hit lists" of research topics of priority interest to the Department, the State Board, legislators, and the Governor's office.  Often, as a result of our review process, we  negotiated with researchers around proposed research so that it focused more on prioirty topics.

The type of research access I am describing was far from perfect.  But it was based on the idea that the agency had developed an important administrative data base that provided a substantial foundation that could support policy research and evaluation that the agency was insuffciently staffed to support on its own.

These connected data systems are being constructed throughout the country.  A major part of their conception should be researcher-access similar to that I have described.  It should not be "willy-nilly" access, rather access that provides results that assist state and local agencies identify, implement, and share important findings that will improve education. 

A major problem faced in Florida was a growing queue of requests that worked with sloth-like speed due to antiquated technical approaches to providing restricted access to detailed data.  This resulted in the loss of important opportunities to leverage the data. On oaccasion, it resulted in poor relations with researchers and their funders whose requests could not be supported in a timely manner.

These state data systems provide at least one avenue that could be pursued in finding answers to the posed questions.  The U.S. Department could provide support and guidance to assist states in managing the "queue" of requests for access as well as identifying national priorities for policy research and evaluation.  The Department should also recognize that there are challenges to connecting education data to other important data bases, such as those dealing with employment, and take assertive, appropriate, and in some cases, controversial action to help guide state efforts that make important data connections.

I think we're starting from a faulty premise - that education resources need to be "organized, prioritized or leveraged" into something "cohesive," "collective" and will "fit together into a coherent whole." The problem with this approach is obvious: We don't all agree on priorities, or needs, or desires, or even the definitions of success and failure. It's inevitable that reforms will be championed and funded according to the priorities of the people putting up the money. In the case of the government, those priorities might not even have anything to do with education.

This problem certainly isn't unique to education, but the public school system seems to have fallen into the trap of funding great ideas instead of great results. It's human nature. It explains why your local bookstore has volume after volume about how to lose weight by eliminating carbs, or eating only raw food, and hardly any that say, "Eat sensibly and exercise more often." We all want the magical solution - whether it be parental involvement, merit pay, class size reduction, charter schools, or higher spending - instead of the simple solution that might require hard work and sacrifice.

Instead of developing a Grand Plan, the best way to promote innovation is to stop quashing it. If I suggested the best advice we could give governments and entities with a stake in education is "Don't just do something, stand there," would it be considered an innovative idea because it hadn't been tried before, or would it be rejected out of hand because it denies those organizations an active and direct role in the education process and suggests they are currently doing more harm than good?

How can the Obama administration and Congress put together a winning majority for reauthorization of ESEA? What should change, what should remain more or less the same, and why?

How can the Obama administration and Congress put together a winning majority for reauthorization of ESEA? What should change, what should remain more or less the same, and why?

As Congress and the Obama administration consider reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, it’s imperative to keep in mind the following five keys to make sure what happens in Washington works in public schools and classrooms across America.

1.      We have to get the law right this time.

The current version of ESEA, known as No Child Left Behind, unfairly measures schools and students based solely on test scores at the expense of preparing them with 21st century skills. Such overemphasis on standardized testing, combined with a lack of funding, has forced schools to narrow the curriculum and divert resources from art, music, social studies and physical education to teach to the test.

We have to move away from that failed model. Schools need greater flexibility, better quality tests, multiple ways of measuring school quality and student learning, and improving the profession of teaching.

2.      We should keep in mind that children are more than standardized test scores.

Instead of building a nation of test takers, we should focus on preparing students to think and solve problems so they can succeed in the real world.

Today, we live in an interdependent, rapidly changing world, and our public school system must adapt to the needs of the new global economy. Every student will need to graduate from high school, pursue postsecondary educational options, and focus on a lifetime of learning because many of tomorrow’s jobs have not even been conceived of today.

If we continue to focus narrowly on test scores to determine so many aspects of public education, students will receive basic test prep instead of the rich, challenging, engaging education they deserve.

ESEA could include using student growth and multiple measures, and using data to improve instruction to increase the focus on professional development for teachers and continual  instructional improvement rather than to only hold schools accountable.

3.      We must focus on the whole teacher again.

We have to treat teachers and education support staff like the professionals that they are.

We know that a great public school for every student starts with a great teacher.  Congress will have a tremendous opportunity to put the right policy in place, a policy that elevates the profession of teaching and respects the work that our support staff provides to students.

What does that look like?

We know teacher preparation matters when it comes to teacher effectiveness. ESEA could devote financial support to improving teacher preparation programs and working with education stakeholders like NEA to expand mentoring programs, provide targeted professional development for educators and expand school leadership initiatives.

Congress also could strengthen the promise of “grow your own” approaches like Urban Teacher Residencies by helping them to expand to help schools outside of urban areas such as high-needs rural schools or those schools serving Native American students.  

Congress could provide incentives to states that create world-class teacher preparation programs and call for the creation of a national education institute to provide a rigorous and relevant master’s degree in education and accept college graduates that are in the top third of class rankings. In exchange for free tuition, graduates would commit to teach in the nation’s highest needs schools for at least six years.

We should explore alternative compensation packages that reward teachers for their skill and knowledge, pay more for working in hard-to-staff schools, and include teachers as “essential partners” in any teacher compensation reform effort.

4.      We have to address the economic inequities and disparities facing public education.

It’s important to recall that 1965 was one of the most notable years in the history of education in America. That year, as part of his War on Poverty, President Lyndon Johnson signed ESEA into law to reduce inequity by directing resources to poor and minority children and signed the Higher Education Act (HEA) to provide more opportunities and access to postsecondary opportunities for lower and middle-income families. “Poverty has many roots,” Johnson said, “but the taproot is ignorance.”

Poverty is still an issue in this country, and unfortunately we still have schools that lack resources, committed and effective leadership, and enough great teachers and education support professionals to reach every student. Schools in struggling communities too often have high dropout rates, and the cycle of poverty continues.

We have an opportunity to put a spotlight on what works to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

We must focus on turning around struggling, priority schools of all regions of the country that serve diverse groups of students.

5.      Cooperation and collaboration are needed to achieve systemic and sustainable reform efforts.

We’re off to a solid start with the Obama administration, which has called for greater cooperation, more flexibility for states and school districts, better quality tests, multiple ways of measuring school quality and student learning, and recruiting and training more teachers.

Involving teachers and other education stakeholders in designing and implementing a more flexible ESEA is the key to making sure what happens in Washington works in schools and communities across America. It would be a welcome recognition of the role that teachers play in transforming education and preparing students for the 21st century. 

As we all prepare to help reauthorize ESEA, and if we keep these five key points in mind, it is within the realm of possibility to not only imagine a reauthorized law that includes more flexible accountability measures, but to make that law a reality.

It’s easy to envision a reauthorized ESEA that encourages states to set high common standards, not lower them.

It’s easy to imagine a great public school for every student where quality programs and services exist, and where high expectations and common standards aligned with rigorous and comprehensive curriculums, as well as high-quality assessments for all students, are the norm.

Imagine a great public school with modern facilities and up-to-date materials and technology for all, along with small class sizes and strong leadership that collaborates among and with all education professionals in the school system.

Let’s help make it a reality.

ESEA is going to be competing for Congress and the Administration's attention next year with a long list of other priorities.  Health care is now creeping into the 2010 legislative schedule.  Cap and Trade has stalled (in fact our colleagues over at the NJ Energy blog were just discussing this).   The Administration is also trying to advance a financial regulatory reform plan which is facing bipartisan concerns from moderate Democrats and Republicans.  And WIA is due for reauthorization and could be pushed to the front of the legislative priority line given 10.2% unemployment, the Administration's interest additional job stimulus, and members heading into mid-term elections. 

Besides shaping the legislative calendar, these other issues are important because they'll set the dynamics of ESEA reauthorization.  If these packages pass along party lines, it will be much more difficult to pull together a bipartisan coalition to get an ESEA bill to the president's desk.  

In terms of policy, there does seem to be a growing consensus around certain broad priorities:  teacher effectiveness, common standards, addressing the dropout crisis, and turning around low performing schools.  But the problem is in the details.  Everyone wants to turn around low-performing schools, but there's little consensus about the most effective way to do so (most of what is included in the Administration's four intervention models is already built-into or allowed under NCLB).  Everyone supports more effective teachers but there is still considerable debate about how to best measure a teacher's performance (as evidenced by the Administration adding a nebulous "multiple measures" for teacher evaluations in the final Race to the Top guidance which could be used to compromise reform).  There is support for "extending the learning day" but opposition to the SES providers that have done just that for the last eight years.  

The challenge isn't simply resolving these policy issues, but also trying to figure out what the Federal role is in either requiring or incentivizing reforms in these areas.  

The only way to get through this labyrinth is to have strong Congressional leadership in shaping the agenda and debate - the roles that Senators Kennedy and Gregg, and Congressmen Miller and Boehner played in NCLB reauthorization.  It will also require a greater willingness to embrace bipartisan ideas than what we've currently seen in the stimulus and healthcare debate.  

One path forward is to build a coalition around having ESEA address the worst of the worse schools - the bottom 5% that Secretary Duncan has referenced.  These are the schools that pretty much everyone can agree are failing, no matter which measure one uses which makes it difficult to argue against some sort of Federal intervention.  Teacher effectiveness - particularly a strong pay for performance plan - could attract a winning bi-partisan majority through both incentive grants as well as required interventions in low-performing schools.  SES 2.0 could be a way for the Administration to attract Republican support to its extended learning day agenda.  Differentiated accountability - such as what Florida has under the A+ plan could also be a way meet the Secretary's desire to flip NCLB to have the Federal government be prescriptive with the goals, but defer to the states on the interventions.  

The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) must include all the things mentioned here and more. I strongly agree with UNCF’s Michael L. Lomax when he talks about the goal of getting more of our young people graduating from high school and successfully entering a meaningful post secondary experience. 

And as Pedro A. Noguera said, NCLB held districts responsible for raising achievement for all children.  Let’s not forget that point.  After all, at its heart, by requiring in law that we, as a country, measure the progress of every child, we are essentially saying that every child has potential.  There’s been a lot of “slip between the cup and the lip” regarding the implementation of this law but the thought that as a country we are on the path of treating every one of our citizens as having potential is really quite profound.

About two thirds of American students fail to graduate from high school ready for college -- half that for low income students of color. Approximately 30% of all entering college students take at least one remedial course. Depending on the type of institution and state, the share of students that are academically unprepared for college can range from 24% to 42%, and over a third of institutions (both two-year and four-year) report that the share is growing. For historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), particularly those that embrace open enrollment admissions policies, a significantly large percentage (typically 50% or more) of incoming freshmen are not college-ready.

Many colleges help non-college-ready students catch up by offering remedial courses. But although these courses require students to pay college tuition, they carry no college credit. This forces students to burn through the financial help students get from their families and financial aid at a much faster rate, requiring many to take five or six years or more to graduate and others to leave school entirely. In fact, fully half the students taking remedial courses drop out of college. It's a disaster for students, colleges, and our country.

As it reauthorizes ESEA, there are three important steps Congress should take to make sure that many more students graduate from high school college-ready.

1. Get the goal right. Ensure that every state has college-ready standards to make sure that students have good options when they graduate from high school.  

2. Hold schools accountable for college-ready graduation rates.   Persistent school-to-school differentials within school districts indicate that we have to look at data by high school, not by school system. Schools that are struggling need help to improve. But we cannot afford chronic failure.

3. Support student achievement. Students struggling to reach college-ready standards may need personalized support such as extended day/year calendars and targeted tutoring,  

As a member of the bipartisan Aspen Institute Commission on No Child Left Behind, I am committed to a thoughtful and engaging dialog from all sides on the best ways to successfully reauthorize this landmark legislation. America needs more college graduates and many more minority college graduates. A reauthorized ESEA with strong reforms will sharply increase the number of students who graduate from high school ready not only to go to college but to succeed in college. 

ESEA must tackle issues of high standards and remediation in the upcoming legislation. These are not optional issues. They are mandatory.

 A winning majority will be difficult, but might be more likely if ESEA reauthorization focuses intensively on education reform strategies that work. Policy makers want to invest in programs proven to improve children’s cognitive, social and emotional skills; increase their educational attainment; close the achievement gap; and enhance the quality and productivity of the nation’s workforce.  High-quality pre-kindergarten is one such strategy. In fact, it is the first step to school reform and an indispensable part of our education system. In New Jersey’s low-income Abbott school districts and in Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools, high-quality early education was integral in turning schools around and improving student achievement. We need new federal funding for pre-k and we need it in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Democrat and Republican governors, with support from state legislatures, have increased state funding for early education to more than $5 billion and enrollment in state pre-k has grown by more than 40 percent since 2004.  But despite these impressive gains, less than 30 percent of the nation’s three and four year olds are served by state-funded pre-k. Federal action is needed urgently to reinforce states’ progress and accelerate the growth of quality pre-k programs.

During the campaign, President Obama pledged $10 billion a year in new investments in early education including high-quality, voluntary pre-k for all three-and four-year old children. He described a new Early Learning Challenge Grant to support evidence-based state programs for children from birth to five years old and linked this agenda to significant expansions of Head Start and Early Head Start.

The federal economic recovery package made a down-payment on the administration’s early education promises. But since then, the federal budget, the stimulus package and initial guidance on the new Race to the Top competitive grants have all failed to provide needed, focused support for state pre-k.  The Early Learning Challenge Fund, strongly supported by the administration and the early childhood community, is important in terms of collaboration and promoting quality programs, but it is unlikely to provide states significant new funds for pre-k. For Americans to really race to the top, we need to ensure that all children are at the same starting line.

Difficult economic times demand that we revisit how – and how wisely – we spend limited public resources.  As Congress takes up ESEA, it has the opportunity to help get our country “out of the catch-up business,” as Secretary Duncan puts it, by investing public resources in an education reform strategy that research shows helps children succeed in school—and as a bonus provides up to $7 back for every dollar invested.  This is change that can be made possible by including federal support for high-quality pre-k in the reauthorization of ESEA.

            During the last few months, my colleagues and I in the "Broader, Bolder Approach to Education" campaign have had many conversations with Washington policy advocates, and executive and Congressional staffers from both parties. Few deny the negative consequences of NCLB described above. Yet almost all hold to the vain hope that these problems can be fixed with minor adjustments. They have no idea what these adjustments might be – all are waiting for someone else to present them.

            Yet no "fixes" address the fundamental problems. The most popular – substituting growth for level scores in math and reading – will do nothing to prevent the narrowing of curriculum or the test obsession in low-performing schools. National standards in math and reading alone, however well-designed, will also reinforce the narrowing and will do nothing to ensure that curriculum in math and reading themselves reflects these standards or that tests are well-aligned to them (as no high-stakes, single test for purposes of accountability can be). So the attitude is to wait, and wait, and wait, for someone else to propose a miracle cure.

            On top of these insuperable substantive problems, there are the political ones for re-authorization of NCLB-type policies. Many of the Republicans who supported NCLB in 2001, now that Democrats are in control of Congress and the presidency, have re-discovered their faith in the local control of education. Democrats in both houses of Congress who were first elected in 2006 and 2008, after NCLB's effects began to be felt in their states and districts, campaigned against the law and cannot be counted upon to support a re-authorization of its fundamental federal accountability principles. Many Democrats (like Senator Kennedy) who supported the law in 2001 did so because they believed they had a deal with President Bush for substantially more education funding in return for NCLB support. That was when there was a federal budget surplus. With today's deficits, they cannot likely be bought again. This all leaves very few possible supporters in Congress, not a majority by any means.

            And then there is the rest of the agenda. Energy. Unemployment and job creation. Financial institution and regulatory reform. War. Perhaps more health care. Budgetary tightening and entitlement reform. In 2001, President Bush inherited a nation at peace and in fiscal surplus. By the time 9/11 came to distract us, drafting and passage of NCLB was almost complete. In today's very different environment, does anyone seriously believe that the president will engage in arm-twisting or political bribery to re-enact NCLB-type education policy, even if he believed in it?  (And, as I have written here and elsewhere, the president's and Secretary Duncan's views are seriously conflicted.)

            In the meetings I have described above, my colleagues and I have presented an alternative. It returns education decision making and initiative to the states. It requires states to develop accountability systems that rely primarily on qualitative evaluation of schools, with test scores only one factor. It acknowledges that development of such qualitative evaluation systems will take time and experimentation. And it is willing to run the risk that some states may blunder, rather than ensure that the federal government again forces its blunders upon everyone.

            We described this alternative in the accountability statement of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education campaign. The policy makers to whom we have presented it acknowledge that such an accountability system is a reasonable alternative to NCLB, one that avoids the corruptions stimulated by the existing law. They acknowledge that no other reasonable alternative has been presented. All that holds them back is a fear of challenging what they falsely believe to be a national consensus in favor of NCLB-type policies. I don't know for how much longer they will continue to hold back.

It boils down to leadership. As others including Secretary Paige have noted, President Bush and the “Big Four”—Senators Kennedy and Gregg, and Congressmen Miller and Boehner—set other differences aside and exerted substantial personal leadership in drafting and building support for NCLB/ESEA. The result of their effort was far from perfect, but it paved the way for a sustained national dialogue on closing the achievement gap and improving our schools—a remarkable feat for a piece of federal education legislation.

That national dialogue (often a sharp-tongued debate) continues today, and that same concerted leadership will be necessary among the new power players to successfully reauthorize ESEA. President Obama and Secretary Duncan, Senators Harkin and Enzi, and Reps. Miller and Kline have their work cut out for them. While broad support for the law’s primary goal—closing the achievement gap—remains, the strong bipartisan coalition that united around the law’s core principles of meaningful accountability, transparent data, effective teachers and increased options for parents has largely evaporated. The composition of Congress has changed substantially. Vocal members on both sides of the aisle, many of whom were elected after the law was enacted, oppose NCLB for myriad reasons—and some campaigned on jettisoning or radically altering it. 

Yet there is common ground to be found. It starts with engaging Congress. To date, the Administration has moved forward with its education agenda largely without Congress. That can’t happen on ESEA reauthorization, where Congress must step up to lead the legislative process. To jumpstart that process, however, the Administration should work to educate Members on both sides of the aisle about the importance of improving the law to meet shared goals—including strengthening the nation’s competitiveness. As Congress brings its own ideas to the table, the coalition of stakeholders who want to see reauthorization succeed will broaden, and the Administration can support them in drafting a solid reauthorization bill.

The ARRA reform assurances offer a good place to start.  We’ve already seen how the carrot of Race to the Top funding has enticed some states to begin addressing barriers to innovation such as data firewalls and charter school caps—changes that reform-oriented members of both parties can get behind. The assurances stem from priorities long held on both sides of the aisle, and we need to build on them. Of course, the details matter greatly. Particular attention will need to be given to getting bipartisan support for improving the law’s teacher effectiveness and accountability provisions, both of which were thorny in 2001 (and in 2007, when Chairman Miller and then-Ranking Member McKeon released a “discussion draft” bill), and are no less contentious now.

Building on our 2007 reauthorization blueprint and drawing on commissioners’ on-the-ground experience, the Commission will continue its outreach and research process and develop updated recommendations in the coming months. When reauthorization conversations begin in earnest, the great challenge for reformers will be to ensure that our national commitment to accountability and the success of all children endures—and that we do not allow the illusion of progress driven by ARRA funding in some states and districts to distract us from the need to broaden the reach of those reforms. The next ESEA must expand, support, and incent the ARRA priority reforms—while continuing to hold schools accountable for educating all children. If it does not do these things, it doesn’t deserve our support.

On the cover of the NCLB Bill are these words: “An Act to Close The Achievement Gap with Accountability, Flexibility and Choice, So That No Child is Left Behind.” The achievement gap—the persistent and significant disparities in educational achievement and attainment between groups of students as determined by standardized academic measures—is the major civil rights issues of our time.

Notwithstanding NCLB’s laudable goal, this time around reauthorization will require an even stronger commitment to reach across the aisle in Congress and to motivate all those responsible for the implementation of the nation’s education policies.  It will require a firm desire on the part of all those involved to seek a win for our children.  

I believe that part of the criticism directed at NCLB is due to the fact that it asks some very basic questions about our education system, questions that challenge not only the fundamental structure of our system but also our commitment to providing a high-quality education to all our children.  This challenge, I believe, has led NCLB’s critics to muddy the waters around the origins, the purpose, and, at times, the actual requirements of the law, turning the measure into a political football. 

While not perfect, NCLB does perhaps expose the motives of its critics and those at the centers of power — specifically the teachers unions and other guardians of the status quo — that have long defended a culture that resists change.

The questions that need to be asked– and answered-- are the same today as they were in 2001 when NCLB was passed in the House of Representatives by a 381 to 41 margin and when Senator Ted Kennedy joined Senator Gregg and the White House to shepherd the measure through the Senate in a remarkable show of nonpartisan solidarity. 

• After providing over $525 billion per year for education, what should the American people expect from their investment?
• How does one introduce accountability into a system that in the past has had no appreciable measure of accountability?
• Should there be a minimum level of academic achievement expected from all children?
• Should there be any expectation that children read and do math at grade level after eight years of public schooling?
• Do parents have a right to determine what the best academic environment is for their children?
• And if so, how far does that right go? Do we expect that, in this country, all children should be educated to high levels?

No Child Left Behind rests on a few basic premises. The first premise is that our system of public education must have specific expectations for student achievement in the areas of mathematics and language arts, and that we should measure each student’s ability to reach those expectations. The second premise is that we should provide remediation opportunities for students who struggle. The third premise is that districts and states should be held accountable to parents and taxpayers for student achievement. And the fourth and final premise is that federal education dollars should be tied to accountability.  In other words, money should be targeted to promote the academic achievement of our most disadvantaged children, and the results of these efforts must be reported.

The latter premise has caused more of a stir than perhaps any other aspect of NCLB because it marks yet another historic step toward a greater federal role in our traditionally decentralized education system. It is important to point out; however, that NCLB gave states and local school districts great discretion in establishing their student achievement goals and in determining how to meet those goals. They also retained authority over nearly every aspect of the law that affects the classroom.

There are those who present themselves as embracing the spirit of NCLB but have problems with how it is implemented, or with what they view as the impractical nature of its approach. Some critics claim that NCLB fails to take into account that all children are different, or that it forces teachers to teach to the test and destroys the opportunity for critical thinking. Others assert that NCLB is underfunded, or that its true mission is to destroy public education and lead to the privatization of all public schools.

In examining the criticism directed at No Child Left Behind, it is important first to step back and ask a more fundamental question: If there were no federal law shaping public education, what would be the purpose of the public education system in our society? Would there be an expectation that children read and do math on grade level? In other words, would parents, educators, taxpayers, and state and local policymakers have any expectations for student performance on their own accord, absent federal law?

I have said it before, and I will say it again: As the time for reauthorization approaches, I hope that policy leaders and educators from across the country will have the foresight and fortitude to have the hard conversations that will be needed to see these changes through. If we fail to do what must be done, I believe we will have failed as a nation to shoulder our most fundamental responsibility: to educate all students to high levels — truly, to leave no child behind.

Now to the fundamental question: How can the Obama administration and Congress put together a winning majority for reauthorization of ESEA? I suggest two steps: first, recapture the authentic bipartisan spirit which birthed and managed the enactment of NCLB by duplicating the collaborative leadership of the Big Four—liberals Kennedy and Miller working cooperatively with conservatives Gregg and Boehner. Second, adopt the position that the primary purpose of the law is to enhance the interest of children, not adults. Adult interests will be enhanced through the enhancement of children’s interest.   

 The ESEA must include a number of provisions, but none are more important than those that will ensure an effective teacher in every classroom. (See the Education Equality Project’s position paper on Teacher Quality.) The rationale is most succinctly put by the Brookings Institute: “Without the right people standing in front of the classroom, school reform is a futile exercise.”

By replacing the Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT) provision within ESEA with a framework for Highly Effective Teachers we could make dramatic progress towards improving teacher quality across-the-board. Currently, the law leaves the definition of HQT up to the states and, save for a few outliers, most states have not enforced any real rigor in this definition. This loop-hole has left us with a deeply uneven playing field: out-of-field teachers are more than twice as likely to teach core classes in high-poverty and high-minority schools as they are in low-poverty and low-minority schools. (Yesterday, Kati Haycock, Education Trust’s President and a signatory of the Education Equality Project made a detailed statement on HQT that clearly elucidates the issue.)

A Highly Effective Teacher provision would focus on what we know impacts student learning and provide states with clear guidance and support. Specifically, the Highly Effective Teacher provision would include:

-        Certification based on demonstrated learning gains

-        Differentiated pay for high-demand subjects (i.e., math, science, special education) and high-need schools

-        Performance pay for highly effective teachers (i.e., significant metric increases and/or bonuses for teachers who demonstrate dramatic improvement in student learning as assessed by a number of metrics)

-        Portable defined-contribution pensions, thereby eliminating the current disincentive for teachers to change school districts or teach in charter schools

We know these changes will not be easy to achieve. The new bargain will require a coalition of reform-minded Republicans and Democrats working across the aisle, putting children first and partisan politics last. The passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001 is a prime example of bipartisan collaboration, relying on the leadership of the late Senator Kennedy (D-MA) to build support for a policy that was the brain-child of President Bush and Secretary Spellings. The Education Equality Project is a coalition of politically diverse allies (e.g., Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Mayor Cory Booker, former Secretary Margaret Spellings, Representative John Conyers (D-MI)), gambling on the strategy that making unlikely allies, challenging the status quo, and always asking ourselves: Will this help children succeed? Will this narrow the achievement gap? – is the way to transform our schools.

In his speech last week in Wisconsin, President Obama could not have been more clear, nor inspiring, on this need for bipartisanship. “It's been Democrat versus Republican, it’s been voucher versus public schools, it's been more money versus more reform.  In some cases, people have seen schools as sort of a political spoil having to do with jobs and contracts instead of what we're teaching kids.  And this status quo has held back our children, it's held back our economy, and it's held back our country for too long.  It's time to stop just talking about education reform and start actually doing it.  It's time to make education America's national mission. “

The set of reforms comprised by NCLB 1.0 is not inspiring. Tweaking them here and there is not likely to produce much improvement. And without significant improvement in NCLB, I believe we face “reform fatigue” in the coming decade. How many people, pundits, and philanthropists can keep giving of their money and their minds beyond a 15- or 20-year time span? I don’t even like consulting any more in an NCLB 1.0-driven world. It’s just too depressing to see my once-inspired clients so scared to try anything new that they end up with test-prep-dominated, “Beaver Cleaver” curricula.

Now, let’s talk about changing NCLB itself.

0. (AND I CALL THIS “RECOMMENDATION ZERO” INTENTIONALLY BECAUSE IT HAS A 0% CHANCE OF BEING ADOPTED). Let’s call for a hiatus in reform in order to foster a period of intense research and rejuvenation. I recommend five years during which NCLB should be repealed in its entirety so that public and private organizations have time to develop significant innovations in an education culture that may finally embrace innovation if we just turn off the heat for a little while (knowing, of course, that the burner will be back on full force by a date certain).

If you haven’t worked in 15-25 schools in the last couple of years, you really should just try popping your head in the door, speaking (privately and off the record) with a few teachers and principals, and asking yourself, “How fed up are these people with working so hard to achieve so little?” Most folks in education are the ones who “work hard and follow the rules” and many feel cruelly manipulated by NCLB.

We can’t pump out versions of reform the way Microsoft pumps out versions of Windows. We need shiny new “Apple” reforms with cool products "that just work" and maybe even a nifty ad campaign, too. Seriously folks, it does not look like we are going to get NCLB right in the near future. Let’s take Mr. Vander Ark’s postponement idea and super-size it. At the same time, let’s take some RttT-like cash and create some real innovations in education. Then we can rebuild NCLB like Apple built OSX instead of the way Microsoft built Vista.

Having at least attempted to read the ESEA of 2001, I did notice some simple patterns of language that could easily be addressed in reauthorization.

1. ELIMINATE PET PROGRAMS. The most egregious of these in NCBL 1.0 was Reading First. By my count, at least $6 billion was spent on early reading instruction for no significant gain. Recent research shows that kids in RF-approved programs are better word callers but that their comprehension is no better than kids in non-RF-approved programs. There could be many reasons why this happened, and I’m sure RF-supporters will fight to the death to make them known. I have made an extensive study over the years of early reading and of RF, in particular, including the ridiculous reading programs that were approved through it, and I conclude that the program was wildly successful at the wrong thing simply because it was based on a flawed model of reading – and suspect science. Why we didn’t just use Marie Clay’s work and Reading Recovery as the basis for RF is beyond me. In any case, let’s not spend any more dribs and drabs of what little money we have on small-scale projects, especially those with specious scientific backgrounds.

RECOMMDATION: Get small programs out of NCLB and keep the focus on accountability.


2. ILL-DEFINED LANGUAGE. Throughout the ESEA of 2001, we find phrases like “high quality teachers” and “challenging academic content standards” and “challenging student academic achievement standards” and “high student achievement” and “scientifically based” etc. Let’s be clear: these terms may be well-intentioned, but we all know they are meaningless and, ironically, have been rendered even more meaningless by their use as part of NCLB over the last seven years.

RECOMMENDATION: Redefine important concepts in meaningful terms by “indexing” them to reality.

Take the word “challenging.” In the context of NCLB, this is just a euphemism for hard tests. And where do we all go now for hard tests? NAEP, SAT, ACT, TIMMS, PISA. I swear that in seven years I’ve never heard anyone say “Gosh, that Wisconsin reading test is a real humdinger, ain’t it, Bob, especially where rigor, reliability, and validity of data are concerned!”

On the “challenging academic standards front” we may be making some progress through CCSSI but we’re perhaps as much as a decade away from this work actually making a difference in the lives of teachers and kids nationwide – and let’s not forget that the “rigor” part of the standards equation will always come back to a test – and the National Governor’s Association, and CCSSI project in general, support the notion that each state should be free to create their own testing systems and set their own passing benchmarks. Tell me again, why do we think is a good idea? Didn't we learn our lesson last time about what life is like with 50 different tests -- and passing scores that change with the whims of politics?

Personally, I can not believe that we are going to repeat the worst mistake we’ve ever made in education reform by allowing 50 states to create 50 different tests again – and to tacitly approve their efforts to fool around with their tests, their data, their passing scores, their procedures, etc. If data is so important to us, why do we accept bad data from the States? Why do we codify into law their right to produce it? And why did we create an incentive system that has facilitated what Secretary Duncan terms “The Race to the Bottom”?

As for my favorite term, “scientifically based”, we have two resources – crammed into one agency – that are pretty good: The IES Gold Standards and the What Works Clearinghouse (also part of IES). As a result of NCLB, the issue of scientifically-based educational practice has achieved full-fledged unicorn status. What percentage of studies in the US have met IES Gold standards and are listed as approved by the What Works Clearinghouse? I’ll bet it’s less than 5% of those submitted, and if you press me, I’ll say it’s even lower than that. Regardless, we have an approach to defining what “scientifically based” means in education. Why not use it? The phase “scientifically based” works for no one without a real-world definition. And I don’t think most people understand how damaging this one tiny problem with NCLB has been.

Worse that that, keeping “scientifically based” undefined cuts both ways as major publishers release “fake” research in order to win adoptions. Just last week I had to burst a superintendent’s bubble by showing him that all submitted studies for a major reading program have been deemed invalid by the What Works Clearninghouse. According to our own government there is no valid research support for a reading program which we, the taxpayers, have been spending millions of dollars on for years. NCLB 2.0 could solve the problem easily. Ideally, we would define valid research and create criteria for responsible innovation as well.

RECOMMENDATION: Replace key terms and concepts with their real-world definitions. If we suspect the definitions will change, gather all terms and definitions in an appendix so they can be easily be updated and referenced.


3. LACK OF PRACTICAL ACCOUNTABILITY. The irony of passing accountability legislation without useful ways of applying accountability is something we should note now and address in the future through NCLB 2.0. I have worked with schools that have missed AYP 3-4 years in a row; nothing happens. I have been with even more schools in “corrective action”; much paper is shuffled, many look nervous, but again nothing happens. Perhaps strangest of all are the schools I have worked with who have ventured into to the depths of year 7 and beyond. Nothing has ever happened by way of any form of accountability to any school I have ever worked with -- and I do not advertise talismanic powers in this regard. While the law currently provides for “things to happen”, they rarely do. In fact, I have never seen a school closed, a staff fired, or even a principal let go for failure to improve student achievement (for other reasons, yes; for anything having to do with teaching or learning, never). What we have is a kind of public embarrassment system, not an accountability system. Shame is a motivator. But not a very reliable one.

RECOMMENDATION: Design a unified approach to accountability that works faster than the current one and that frames accountability in terms of concrete actions that are meaningful to the people who work in districts and schools. Let’s at least talk about the “nuclear” option. I’ll tell you what motivates me: when my business isn’t making any money or when my boss is out for my head. It’s not pretty. It’s not fun. But for many people, true change only occurs through tangible direct and very logical motivation. And the most logical motivation I know for many Americans is a potential loss of or change in their employment status. Let’s not pussyfoot around on this one. We all know what we’re talking about when we talk about “tying teachers to test scores”. But remember, teachers aren’t the only people who should be held to account. In fact, they are the last in a long and sorry chain. First up, school board members, superintendents, and district office administrators. Leadership starts at the top and so too should accountability. Building principals would be next. Then, after all that has been figured out, then – and only then – is it right to bring direct accountability to the classroom.

I like to note every chance I get, that the only group held directly responsible for their performance in our current system are children. They can’t vote. They don’t make money. Marian Wright Edelman can't protect them all. We must never forget that they are compelled by law to put up with the laws for which we advocate. They are the most vulnerable human beings in the system. And they are the only ones who may currently find their lives altered significantly by high-stakes testing. Everyone else in the system is either protected or given a free pass.


4. FIX TESTING. Most of the problems associated with NCLB could be fixed or at least mitigated by a smartly designed testing system. If the devil is in the details, then it’s time to give the devil his due, use the resources we have at hand, and actually fix this problem. Contrary to the Rumsfeldian logic of “going to school with the tests we have”, we’d all be better off if we simply used the tests we trust.

Here’s a solution. I’m sure there are many things wrong with it. And I do welcome anyone who will take a moment to point them out to me.

1. Test at grades 4 and 8 only with the NAEP. Yes, this would require changes in the NAEP. But scaling the NAEP to serve higher numbers of kids is not rocket science. The test should also be given via computer-adaptive-testing. This means getting enough computers into schools but we all want to do that anyway. I recommend testing in reading, writing, and math. But I’m happy to toss in science, too, if someone insists.

2. Test at grade 11 with the SAT or ACT. We could set three passing “bands”: Basic would mean a student scored high enough to meet the minimum acceptable score for admittance to a 2-year college in his state. Proficient would mean that a student scored higher than the median score for admittance to all public 4-year colleges in his state; Advanced would mean that a student scored higher than the top score for admittance to the top 4-year college in his state. Basic achievers would know they had a shot to get into a 2-year college; Proficient achievers would have a shot to get into the bottom 50% of state 4-year institutions; Advanced kids whould have a shot at any public 4-year school in the state. This would be known as “college-readiness” and it would replace the useless definitions we are arguing over now. You’re either ready for college or you’re not. And we might as well use admissions standards as the bar. It’s better than arguing over things like who has 21st century skills or who learned more facts about Western Civilization.

3. Additional HS grad options. Obviously, kids who scored below Basic would not receive high school diplomas – right away. But why couldn’t they just stay in school or choose to come back at some point in the future? I’ve seen how this works in other countries. You can’t let 25-year old juniors play on the basketball team but you can let them repeat geometry. Who knows? After a few years in the world of work, they might figure out that going to college isn’t such a bad deal after all.

4. Abolish the GED. Why, if we want kids to graduate from conventional high schools, do we offer them the tantalizing psychological bribe of a so-called “equivalency” degree? The GED is in no way, shape, or form equivalent to taking classes in high school. In a society where a college education is the currency of the day, and a good high school education is the only way to get there, offering a different and patently inferior way to meet this important goal simply doesn’t make sense. If you disagree, ask yourself this: “Would you want a child of yours to enter high school at 9th grade with his or her sites set on dropping out at age 16 and taking the GED?”

This approach to testing would have several important advantages over the current approach as outlined in NCLB 1.0:

1. One nation, one set of tests. No more issues related to which state’s test is harder or easier than another. Kids cross state lines all the time. Why should education depend on geography? Kids in Texas deserve the same quality of schooling that kids in Massachusetts seem to be getting at the moment.

2. No more test-prep foolishness. When do SAT-takers prep for the SAT? Right before they take it – not every day of their lives. At present, the NAEP cannot be prepped for because no one knows ahead of time whether they are going to take it or what it looks like. In the model described here, everyone would know when they were taking it, but with computer-adaptive-testing, they would have a much harder time predicting what would be on any individual child’s test. Who knows? Our country might even go back to teaching again.

3. No more bogus data from the states. Why do we all trust NAEP test data over state test data? Because we know the states fudge their data for political reasons, and we know that the folks who handle the NAEP don’t make such self-interested calculations. Letting states run their own testing systems is like letting the fox into the henhouse. Given how much we all lust over data these days, you’d think we’d be willing to do what it takes to get numbers we could trust.

4. Less narrowing of the curriculum. With less testing and less test-prep, teachers could go back to actually teaching subjects again. Maybe we’d have time for BOTH content and skills? (Oh no, Common Core and P21 would have to stop fighting!)

5. No unfunded mandates for the states. No state testing means no state testing systems to fund. What  senator or representative wouldn’t do cartwheels over that? With fewer tests to fund, the national budget for testing would be considerably smaller, and the government could probably pick it up without too much trouble.

6. No standards to argue about. Has anyone ever noticed that the tests we trust the most (SAT, ACT, NAEP, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT, etc.) don’t have standards documents associated with them? With the right testing system, standards are not needed. Or, if you happen to be a diehard standards fan, you can take the CCSSI model – or anybody else’s – and make it work for your state, district, school, or classroom. In short, if we fix testing, we can have our cake (standards) and eat it, too (consistent rigor and valid achievement data). And if we get too "fat", we can dump standards any time and just rely on the tests like we do now with the ACT, SAT, NAEP, etc.

I do not believe I have seen any research that conclusively supports the notion of a country testing its kids more than three times during their school career. Grades 4, 8, and 11 should be fine. And states would, of course, be free to create their own formative assessments if they wanted to. Smart testing means testing at key points in the system – and learning at all the other points.

What many countries do well, that we do poorly, is provide high-quality targeted intervention in pre-testing grades. NCLB 2.0 should be redirect all SES money (because it doesn’t seems to have helped much except to line the pockets of tutoring companies) and these funds should go toward developing the best scientifically-researched targeted interventions for reading, math, and writing at grades 1, 3, 7, and 10. Kids who don’t pass 4th and 8th grade tests should be retained at least one year and given focused help. But any intervention and retention component of NCLB 2.0 should be carefully weighed and, if enacted, phased in slowly over a multi-year period.

If what I have described above has fatal flaws in it, let me know. At the same time, feel free to try patching them up with your own good ideas. Testing needs to be fixed – and fast. Also, those of us who have long opposed testing – and I count myself in that group – need to move on and realize that high-stakes testing is now a fixture of our culture, for better or worse; I, for one, will start working with it andnot against it because I no longer feel it is constructive to keep closing the barn door when the cow ran out years ago. Despite a willingness I have perceived on the part of many to solider on with the tests we have, I don’t think any of us could honestly look each other in the eyes and say “NCLB 2.0 represents the future of education in our country,” if we don’t fix testing.

We can fix NCLB, and I believe that fixing it right is the best political strategy for achieving consensus during reauthorization.

So, we can play politics and fund our pet programs and puff up our chests during big speeches at Rotary Club meetings, and pat ourselves on the back about rigorous educations for our kids and high-quality teachers and college-readiness – or we can just make NCLB work. The ball is in our court, and it’s time to stop practicing our backhand.

 

link to article here, text below

The languishing reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is turning lawmakers into educational Michael Corleones, pulling them back into a business many fervently wish was over. Although the landmark education law is overdue for its scheduled five-year overhaul, contentiousness left the last Congress unable to even get a bill out of committee. This year other issues like the economic recovery bill, healthcare, and the "card check" unionization bill made it easy for Congress to put off the tough work of revamping the law.  

Undeterred, after a national "listening tour" Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he wants to see a new version of the law passed early next year. Duncan's challenge is to ensure that when Congress finally does finish its work, the emphasis on underserved students, accountability, and reform are maintained.

The path to success is daunting because serious fault lines lie just below the surface of the seemingly broad support for reforming America's education system. Debate over No Child reauthorization is likely where they will spill into the open on Capitol Hill.

Because of the structure of the economic recovery act, Congress had little control over what Secretary Duncan did with key parts of the $100 billion in stimulus money dedicated to education. So far Duncan and President Obama have pleasantly surprised many observers by holding a tough line on reform. That, of course, has not endeared them to education's array of interest groups. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten recently derided Duncan's policies as "Bush III" in the Washington Post.

Yet if special interest groups and less reform-friendly members of Congress can't change Duncan's plans for "Race to the Top" school reform competition among states, they can work their will on the reauthorization process for the No Child law. Indications are that they're planning to do exactly that in a political environment favoring them.

The legislative coalition that supported the 2001 law is gone. Sen. Ted Kennedy died earlier this year. Sen. Judd Gregg is no longer even the ranking Republican on the Senate education committee. In the House of Representatives, former education committee chairman John Boehner is now the Republican minority leader with a lot more on his plate than schools.

That leaves current education committee Chairman George Miller, a California Democrat, as the last man standing from the "big four" that forged the final bipartisan deal with President Bush in 2001. Miller, whose long career in Congress is an everyday testament to the folly of term limits, has maintained consistent support for the No Child policy. But the three-decade veteran of Congress was unable to move a reauthorization bill out of his committee in late 2007 in the face of intense opposition from teachers' unions and other special interest groups and mixed signals from the Bush Administration

. It will not be any easier this time.

Democrats are skittish about the overall political climate, and losses in the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia hardly build their confidence to take on key interest groups. For their part, despite a great deal of bipartisan consensus on the substance education policy, leading Hill Republicans are sending signals that political bipartisanship may not be possible this time around. Republican leadership on the issue comes from state leaders like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and out of work politicians, for instance former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, rather than elected Republicans in Washington.

Substantively, the law does need some changes. The accumulating evidence indicates that standards-based reform by itself will be insufficient to truly transform today's public education system, so bolder ideas are essential. Meanwhile, after seven years there is an accumulation of housekeeping issues demanding action, especially around some of the law's accountability rules. Secretary Duncan also needs to figure out how to use the federal law to sustain the Race to the Top efforts after that money is spent. In particular, he must be able to use both other federal dollars and his regulatory authority to continue to incent and reward leading states.

There are some hopeful signs. Duncan's emphasis on expanding successful charter schools and turning around low-performing schools are as important as they are overdue. On the Hill, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado is planning to introduce an ambitious bill to improve teacher training, and Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu plans to propose dramatic changes to federal charter school policy. All those ideas should be part of a revised No Child Left Behind law. But sensing a chance to make gains in the 2010 elections, Republicans are not inclined to enable victories for Democrats, especially ones like Bennet who they see as politically vulnerable.

That's why despite everything else on his plate, if he's serious about seeing education reform in 2010 President Obama must expend political capital on it himself. So far education policy is providing a surprising success for the president. Few thought the issue would be the green shoot it has become on Obama's agenda. Improving the No Child law and firmly embedding the Obama-Duncan stamp on federal education policy is the president's chance to see education reform through and claim a genuine policy accomplishment for 2012. Or, conversely, it's an opportunity to watch reform unravel as status-quo-challenging changes in American education too often do.

At the risk of over-simplification, here is how I see the landscape now:

Who likes NCLB:

• Business and education entrepreneurs like it because it puts the focus on results.
• Civil rights groups like it because it focuses attention on disparities in educational results (the achievement gap).
• Some parents like it because they associate it with greater performance transparency – they can see how their children’s schools are doing.

Who dislikes NCLB:

• Many parents are concerned because they are told by their teachers and principals that it reduces schools to test prep.
• Many affluent parents especially dislike it because they believe there is nothing in it for their children.
• Some conservatives dislike it because it represents an inappropriate Federal intrusion into matters that the Constitution reserved for the states.
• Some liberals (and liberal-minded) people dislike it because it seems to reduce public education to a focus on a relatively narrow set of basic skills.

(There are of course many more reasons that people like or dislike NCLB, I’m focusing on the big ones that might provide a clue as to how to build a new coalition.)

Based on these observations, here is my formula for renewing NCLB

1. Focus on making major leaps in the quality of standards and assessments. These new standards and assessments must be very carefully crafted to measure the skills that are the most important to the success of young people. This is primarily a technical challenge.

1. Simultaneously focus on the potential of innovation in education and re-position NCLB as partly an ongoing “Innovation Fund” for LEAs and others who are prepared to demonstrate results. (And, as Sandy Kress suggested, focus more on secondary schools than the original NCLB did.)

1. Then explain to parents and the public why these standards (and assessments) are valid measure of their children’s progress and their school’s quality. Explain why we need innovation to accelerate progress. It needs to be very clear how these news standards and assessments are strong measures of the skills that their children will need to succeed. This is primarily a communications challenge.

Then, build the winning coalition from the bottom up by getting parents and the public to demand that their children get an education that provides them with these skills. Parents and others on the fence will also be attracted to the focus on innovation.

Finally, I agree with Tom Vander Ark that it may be wise to wait a little while to give time for Race to the Top and the Innovation Fund to begin to have impact and make the ground more fertile for this approach.

In terms of policy, Bruce and Pedro largely have it right. (I will get to Congressional prospects below.) Their comments largely reflect the positions of the Forum on Educational Accountability, as expressed in the Joint Statement on NCLB and Empowering Schools and Improving Learning. The latter says federal policy should rest on three legs: opportunity to learn, strategies to support improvement, and outcomes that incorporate a rich array of evidence of student learning. The punishment approach built into NLCB must be replaced with assistance. Interventions should be tailored to specific problems and rely on reasonable evidence they will produce improvement – rather than the sort of unsupported ideological prescriptions that underpin much of NCLB and "Race to the Top." Expectations for improvement should be anchored in real-world evidence of feasibility.

I would point out that most national civil rights groups seek significant changes in federal law. More than 20 signed the Joint Statement which included points such as:

            -- "Provide a comprehensive picture of students' and schools' performance by moving from an overwhelming reliance on standardized tests to using multiple indicators of student achievement in addition to these tests."

            -- " Help states develop assessment systems that include district and school-based measures in order to provide better, more timely information about student learning."

            -- "Decrease the testing burden on states, schools and districts by allowing states to assess students annually in selected grades in elementary, middle schools, and high schools."

The reasons why NCLB must be overhauled are clear, as documented by FairTest and many other organizations and researchers: NCLB is an educational disaster, despite a few positive points such as the requirement to produce disaggregated data.

But what are the Congressional prospects? Both houses of Congress remain deeply divided on many ESEA/NCLB issues. Republicans are split between those who seek less federal interference and those who still hold to George W. Bush's NCLB. Some Democrats want the law unchanged or even intensified, while others look to end the disaster caused by the law's over-test and punish approach.

If Duncan recognizes the need to overhaul testing, AYP and sanctions while maintaining disaggregated data and establishing clear guidelines to prevent schools, districts and states from ignoring underserved populations, he might put together a bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress. The FEA proposals could be a basis for that bipartisanship since they shift away from the punitive federal hand while providing strong federal support for improving schools and maintaining reasonable expectations for improvement. 

Pedro is correct, a move to push through a law with only minimal changes or an intensified version of NCLB would generate great opposition. It may be, as Bruce fears, that quick-fix politics combined with enough pressure from the White House could lead to a reauthorization that merely shuffles the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Meanwhile, NCLB supporters could block movement on a new law, thus retaining it into 2011. Sandy, for example, wants a one year delay, bringing us closer to declaring most of the schools in the US failing. If something cannot emerge from committees by Memorial Day, the looming fall 2010 election campaigns are likely to preclude passage.

Finally, the outcome will also rest on activism, on the willingness of parents, teachers, students, community people concerned about their schools to weigh in loudly with members of Congress. That also means organizations must help prepare and mobilize people.

It could be quite important that what should change is the mindset that the reauthorization has to look like all the others that preceded it. Now is the time to think innovatively and write a law that encourages bold, new policy thinking that allows states and school districts to try new ideas that break traditional education molds. Today's student is different and capable of harnessing the real potential of technology to use as a learning tool. Congress needs to encourage a menu of policy requirements that afford flexibility for states to meet the unique needs of their citizens.

Finally, what should not change is the absolute need to transparently be accountable for achieving results with all students. Accountability is one provision of the next ESEA that should not be negotiable. Every student deserves a high-quality, highly-qualified teacher who is rewarded for successful teaching. And their schools should be led by dynamic school leaders who empower their staffs, articulate bold, challenging visions, and insist on meeting designated benchmarks for continuous improvement.

First, there are good policies enshrined in ARRA, particularly in the four assurances, as well as promised Administration policies around RTTT that would make for worthy enhancements to ESEA.

Second, the focus on elementary in ESEA and the strategy of continuous improvement should be refined and updated to a broader focus on secondary as well as the establishment of a clear goal of college/career readiness for all.

Third, the repairs begun by Secretary Spellings in the use of growth, differentiated consequences, and the use of multiple measures that are, and must be, valid, reliable, and objective should be featured and made manifest in reauthorization.

But any attempt, however disguised, to weaken the accountability that made NCLB the effective engine for change that it has become should be ferociously resisted. Look at this discussion from the civil rights community that was aroused in 2008 when the accountability provisions were threatened.

http://swiftandchangeable.org/index.php/2008/06/18/the-urban-league-and-the-alliance-weigh-?blog=2

There can be no consensus if the real action is to retreat to the days prior to standards based reform, or indeed the days prior to NCLB, when disadvantaged students were either not regularly assessed or their assessed performance didn't matter, especially in the ratings of schools or the evaluation of the performance of the adults.

It's great to talk about new sorts of assessments. It's great to talk about higher standards. It's great to talk about more flexibility. All of these things are fine except when, and if, it turns out that what we're really talking about is going back to a policy of not holding the system and its players accountable for the achievement of disadvantaged students.

Look at recent behavior in certain states and districts. In Illinois, for example, they've lowered their performance standards and blamed NCLB. So, let's assume NCLB is gutted. What will those fine folks do? Go back to their "higher" standards once the policy no longer pinches when disadvantaged kids do poorly? Of what use are standards if achievement to them does not matter? Will they reverse the policy of gaming accountability by conveniently postponing the assessment of disadvantaged high schoolers, when the scores of those kids no longer matter?

We can get  to common ground in improving federal law, but if the real agenda of change is to weaken, not repair and enhance, I hope and believe that that effort will be utterly and totally defeated.

I regret that I do not have time this Monday for a full post; I'll be back later in the week. But I would like to encourage us all -- and even remind myself here -- that our task is not defend or decry NCLB but to make policy recommendations for its reauthorization, ideally recommendations that are both specific and actionable.

I hope, as the week progresses, that a kind of "virtual" policy paper emerges from our discussions. Let's all try to be specific. Let's try to imagine what the author's of the ESEA will be thinking about. Rather than conceptual categories, let's put concrete ideas on the table that  might catch a Senator's ear or at least get Mr. Duncan to throw his two cents into the discussion. I think it would be great if he commente dont this -- I'd sure love to know what he's really thinking.

Rarely, it seems to me, do we have the opportunity to weigh in on a policy that has yet to be created. But Ms. Krigman has offered just such an opportunity here. Let's take the lead on this one and really give it a good shot.

The Department is rolling out the largest and most aggressive reform package in history. Congress should delay reauthorization for at least a year and let Race to the Top and Invest in Innovation change the landscape and the nature of the public debate.

The system we have will not achieve the goals the President has laid out. We face an innovation challenge. We need new instructional models, adaptive assessments, targeted tutoring, and school formats that blend the best of online learning and onsite support.  Like Energy, Health, Transportation, and Defense, the Department of Education should create partnerships with the private sector to meet the enormous challenge of creating the system of education that American students deserve. 

The Supplemental Educational Services component incorporated into NCLB demonstrated the responsiveness of education entrepreneurs. Thousands of organizations have been providing targeted tutoring to low income students in failing schools—providing the same services that middle and upper income families can afford and at least partially offsetting the lack of quality academic options in their neighborhood. There’s a chance to do more and to reduce the sometimes adversarial role that districts have taken by framing SES2.0—comprehensive student supports that could take the form of in-school tutoring and extended day/year opportunities.

This ESEA should be forward leaning. It should incorporate online assessment and anticipate the continued growth of online learning. School networks that blend online and onsite learning and targeted tutoring should be harnessed in the effort to turn around thousands of struggling schools.

ESEA must reflect the ‘good school’ promise intended by NCLB—every family in America deserves access to at least one good public school. Fulfilling this promise requires strong support and strong accountability, new tools and new schools, and it will require public and private investment. The private sector is ready, willing, and able to help America meet the educational challenges of the next decade.  

The formula for reinstating high regard for ESEA is pretty straight forward. 

First, redirect the bill toward its original mission promoting equal educational opportunity for low income and minority students. 

Student success must be the basis for evaluating the effect of Title I and other programs in ESEA. But student success must be defined accurately as the state of the art allows in clear, high measurable terms. The woeful crop of single shot tests, states are using must be replaced by a series of state of the art assessment systems that will measure the effect of ESEA programs.  Assessments for students with disabilities and students who are learning English must be rethought and made much more accurate because the huge standard error for such students is a scandal. Better assessment systems will be expensive, but information to improve instruction and curriculum is critical to improved student learning.

The new assessments must be aimed at fewer clearer, higher, internationally benchmarked standards, and must be designed to clearly assess the effect of ESEA programs. However, ESEA cannot require that states adopt the new common core because that would give the US Department of Education control of the standards and that would be a disaster politically. 

Teaching must be set on a path of continual improvement by addressing all phases of improved instruction. Improving instruction through collaboration, improved professional development and better instructional materials is step one because it will affect the huge majority of teachers who are in place and will be there for the coming years. Second, a greater percentage of the best students in high school and in undergraduate schools must become career teachers and administrators. Attracting the best requires paying for their education, completely just like they were division I athletes and then paying them and treating them like professionals. Colleges of education should be assisted to provide the foundation good teachers and administrators need when they begin their careers.   Alternative paths to certification ought to be explored but the data are clear 90 day wonders do not measure up to fully prepared professionals. Finally the evaluation of teachers and administrators must become part of the continual improvement process, so they whole system is focused on continual improvement. Evaluation may lead to paying teachers and administrators for student success, if success is measured by multiple valid and reliable measures.

Another important step to a successful reauthorization is an accountability system that is transparent and functional not utopian. The accountability system must promote continual improvement where ESEA funds are used rather than play gotcha. The goal must be steady growth in outcomes for students served by ESEA programs, not 100% scoring at a utopian level. Accountability must be a gate that swings two ways recognizing and rewarding success and eliminating bad practice and impeding student learning. 

Success must be rewarded via a new formula program that pays off for success at graduation for outcomes that will aide student on the Monday after they graduate from high school in terms of careers or college readiness. Student success must be defined in outcomes that have meaning for students and their parents so motivation can be both intrinsic and extrinsic.

Then Title I must promote partnering with the community to enhance the possibility of student success by knocking down barriers to learning. Partnering is a process, not a document or a prescription. Community attention to barriers to learning will add value to improved instruction.  An immediate problem in partnering is a lack of meaningful common metrics to evaluate progress and identify where adjustments are needed. All of the grant programs in ESEA must be conducive to partnering so that schools can have a continuum of services available based on a continuum of need.

Finally, ESEA must refocus on success for low income and minority students means by improving the targeting in current law. Current law treats low income students concentrated in urban schools much better than low income students in rural schools. The first step towards rural parity is using free and reduced cost counts from the child nutrition program as the basis for counting students for allocating funds. Urban students are in a few, less than 200 cities around the country so relying on enrollment over the percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced cost meals favors cities over the over 5,000 rural districts many of which have poverty rates higher than their urban counterparts.

It’s a pretty straightforward agenda to get school people to support the next reauthorization.   Ignoring the voices of educators will cause the reauthorization to drag on unnecessarily.  

When NCLB was adopted by congress eight years ago, few would have guessed that it would eventually generate such broad-based opposition and contempt. Championed by respected legislative leaders George Miller and Ted Kennedy, and promoted enthusiastically by President George W. Bush, the law was adopted with bipartisan support. This was a remarkable achievement, not only because very few policy issues have been embraced by politicians from both parties in recent years, but because the law significantly expanded the role of the federal government in public education. Prior to NCLB, the federal role had been largely limited to enforcement of the civil rights provisions of ESEA. While the protections it contained for the educational rights of students with special needs, language minorities and poor children generally were important, lack of funding for these mandates had relegated the federal government to the sidelines in education and most policies were controlled by the states. NCLB ushered in a new era of federal intervention, and the once marginal US Department of Education was empowered with the task of monitoring academic standards and systems of accountability adopted by the states.

With its increased authority, the Department of Education used its mandate to compel states to adopt standards and comply with NCLB’s testing requirements. As might have been expected, opposition to the intrusion of these largely unfunded federal mandates gradually grew, both in red states like Utah and Virginia, and in blue states like Connecticut. Opposition to NCLB was even more strenuous in middle class suburban districts that resented having their schools labeled failing if they did not achieve average yearly progress (AYP) for each designated sub group. Many educators also resented the fact that “teaching to the test” became the natural outcome of a policy that judged the performance of schools largely by test scores.

With this very brief, albeit biased, summary of NCLB’s history, we return to the question of what the administration will do now as it seeks to adopt a new set of guidelines for federal education policy. The choice, in its simplest terms, seems to boil down to two basic options: 1) tinker with the law by removing some of the more objectionable features in the hopes that bipartisan support might once again emerge, or 2) undertake a more radical and comprehensive revision. For obvious reasons, the first option will likely be more appealing to the administration, which may well conclude that it would be easier to build consensus around a law with which legislators are familiar than to venture into unchartered territory.

However, while this approach may seem practical, my reading of the current political climate related to public education leads me to believe that this course of action is likely to produce more opposition and rancor than the administration has bargained for. Particularly, given the deep divisions over controversies like the state of the economy, our military’s involvement in two wars, and reforms in energy policy, it would be unwise to allow education to degenerate into a bitterly partisan issue. More importantly, the administration must realize that staying the course in public education is unlikely to produce “the change we need.”

To be fair, NCLB has done two important things: it has drawn attention to wide disparities in student achievement that correspond to the racial and socio-economic backgrounds of children (the so-called achievement gap), and it has held districts responsible for raising achievement for all children. These are important accomplishments, however, drawing attention to a problem is not the same as solving it. The clearest indication that something still is very wrong is that we continue to have dropout rates of close to 50% in most major urban districts across the country. Moreover, though it may have been an unintended consequence, NCLB has distorted the relationship between teaching and assessment in many schools. Schools need greater guidance on how to adopt teaching strategies that have proven effective in meeting the learning needs of academically and socially disadvantaged students. They also need help in figuring out how to develop and sustain Opportunity to Learn Standards (OTL) that are essential for creating environments in which quality teaching and higher levels of learning may flourish.

Given the high stakes involved in the education debates, it would be wise for the administration to pull back a bit. Instead of moving forward with more mandates (i.e., requiring states to adopt some form of performance pay and and lift the cap on charter schools) and offering a slightly modified version of NCLB, it would be wise for the administration to take the lead by clarifying what high standards should consist of. There are a small but significant number of high performing, high poverty schools. Some, but not all of these are charter schools. Rather than setting up a competition among schools, the administration should adopt policies that encourage schools to collaborate with and learn from each other. There are also a number of districts that have made tremendous progress in closing the achievement gap. The accomplishments of these schools and districts should be used to encourage states to adopt policies and educational strategies that have proven effective elsewhere.

Instead of positioning itself as the issuer of mandates and the judge of who is winning the “race to the top,” the federal government should assume the role of cheerleader and promoter of higher standards and genuine innovation in education. It can specify that federal funds must be used to support the adoption of strategies that have proven effective elsewhere. It can also encourage states and school systems to adopt educational strategies that have contributed to success in other nations like Norway and Singapore, such as increased access to high quality early childhood education, site-based professional development for teachers in pedagogy and content, and school-business partnerships that promote the acquisition of technical skills in sectors where employment opportunities are most likely to grow.

Education is both a source of and a potential solution to many of the problems confronting our nation. It also continues to be the most viable resource at our disposal for protecting our democracy, rebuilding our economy and securing a better future for our citizens. Most Americans understand the importance of education, and that is why even during troubling times like these, it continues to be recognized as an important policy issue.

The administration would be wise to seize this opportunity to promote change, to address the failures of chronically under-performing schools and to foster innovative practices in public education. Instead of scolding teachers and deriding failing schools the administration must provide clear guidance regarding the types of reforms that are most likely to lead to improved academic outcomes. The re-authorization of ESEA provides an opportunity for this type of leadership. Let’s hope the administration can rise to the challenge.

The Education Department is working on finalizing applications for the $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund, the centerpiece of the Obama administration's education reform agenda. The program, whose goals include turning around low-performing schools, is widely reported to be a blueprint for the administration's plans for the upcoming reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.

In a recent article for Education Next, expert Andy Smarick made a compelling case against the "turnaround" strategy. "Once persistently low performing, the majority of schools will remain low performing despite being acted upon in innumerable ways," Smarick wrote. He argued that poorly performing schools should be closed.

Is the turnaround strategy fundamentally flawed? Is the Race to the Top Fund throwing billions of dollars down the drain?

And the proof is in the fact that so many schools are currently filled with people who hold virtually the same beliefs about education regardless of other issues like the socio-economic status of their students, the amount of money spent per student, the quality of their work environment, or whether they work in urban, suburban, or rural school.

Teachers and administrators are a fairly consistent lot when it comes to what might be called their “philosophy of school”. Obviously, if I can go into over 200 schools and have very different people in very different situations ask me the same questions over and over again, and experience the same shock and awe when I calmly describe the research base on things like grading or early literacy instruction, a common set of beliefs must exist even if the people who hold them aren’t aware of them as such. Whether we call this a “philosophy of education” or a “theory of action” or a “set of beliefs” or just common personality traits is irrelevant. At the level of belief, virtually all collections of educators are the same.

And the fact that most educators currently hold beliefs that are incompatible with effective teaching, learning, and school operation is the core problem we must address in reform.

So why not focus school improvement efforts at this foundational level? Why not start a turnaround or restart with a new set of beliefs? And why not target our work on individuals within a school rather than trying to change an entire school itself?

Virtually all reforms up to this point have been targeted at schools, not at the people inside of them. I believe this has been and will continue to be a losing proposition. It has been assumed all along that schools are the fundamental unit of reform. And, through NCLB, this idea has been codified into law. NCLB is really NSLB – No School Left Behind. Same goes for standards: they aren't for individual teachers or kids, they’re for making sure an entire state full of schools teaches the same thing. Charter school legislation is about creating new schools – not new school people. Vouchers are about sending kids to different schools – schools that may or may not be filled with different or better people.

Performance-based pay is the only reform focused directly on people – and it will be a very, very long time before we know which models are best and if any have sustainable positive effects. I predict that performance-based pay will gradually become part of school culture and that it will have virtually no system-wide effect whatsoever except for the increase of school budgets. People don’t go into education to make money, and people who are moved by money don’t go into education. Educators are, by and large, not an economically sensitive group of people; they're way more into authoritarian status levels and social capital. Don't forget that virtually all educators perform at or near 100% of their capacity (I didn’t say they performed well, just that most are doing pretty much everything they can do). Paying better teachers better money is certainly a fair and even righteous thing to do. But more money will not change the way they teach or inspire less-talented teachers to aspire to levels of practice they can’t or wouldn’t care to attain otherwise.

So what if we apply the notions of restart, turnaround, and turnback to people instead of to schools?

Why do consumers of education like Waldorf schools? Or Montessori schools? Or Friends schools? Or Core Knowledge schools? Or even military schools? Because these types of schools are grounded in an understandable philosophy and are happy to share their beliefs with everyone in their school community. But it is not the quality of their philosophies that makes them so attractive, merely the fact that they have them at all.

I have taught in over 200 schools. My consulting associates have probably taught in 100 additional schools. And, as a group, we’ve probably visited or read about another 200 schools. So from our, point of view even as a very small organization, we’ve had exposure to maybe 500 schools across the country. Here’s an interesting stat: We have never encountered a traditional public school that operated out of a well-articulated philosophy. I’m not talking about mission statements nobody follows or school improvement plans nobody reads. I’m talking about a coherent set of beliefs through which decisions are made and actions are taken.

This is why most schools don’t work. And why all schools are hard to change.

Most turnarounds fail for the simple reason that we fail to turn around the thinking of the individual people who make up the school community. Most restarts fail because we fail to start them off with a coherent set of beliefs in the first place. (“Work hard. Be nice.” is very good. But I’m thinking of something a bit more involved; and I think we all know that KIPP runs off a richer and more nuanced set of shared ideas.)

Developing a philosophy of education is much easier than one might think. We prove this in our consulting work with a simple activity we call “Core Beliefs”. We have even noticed that groups of people can work well together with different core beliefs as long as the following are all true:

1. They understand the beliefs of others.
2. They can see that everyone is trying to act with integrity out of their individual belief systems.
3. There is a small group of higher-level beliefs everyone CAN agree to.

Number three might seem to be the tough one, but it’s not.

For example, few teachers or principals or parents or district administrators have ever disagreed with my own personal core belief that “Literacy is the foundation of school success.” Or how about this one, "If you can't manage the classroom, you can't manage teaching and learning."

Or this one: after helping people realize that everyone passes their kids on to someone else in a school system, it’s easy to get people to see that, by virtue of simply working in a school, they all agree with the belief that “We’re all in this together.”

And, finally, in a paradigm-shifting tsunami of Homer Simpson-esque logic, I have also helped large groups of educators understand and reach agreement on the earth-shattering belief that “Teaching is for learning.”

This really IS a paradigm shift because our entire education system is founded on the notion that teaching is self-justifying and that learning is incidental; this is also why testing doesn’t work as a tool for accountability, but that’s another story for another time; consider Dr. Richard Elmore’s simple, insightful, and very correct idea that internal or personal accountability must precede external accountability.

As an outside change agent, as long as I can successfully inculcate these beliefs (or any other reasonable set), and then teach an administrator or two how to use them in school decision making, and how to monitor the ways people use them in their work, I can create what I like to call a “platform for progress”. If I also happen to be smart enough to feed the right teaching tools and curriculum and assessment tools into the school (those that match the school’s philosophy), progress will occur more quickly.

This is, of course, currently impossible given the slate of reforms we have chosen. And again, this is another reason why restarts and turnarounds are so hard. The system we’ve designed to force these things to happen, makes it’s highly unlikely that they will. (And, yes, I have an alternative set of reforms in my back pocket, but this post is way too long now as it is, so I’ll talk about these at another time, probably when the issue of NCLB reauth comes up.)

Here’s the big “Aha!” for me: I consider myself an extremely talented consultant. I have helped – literally – hundreds of thousands of teachers dramatically improve their practice, and even gotten a few principals to straighten up and fly right. But I have never turned a school around or contributed to a successful restart. Why? Because while I can help PEOPLE change their beliefs, I can’t do anything with a BUILDING. And, unfortunately, I work in a world where reform is building-wide and testing-bound.

I can get an entire elementary school full of teachers to buy into and apply a coherent and responsible theory of reading instruction. But I can’t get them to see that the success of this approach can be applied to any other subject. Why? Because currently we conceive of all change in education as school-wide and subject bound – instead of regarding it at as people-centered and belief-driven.

I would argue, then, that talking about turnarounds and restarts isn’t as important as talking about the people we’ll be restarting with or helping to turn around. And since we don’t have several million ambitious educational geniuses willing to spend 20-30 years working in schools, the most promising approach to reform that I see is helping people (in both turnarounds and restarts) derive practice from a shared philosophy and work together using that set of beliefs to drive their individual and collective decision-making.

The future of reform is the “philosophically constructed” public school. Shared beliefs form the foundation of long term success. They also give us what has been missing in so many failed restart and turnaround efforts to date, something Jim Collins identified in “Good to Great” as one of the key elements of enduring successful organizations. Collins notes in his research that the greatest organizations – the ones that perform the best and last the longest – find a way to “preserve the core and stimulate progress.” Without the core – or as I refer to it here, without a set of core beliefs – steady progress in any school is unlikely at best, and impossible at worst.
 

Though I like and respect Justin Cohen, his post below takes on a straw man, not me.  I’ve never offered closures as a simple, easily implemented cure-all, and I’ve never said that all low-performing schools should be closed.
 
My argument is that if a school is found to be failing kids, we need to try hard to fix it.  If repeated efforts don’t work and it’s clear that we have a persistent failure, then you close it.  As the article put it, “When conscientiously applied strategies fail to drastically improve America’s lowest-performing schools, we need to close them.”
 
I’ve also argued that closures require thoughtful choreography and are just one part of a broader reform strategy.  That is, no prudent system would shutter 30 schools at once and then let families fend for themselves.  The system must carefully consider how you close a school (phasing it out or all at once), how to ensure kids have higher-performing schools to attend, how new starts will be integrated, etc.  There are many difficult issues wrapped up in these decisions, such as geography (opening 10 new schools in lower Manhattan won’t really help the kids displaced by 10 closures in Harlem) and grade spans (shuttered elementary schools can’t be replaced by new middle schools).
 
Cohen makes the common argument that too many turnaround efforts have been soft interventions. But, as my article pointed out, we’ve tried a staggering array of strategies, including tough ones, and those too fail with remarkable consistency.  The private sector tries tough interventions all the time, and those fail in the vast majority of instances.  Steve Peha’s lesson about “turn backs” is instructive.
 
I wish I could share Nelson Smith’s optimism that the best charter operators will reject entreaties to get into the turnaround business sans a long list of guarantees.  Unfortunately, it appears that lots of very good CMOs are getting pressured into this line of work.  I worry about this greatly.
 
While I respect Governor Hunt’s work in education, the towering body of research and on-the-ground experience is stacked against his optimistic claims.  More importantly, I need to take issue with his final statement that turnarounds “(have) to be done.”  I believe that line of thinking, though rooted in the best of intentions, has led us down the wrong path for 40 years.  In my opinion, what has to be done is our looking out for the best interests of kids.  That’s quite different from (and is actually mutually exclusive from) endless efforts to fix all persistently failing schools.
 

"Ford Foundation plans to invest $100 million to school turnaround plans in seven cities, including Detroit."

http://bit.ly/4xXaZP

Having made three trips to the Motor City this summer to assist in the training of current and future entrepreneurs, I was struck by the "can-do" spirit that still exists in a town that has been hit harder than I could have imagined.

$100 million sounds like a lot of money, and if Detroit gets it's 1/7th share, that $14 million or so sounds at first like a good chunk of change. I want to believe -- especially in the case of Detroit -- that stunning successes will emerge, but so much of our discussion this week has pointed to the near-hopelessness of the turnaround proposition.

Is there a creative optimist in the house who can spin up an approach that makes turnarounds more likely to succeed? And since restarts are potentially so chaotic, and so challenging where the human capital issue is concerned, have we boxed ourselves in by favoring restarts so heavily over turnarounds when turnarounds will likely far outnumber restarts no matter what the probabilities are for success? Should ed think-tanks start thinking harder about ways to optimize turnarounds, especially in the inner city? With a huge base of well-educated but unemployed or under-employed people in Detroit, could a case be made for changing the Ford Foundation's approach to a restart model using some kind of alternative certification and superfast high quality training?

I have some thoughts on this but I'd love it if more senior voices chimed in first as I will have precious little data to support my ideas.

And then there's this question to consider: "if a turnaround costs $X but only succeeds Y% percent of the time, and a restart costs $W and succeeds Z% percent of the time, what's the actual cost-benefit of picking one strategy over another for a philanthropic organization like the Ford Foundation? And how does the size of school affect choice of strategy?"

Do hard numbers exist as yet for W, X, Y, and Z? Can the true scope of reform be quantified in any useful way? If we considered reform from a venture capitalists viewpoint, what would be the most responsible approach to hedging risk for a mixed portfolio of restarts and turnarounds?

PS Thanks, Eliza, for conferencing in Governor Hunt. As a fellow North Carolinian, I always enjoy getting his perspective, especially about where our state is headed.

James B. Hunt Jr., former Governor of North Carolina and founder of the Hunt Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy, on turnarounds. I interviewed him this week and this is what he had to say about turnarounds:

Turnarounds can work. The first thing you have to do is get new leadership. That certainly will mean a new principal and it probably means a lot of new teachers. But it also means upgrading and changing the ones that you have. In North Carolina we're trying to do it in a way that I think is going to be pretty successful. We've put all of our teachers through very rigorous training courses through the summertime, they have to do it, the principal has to do it. School board members have to be involved in it. And then of course we got to have better teachers in there, there's just no substitute. The thing that makes the most difference in a child's success in school is how good the teacher is. And the teachers won’t be good unless the principal supports them. And of course the family needs to be more involved, and they need to do a better job. But we can only do so much about the families. We ought to do what we can about the families. We can turn around schools. In my case in North Carolina, we sent that the state school chairman to turn around one high school in one school district. We've got a 100, probably 10 or 12 of those need to be turned around. So we are taking on one in one year. Now if we learn how to do it, and do it successfully, maybe next year we'll do two or three. But this is going to take a while to do, this turn around stuff. It's tough work but it has to be done.

We need a state, not just a school “turnaround strategy” to finally get the equitable funding and institutional changes required to ensure states meet their legal and moral obligation to provide a high quality education in all schools for all their children. And we don’t need a competition. Just pick a state, any state.

 I want to make two points specific to charter involvement in this debate:

First, you'll find very few charter operators who would accept the deal Checker Finn describes, just being handed a lousy school and told to fix it under a new 'charter" label. The only way their involvement in "turnarounds" makes sense is if they can actually create a real charter school with real autonomy over budget, personnel, curriculum, and time. "The movement" has made this clear to Arne and co., and I actually think he gets it.

Second, don't assume (as Diane Ravitch does) that any random charter school would be chosen to occupy or replace a failed district school. The strategy is to replicate the best, the proven models -- and even they will need to demonstrate the extra capacity needed in these tough circumstances.

Justin C. Cohen, President of The School Turnaround Strategy Group at Mass Insight Education & Research Institute submitted the following in response to this week's question:

“Because the problem of fixing failing schools is so vast and complex, the only “fundamental flaw” in a strategy to fix failing schools would be to search for and implement a magic bullet cure, which is what Andy Smarick suggests when he proposes that we close all low performing schools.  I am huge supporter of starting new schools and chartering, but we need an inside strategy that deals aggressively with failure where it exists.  Districts and states pursuing turnaround should adopt a portfolio of strategies.

There needs to be more consensus on definitions and terminology.  As Checker Finn suggests below, when turning around a failing school, the only thing that we should hold constant are the students and the neighborhood (i.e. location).  Everything else – from the adults in the building to the instructional program – should be subject to change.  Moving teachers and administrators out of a building should fit within any reasonable definition of turnaround.  Unfortunately, the word “turnaround” traditionally has been used to define not only this type of dramatic change, but also to define half-measures.  Sending a coach to a school once or twice a week is not turnaround.  Changing the reading program and leaving everything else the same is not turnaround.  When private equity firms pursue turnaround in the private sector, they don’t assume everyone in the company is fit to get the job done, and neither should we when pursuing aggressive school turnaround strategies.

Also, while I partially agree with Richard Rothstein and Ted Herschberg about the need to have better identification metrics, the problem is more pronounced on the back end than on the front end.  I think we have a pretty darned good idea which schools are our failing schools, especially at the high school level.  And at the elementary school level, it’s even more important to rely on good standardized and formative assessments, because the age-appropriate misbehaviors are less “in your face” than those of high school students.  The bigger problem is defining when a school has “turned around.”  Is it an average of 25+ point gains on high stakes assessments after just a few years?  Is it some predetermined proficiency bar?  We need some shared understanding of this, because it would be a huge mistake to declare victory once we make hard changes on the inputs; results for children are the only thing that really matters.

Finally, as others have suggested, turning around failing schools is a zero-sum exercise unless we are simultaneously making progress on other critical factors that drive reform, namely: human capital, appropriate use of data, and systems reform.  At The School Turnaround Strategy Group, we view failing schools as the entry point for broader reform.  If we’re not simultaneously thinking of how to consolidate change and scale the strategies we learn from working in turnaround, school change will not be sustainable.”

The consensus among education experts is that RTTT is not backed by research. It is based, it would seem, on the same test-and-punish ideology that produced NCLB. If anything, RTTT is NLCB on steroids. It extends to teachers the punitive attacks based on limited and flawed standardized tests that have been waged on schools, and it intensifies NCLB's inadequate requirements for "transforming" schools, which are either unproven or aleady proven to fail. Einstein’s definition of insanity was "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" The new definition should be doing the same thing ever more intensely.

The real question is whether, in response to the detailed, research-based criticisms that have been levied at RTTT, Secretary Duncan and his staff will fundamentally overhaul their proposed requirements, including those for "turnarounds." If the Department does, it will show that research, evidence and reason matter. If not…

Richard Rothstein explained clearly why test scores are not a good means of identifying schools for anything we might label "turnaround." Several other bloggers have pointed out, in different ways, why the proposed interventions are not well-grounded. Among them, they explain why RTTT is very unlikely to improve learning for poor kids in most under-funded schools in low-income communities. I would note further that the National Research Council's Board on Testing and Assessment said that high-stakes decisions should not be made on the basis of a set of test scores (which is how schools are to be identified) and that "value-added" models are not ready for high-stakes uses (contrary to Ted Herschberg's call for their use).

The nation faces a situation in which hopelessly inadequate tools (large-scale tests) are used to identify schools for drastic action. The track records of the proposed actions reveal they are unlikely to succeed: charters seem to do slightly less well than regular public schools, forcing schools to become charters usually does not work, replacing the staff rarely succeeds unless the students also are replaced, etc. Recent research from Chicago shows the various options under Arne Duncan’s "Renaissance 2010" scheme have failed, yet Chicago is the core model for RTTT.

Let's learn from the NCLB educational disaster and the failures of assorted "turnaround" and privatization efforts. That means, first of all, not intensifying these failures, which is what RTTT will do unless the Department thoroughly overhauls the guidelines in response to the excellent advice provided in many of these comments and submitted in responses to the RTTT draft guidelines.

Any fund used for the improvement of our schools is money well spent. My hope is that the RTTP funds have a significant impact on persistently low performing schools and succeed beyond our wildest of dreams. Will we then have the courage and the political will to admit that public education needs more money to get the job done nationwide and replicate these successful models IN ALL OF OUR SCHOOLS?

Chad P. Wick, President & CEO, KnowledgeWorks, submitted the following in response to this week's question:

There is little doubt that taking on large, chronically low-performing high schools is difficult, messy work.  But we must do it. 

In many already devastated communities, closure is not a viable option. We must remember there are contextual differences to the communities where schools are located.  Closing a school in a large district and replacing or reconstituting it may be possible.  However, how do you close a low- performing school in a rural area or a small town where only one school serves the entire community?

For the past several years, KnowledgeWorks has been leading high school transformation in some of Ohio’s lowest-performing communities, launching 79 high schools, and many of them have made dramatic improvements in graduation rates, standardized test scores, and narrowing the racial achievement gap. 

We can positively say that we have been most successful in turning around those schools where the adults recognize that they must radically change the way the school is structured, the way they teach and lead, how they support classroom teachers, and their expectations for all students.  They determined that failure is not an option, nor is dropping out a viable alternative. 

 If turnaround strategies are going to be successful, these schools need new motivation, new structures, and a new commitment to excellence. 

Because of RttT’s implications for ESEA reauthorization, it seems to me this question doesn’t quite get at the right issue. The ‘turnaround strategy’ for chronically underperforming schools is certainly a major focus for the Administration, but RttT appears far more expansive in scope. Looking at the preliminary guidelines, RttT could have consequences for every single school in a state receiving a grant – not just those schools that are persistently underperforming.

For example, the preliminary guidelines create new categories for measuring teacher and principal effectiveness – on top of the “highly qualified teacher” requirements that have often proven troublesome under the No Child Left Behind Act. The draft regulations also require states (and their schools) to dramatically improve reading and math scores measured against NAEP and increase graduation rates at a time when schools and school districts are currently struggling to meet the accountability requirements in the law.

I have been vocal in my support for some of the concepts being championed by the Administration, including efforts to improve teacher quality through performance pay and expand access to charter schools. Nonetheless, to me, the real question we ought to be asking about RttT is whether being too prescriptive will stifle the innovation we’re trying to foster.

Returning to the original question, I agree that turning around chronically underperforming schools has been one of the truly intractable challenges facing our education system for years. I’m not convinced the federal government has all the answers for transforming these schools, but I don’t question Secretary Duncan’s intentions for attempting to focus on the schools with the greatest challenges. I would simply suggest that the focus of our policy should be to help spur local innovation, which in turn can help improve education for these and all schools. I do not believe a heavy-handed federal program – whether through RttT or a broader reauthorization – will get us there.

Though evidence is limited, some charter networks, such as Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia, demonstrate that these schools can in fact be turned around. There is no secret to their success: students learn when they have high-quality instruction. Turn-around plans should be judged by how well they address this central issue.

If we are to succeed in improving persistently low-performing schools, we’ll have to align the interests of their in­di­vi­dual educators with the goal of sig­nif­i­cant increases in student achieve­ment. This means putting in place a different human capital development system with new ways to evaluate, compensate, remediate and provide pro­fes­sional de­vel­op­ment for teach­ers and ad­min­i­stra­tors alike.

“Race to the Top” guidelines were designed to generate a broad range of experiments based on these changes which can then be measured for effec­tiveness.

Increased compensation for top performing teach­ers will address both the long-term, by attracting more of our best and brightest college graduates, and the short-term by creating incentives to bring talented teachers in sig­nif­i­cant numbers into low performing schools. But pay-for-per­form­ance programs will only succeed if there are negative as well as positive consequences associated with instruction. Systems must be put in place that provide struggling educators with the time and resources to improve, but that also can lead to fair and timely dismissal should these efforts fail.

So, let me answer your question with a question. Will Race to the Top funding be grounded in strong and enforceable expectations that states have and implement turnaround strategies based on the wisdom shared here  by Rick, Sherman, and Diane, among others?

If so, it could be effective. If, on the other hand, it's more like "revenue sharing" for high hopes and promises in states that have merely used the right words in their proposals, it won't.

Improving existing high schools may be less disruptive for families but it is much more difficult and less successful in cases of chronic failure.  A couple providers have tried (e.g., IRRE, Talent Development, America’s Choice) with modest success.  MLA Partner Schools took over Manuel Arts and is building a Promise Neighborhood in west LA—it will get better but it will take time.   Unless there is the opportunity to change fundamental conditions (structure, staffing, schedule, and leadership) there’s little hope of more than incremental improvement.  The Department attempts to require changing conditions for 'turnaround' schools.  State leadership will be key to making new conditions possible and making turnarounds successful.  

District 'transformation' efforts (the light touch model sanctioned by the Department) are likely to be most successful in RttT tops that have adopted high standards and are improving human capital and data systems.  But even with an improving reform context, every state will consider strategies for building restart, turnaround, and transformation capacity.  

One answer to the capacity question, especially in rural settings, is blended restart charter management organizations that combine the best of online and onsite learning. Most of these blended schools will use an online curriculum as core and will supplement with projects, community connections, tutoring, guidance and extra-curricular activities.. Combine proven instructional delivery with high quality school operators and you get a scalable restart capacity.  

Despite a strong federal school accountability framework, most states have allowed chronic failure to fester for the last 8 years.  RttT and SIG provide a strong framework and big budget to support aggressive action to improve at least the worst 5% of schools in every state.  States with strong education leadership will take full advantage of this opportunity and will produce dramatic improvement.  The other half (that don't get RttT funds) will show incremental progress with their SIG grants.  The net result will be thousands of new and improved schools and a lot more knowledge about and capacity for turnarounds.  

There is also no guarantee that a new school opened in place of a "failing" school will be any better. Chicago has not had any success with that strategy. Charter schools may or may not be better. The latest NAEP scores for mathematics once again show that charter schools do no better than regular public schools.

In a recent Brown Center Letter on Education, "Don't Forget Curriculum," "Russ" Whitehurst at Brookings pointed out that changes in curriculum and selecting effective instructional programs were far more effective than charter schools, merit pay, or any of the other strategies embedded in the Race to the Top.

Race to the Top is not based on evidence or solid research, but on the hunches of the people in charge. It appears that Race to the Top is promoting expensive bandaids that will do little to improve American education.

Diane Ravitch

That said, given the good intentions of those championing turnarounds, it is hard not to root for them. But, while the phrase "turnaround" may be relatively new to those in education, the practice has been around for decades in other sectors. Its track record suggests a need to avoid grand promises and for steely-eyed realism. Even in the business world, where management enjoys many more degrees of freedom, turnarounds are an iffy proposition. Peter Senge, director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has observed, "Failure to sustain significant change recurs again and again despite substantial resources committed to the change effort (many are bankrolled by top management), talented and committed people 'driving the change,' and high stakes. . . . There is little to suggest that schools, healthcare institutions, governmental, and nonprofit institutions fare any better.”

Today, much of what experts know about turnarounds comes from experience in the private sector, where two dominant approaches to organizational reform have prevailed for several decades--Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Process Reengineering (BPR). TQM was first introduced by Japanese firms in the 1950s. It seeks to remove waste at every stage of the production process. Dishearteningly, research suggests that TQM has been largely ineffective at spurring successful corporate transformation. Two high-profile studies on the effectiveness of TQM, one conducted by Arthur D. Little and the other by McKinsey & Company, concluded that out of the hundreds of TQM programs studied, about two-thirds "grind to a halt because of their failure to produce hoped-for results."

BPR, developed in 1990 by Michael Hammer and James Champy, is more aggressive. It differs from TQM in that it concentrates on tearing down and rebuilding the business process as a whole, rather than tweaking the functional tasks that comprise it. Evidence suggests, on the whole, that BPR has fared about as poorly as TQM in spurring organizational improvement. Most articles, including some by BPR's founders, estimate a success rate of approximately 30 percent. John Kotter of Harvard Business School, in a study of one hundred BPR efforts, concluded that less than half survived their initial phases.

If the administration were saying, “Let’s provide some support to those states that have a clear, coherent, and politically feasible plan to attempt some targeted turnarounds,” that would seem a reasonable investment. But the wholesale, punch list-style mandate that states pursue turnarounds is likely to prove wasteful and self-defeating.

The central problem is that most efforts to change dysfunctional schools are driven by either ideology or seat-of-the-pants initiatives, and that there is little research on what is necessary either to turn around a school or to open enough successful new schools to justify a close-and-reopen strategy. Thus far, the research has focused on whether probation, turnover, and turnaround strategies work, not what might make such efforts more successful.

Fortunately, the Race to the Top initiative is more flexible than the question implies. Yes, states could apply for funds to implement turnaround strategies and only turnarounds. But we will have to see what states propose before any of us can conclude that the program will lead to states' proposing largely failed ideas.

It is an admirable goal to "turn around" low-performing schools. But before attempting this, we need to ensure that we have accurately identified which schools are low-performing. It would be tragic if we aggressively intervened in (or even closed) schools that were, in fact, better performers, while ignoring schools that were worse.

This is the fundamental flaw in Arne Duncan's proposal. We don't, in fact, have any good ways to identify low-performing schools, so any turnaround efforts are likely to include considerable misdirection.

Indeed, as I have written in a recent Policy Brief for the Economic Policy Institute, the assumption that we presently know how to identify low-performing schools is inconsistent with principles of educational accountability that Arne Duncan has himself articulated.

At present, the only tool being used to identify low performing schools is the percentage of students who pass (i.e., are deemed "proficient" on) state standardized tests of math and reading, required by the No Child Left Behind law.

Because these tests are so flawed, they cannot accurately identify high- or low-performing schools.

Here is what we know about these tests:

            a) they narrow and distort the curriculum by giving schools with low test scores incentives to abandon other aspects of a well-rounded curriculum – the arts, science, history, social studies, health and physical education, character development. Survey data confirms that such narrowing is in fact taking place.

            b) they create incentives to reduce instruction to the most basic skills, because states can reduce the cost of testing by eliminating open-ended questions that more easily assess critical thinking.

            c) they spur teachers and schools to focus intensive instruction on students whose past performance indicates they are almost ready to pass the test, while paying less attention to students whose past performance indicates they will easily pass. A school following this strategy (and again, there is considerable evidence, both qualitative and statistical, that many are doing so) can have rising percentages of students proficient, while its average scores are stagnating or even declining.

            d) their scores are reported by subgroups that are not comparable. For example, "low-income" students are defined as those who receive free or reduced-price lunches, but this category includes students whose families are very poor, and those whose families have incomes up to 185% of the poverty line.

            e) their scores are themselves increasingly inflated, as successive test years reproduce similar questions (again, to avoid the expense of designing entirely new tests from year to year) and teachers learn to focus instruction on those basic skills likely to appear on the test, while giving less emphasis to those unlikely to appear. State test scores are almost universally climbing, while scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are relatively flat. This is a good indication of such inflation.

Not every school responds to the perverse incentives of No Child Left Behind in the same way. A school that sacrifices some gains on test scores of math and reading in order to give children access to a broader curriculum may falsely appear to be lower-performing than schools that do not make this choice. A school that sacrifices some gains on test scores of math and reading in order to balance instruction in basic math and reading skills with opportunities for critical quantitative and literary thinking may falsely appear to be lower-performing than schools that do not make this choice. A school that sacrifices some test gains on "percent proficient" in order to ensure instruction for children at all points in the achievement distribution may falsely appear to be lower-performing than schools that do not make this choice. Schools whose students come from extremely distressed families and communities may have lower test scores, but falsely appear to be lower-performing than schools that contribute less "value-added" but whose students come from stable low-income families. And a school that sacrifices some test score gains because its teachers devote more time to instruction, and less to test preparation and drill, may falsely appear to be lower-performing than schools that do not make this choice.

            If we want to turn around low-performing schools, the first task should be to ensure we are identifying these schools accurately. Such identification requires much more than test scores. It requires expert human judgment, with qualified experts visiting schools to interpret test scores and evaluate the overall quality of instruction. I have described the need for such an accountability system in Grading Education and the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education campaign has proposed such an evaluation system to replace the flawed identifications produced by the testing mandates of No Child Left Behind. Without such an evaluation system, the Race to the Top ambition will, in retrospect, turn out to have been yet another blunder in our test-obsessed school accountability policy.

Even with federal stimulus dollars, which won't last forever, many schools are struggling financially and must seek alternative solutions. Should public-private partnerships be formed to shore up gaps in school budgets? Does this pose ethical concerns?

Marty Strange, policy director of the Rural School and Community Trust, submitted the following:

Of course the private sector should fund public education – equitably and adequately, through a tax system that is stable, fair, and progressive.  Any other role for private funding creates a quasi-public, and therefore quasi-private, education system.  The only way the private sector can put money into schools without a quid pro quo is to pay their taxes. 

In considering how much or what sort of foundation involvement with government is desirable, it is worth looking at a prominent case: the Gates Foundation.

A recent Associated Press article opens with the line, "The real secretary of education, the joke goes, is Bill Gates."

The Gates foundation recently offered 15 states $250,000 each to help them prepare applications to the Department of Education's "Race to the Top" fund. After many other states complained, the Gates purse strings will be open to all states willing to sign off on an 8-point checklist saying, in essence, they will do what Gates wants them to do. Presumably, having Gates-funded consultants will give states an improved chance of being one of the few expected to get a piece of this federal pie.

One issue is democracy. Is Gates buying the sorts of "reforms" he wants? Probably. While Gates funding is minuscule compared to overall education funding, and federal funds for education are still less than 10 percent of  K-12 education budgets, we are beginning to see the hair wag the tail that wags the dog. Gates, in the end, is responsible only to – Gates. Yes, states can turn down the funds, but facing budget crises and intensifying consequences for not boosting test scores to meet AYP, states are offering no resistance. Indeed, they are racing to lift charter caps, though charters seem on average to do no better, maybe slightly worse, than regular public schools, and charters in states with the most rapid growth in charters fare least well.

States also are readying to use student test scores to make high-stakes decisions about teachers, also supported by Gates, despite any evidence that this strategy will actually improve student learning. It will probably further inflate state test scores, thereby perpetuating the illusion of improvement. Intensified teaching to the test will ill-serve children, teachers, families, communities and the nation as a whole.  

The Board on Testing and Assessment of the National Academy of Sciences, in a letter to Secretary Duncan that seems to have been largely ignored by major media, pointed out that a test should not be the basis of high stakes decisions (echoing the Standards of the measurement profession). It also said, based on an extensive review of the evidence, that "value added" or "growth" models (which everywhere rely just on that single test score) should likewise not be used for high-stakes decisions.

These approaches are supported by Bill Gates and his foundation, by Duncan, and presumably by the former Gates employees now working in the Education Department. The public has been assured that those employees did not talk with Gates about this. I am among those who are not reassured. The AP story concluded, "Those who receive money from the Gates Foundation often are reluctant to talk about their work for fear of upsetting their benefactor." Another blow for democracy or for the power of private money to control education?

AASA just completed the sixth in a series of economic snap shots documenting the effect of the “great recession” on public schools around the country. We found that though hard times are upon us, everyone in the school business knows that this school year is a day at the beach in comparison to what is ahead next school year, when layoffs and service cuts will be more drastic. 

We found that a significant portion of the $100 billion from ARRA was redirected to other non educational purposes that were also critical to state government (what we call the shell game). We further found that the funds in narrow categorical programs like Title I and IDEA did not benefit core purposes and programs of public schools. In short AASA found that the stimulus helped but is not of sufficient size and flexibility to bail out states, communities and public schools as well as TARP did big financial firms. 

The price of democracy is that the public must pay for the services it wants and needs. Handing the reins of government to private sources of funds in hard times is a long term recipe for the demise of the multi layered and balanced federal system practiced since the founding of the country. 

As noted by several bloggers private funds have been in public schools for years and maybe forever, but they failed to note that the amount of private funds was very small, underline very, in fact make that very, very small. And they failed to note that the small amounts were used to support directions that governors, state legislators and local school boards had determined were appropriate.

The representatives of extremely rich have spend the last 30 years lobbying to cut their local, state and federal taxes resulting in an enormous federal debt and short funded state and local governments that are unable to maintain educational, police, fire and recreational services that make communities safe, secure and functional in the face of the great recession. And now that state and local governments are short of funds the representatives and employees of extremely rich want to use the leverage of their philanthropic contributions to determine the future shape of critical services, such as education.

It looks to me like the anti public school  portion of private sector that was unable to capture control of public schools in good times, sees an opportunity to determine the direction of public education because the current dialing for dollars political environment coupled with a historic recession make it possible. The steady erosion of the tax base and the catastrophic great recession has made states and local school districts so desperate that they will do almost anything to stay afloat. In this environment the US Department of Education apparently believes that coupling small federal competitive grants with even smaller private funds will result in needed improvements in public education but I think they forgot the adequately reflect on the effect of the new direction on local goverence.

 As my late father said to me about a million times, “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

Count me as a supporter and advocate of private investment in public schools, not merely as a stop-gap strategy in hard economic times, but as an integral and deliberate part of the process by which public school reforms are developed, implemented, tested and, if successful, taken to scale.

As the contributors to this blog know better than anyone, there is no shortage of ideas for improving public education. But we all also know too many examples of ideas that went from conception straight to full implementation, with disastrous results. Not every idea is a good one, and not every good idea works in practice. 

What’s needed is a process that precedes the launch of almost every commercial product and service, a process by which ideas or combinations of ideas are vetted, tried in pilot form, expanded, rigorously evaluated and improved before being instituted in wide-scale practice. And it is in support of such processes that I think philanthropy can play its most useful role in reforming public education. 

Such a model of private support for public education has been on my mind since the passing, just a month ago, of Don Fisher. Don was best known as the entrepreneur who founded The Gap and, with his wife, Doris, built it from a single store to a prosperous chain of more than 3,000 across the country and around the world. 

But as president and CEO of UNCF and as a member of the KIPP Foundation Board of Directors, which Don chaired, I came to know another side of Don Fisher: the farsighted philanthropist who played a central role in reforming public education. Don saw that our nation needed public schools to do a better job of preparing children to go to and succeed in college, and he spotted, supported and oversaw the development of two organizations, the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) network of public charter schools and Teach For America, that knew how to satisfy that need. 

From 2000 to 2009, Don invested a total of $100 million in KIPP and Teach for America. As chairman of the KIPP Board of Trustees, he guided its expansion from two schools to 82 schools, almost all in low-income and minority neighborhoods, serving 20,000 students. Teach For America has grown, too, and today places 7,000 teachers in classrooms serving 450,000 students across the country.

Don and Doris Fisher brought much more than money to KIPP, Teach For America and the other education organizations they supported. They brought decades of experience in helping organizations expand, building on past success, locating in communities that needed what the organizations had to offer, and benefiting from lessons learned.  

As much as they have grown, and as effective as they have been, organizations like KIPP and Teach For America cannot be the answer. They are far too small. The public schools are the answer, they must be the answer. Nor can private philanthropy be the complete answer. Reforming our public schools is a simply too large a task. 

But organizations can find the answers, and engaged philanthropists like the Fishers can help them. Not simply by supplying them with funding—although that is part of it. But by bringing something else to the partnership: the insights developed through their philanthropic ventures, the insights developed in the enterprise whose success forms the foundation for their philanthropy.

So we should not look to private philanthropy only to fund the educational revolution that our country needs. We do look to private philanthropy to fund the process that will lay the groundwork for the revolution. To fund the best ideas, evaluate their results, and expand those that work. And to disseminate positive and negative outcomes and lessons learned, so they can be improved and replicated.

Private support for public education is nothing new. In many affluent communities, nonprofits raise money to support their schools. Successful school principals hustle for funding for after-school computers, computers and the like. Corporations have made in-kind and cash contribution to the community schools in Chicago and elsewhere. You can even think of the bake sale, a school institution, as a form of public-private partnership.

Are such arrangements problematic? Certainly not because they’re temporary—if private funds can help schools through these financially strapped times, they’re a godsend. (Savvy school districts will seek a multi-year commitment.) And not because private involvement is itself problematic—enlightened self-interest leads businesses to view an investment in schools as an investment in their own communities, one that pays off both in good will and local economic prosperity.

Only when there’s a quid pro quo—“We’ll give you money if you agree to plug our product”—is there an ethical issue that’s worth pondering. But we’ve already crossed that line, with sports teams garbed in Nike apparel and computers branded by Dell. Public universities herald their corporate sponsorship, with buildings named after major business donors. What makes the public schools different?  

The charter school sector has been leading the way on both fronts. Many individual charter schools have excelled at raising funds to supplement their basic educational program – creating longer school days, better nutrition programs, and innovative use of technology to name a few. Many of the successful charter innovations that are now being transplanted into district schools were originally supported by private funds.

In addition, some of the authorizing agencies that oversee these schools have turned to foundations to implement school evaluation processes and more robust data systems. The value from these relationships exceeds the dollars themselves, as schools and authorizers benefit from the knowledge and experiences that these foundations bring to the table.  Here again, all of public education benefits from these partnerships.

Diane Ravitch

Private money has long found its way into the public schools in one way or another. Assuming the readers have their own long list from experience or other knowledge, I won't take the time or space to recount the many ways this happens, often and potentially for the good.

I have a note of caution, though. School folks ought to be sure of two important things in seeking and taking private resources:  1) Go after funds that principally will help low income students, and 2) Go after funds that are consistent with, and do not divert you from, your core mission. Chasing after dollars - public or private - just to get extra marginal resources conflates the enterprise with the many and often wayward goals of  donors. This amounts to terrible, if not unethical, management.

On a more interesting topic, I was hoping to see more opportunity in crisis--leaders using the recession to make important policy or administrative gains including:

• closing failing schools
• replacing struggling alternative schools with blended models like AdvancePath that can do a better job for half of what most districts spend
• maintaining a long day/year by going partially blended like Rocketship in San Jose (1 of 5 periods in their elementary schools are spent in a learning lab)
• offering more courses online
• brining more partners on campus; Match uses work-study students from near by colleges to provide Saturday tutoring
• streamlining central administration and pushing more budget authority out to schools
• inserting performance in teacher layoffs like Michele Rhee did in DC

There's still time to take advantage of two more terrible budget cycles.  Districts will be going into budget planning for 2010-11 in the next 120 days and should think hard about ways to incorporate the innovation agenda to help cope with budget woes.  

Everyone has a role to play in student success

Quite simply – everyone has a role to play in ensuring that young people have the rigorous academic knowledge and skills they need to succeed. The public and private sectors must – not should – collaborate with educators if we are to achieve real and lasting improvements. 

As a foundation, we can play a critical role in funding programs and activities that the government may not be in a position to fund, and we can do so quickly. For example, foundations can fund efforts to;

·         Raise public awareness and build public will

·         Provide technical assistance

·         Develop tools

·         Invest in experimentation, demonstration and innovation

·         Support research and evaluation

·         Partner and/or serve as a critical friend at district, state, and national levels

Public-private partnerships work

One notable example is our historic partnership with the U.S. Department of Education around the growth of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program. 

With an initial funding commitment to the partnership of $2 million to fund these efforts to now over $120 million, Mott's investments in the past 10 years has helped increase the 21st CCLC funding from $40 million in 1998 to a high of $1.1 billion in 2008, for a total of $8.5 billion in federal funding dedicated to afterschool programs for low-income children and youth.

Mott leveraged its grants to build public awareness and support public policy development recognizing that these efforts were critical to the long-term success of increasing the quality and quantity of school-based/school-linked afterschool initiatives. In addition Mott supported training and technical assistance, identification of promising practices, research and evaluation, and disseminating these findings and promising practices to improve content and delivery. 

Foundations for the future

While the federal dollars included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will not last forever, they provide a critical opportunity for foundations to work together to leverage these funds to have lasting impact. The Foundation for Education Excellence (http://www.foundationcenter.org/educationexcellence/) is one effort underway in which we are a part that is working with the Department to align local, state, and national efforts focused on the priorities as identified for the ARRA implementation and other reform strategies to better ensure effectiveness, innovation and sustainable implementation.

Whether partnering at the local, state or national level, too often the dollar amount of the partnership is the story that is told. Yet, the real story – and the real power for scalability and sustainability - lies in the roles that individuals in the public and private sectors are playing together and the rich opportunities provided to young people as a result.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, have called for an overhaul to our nation's teacher evaluation systems.

How should teacher effectiveness be assessed? What role should student performance and standardized testing have in this equation?

Simple to answer, perhaps, but much harder to do.  Or is it?  Walk into any classroom and what do you see? Are hands eagerly up eagerly, or are heads resignedly down?  Are answers and suppositions flying back and forth, or only spitballs?  And is the little girl scribbling furiously in her notebook there in the corner responding with passion to the lesson, or is she simply preparing to pass a note about a birthday party to a friend across the class? Most of us would agree that if children are engaged in their own learning, then they are more likely to be learning.  Student engagement is only one observable indicator of whether or not students are learning in a teacher’s class, and there are others.  Does the teacher know his subject well and focus the material on state standards? Does he design lessons that address the specific needs of his students?  Does he exhibit an understanding of child development, or have a specific goal in mind for the day, the unit, and the year? This is not a complete or well-thought out list, but my point is that when teachers know their subjects, engage their students, and design their work around short and long term goals, then students learn. All of these are characteristics of good teachers that we can observe by watching classes, talking to teachers, and looking at the contexts in which they teach.

Of course the problem that arises is immediately obvious.   Supervisor observations seem to vary from class to class, school to school, district to district.  That has always been a problem for teachers, and their response has been to build strong due process systems to protect themselves from what they perceive (rightly or wrongly) to be the incompetence, vindictiveness or arbitrariness of their supervisors.  But in more recent years the inconsistency in observations has also become an urgent problem for communities because too many kids have been failing for too long. Communities (again rightly or wrongly) blame teachers for the bulk of that failure, and believe that better evaluations – and quicker termination – will lead to more effective teachers overall.

The community’s solution (by which I mean the general national solution) has been to try to fall back on the simplicity of numbers, and thus value-added formulas (VA) have become a popular proxy for assessing student learning in a teacher’s class.  These numbers may not be as useful as what we’d learn from direct observation, and certainly they cannot begin to capture the full range of what students learn from a given teacher.  Those arguments carry little weight, however, in the policy circles and in the press where these questions are most often debated.  The fact is that numbers are appealing, and that there is something terribly appealing about being able to say a teacher ranks in the 76th percentile based on her students’ standardized test scores, and leaving it at that.   Never mind that the numbers may be systemically biased, prone to high rates of error, or just plain wrong.  They answer to an almost primal urge in us for simple answers. Ultimately, VA may have a place in evaluation systems but it is not the panacea we all seek.

What then, is the solution? Specifically, if teachers believe that the current observation system is arbitrary and capricious, and if VA scores are a poor proxy for student learning, then what improvements need to be made to ensure that a child’s opportunity to learn is not hindered by the quality of his or her teacher?

There are many changes we need (teachers need better support systems for example) but in terms of evaluation, I suggest two:

1. That observers (supervisors, peers, etc) be better trained using consistent teaching standards.  That won’t be enough, but it is a start.

1. That perhaps decisions about teacher effectiveness cease to result from information generatede by exactly one source (for example, an immediate supervisor).   VA may be a possiblity as an  additional (not sole) measure for a limited number of teachers (only a fraction of teachers have students with standardized test scores),  if the right protections are in place to guard teachers against the inherent bias and random error of the formulas. (A quick example: NYC currently creates VA values for its teachers based upon the scores of as few as six students over three years.  The rates of error with such small samples must be significant, and clearly teachers cannot be evaluated on those results.)  But, again, even with protections, these formulas may tell us less about student learning than we think.

Another possibility is to employ the use of an independent observer whose judgment would carry weight in addition to the weight of the immediate supervisor. In some districts this could be developed through a peer system, and in others through a completely external evaluator.  In any case, these additional evaluators would assess the learning that is happening in a teacher’s class through direct observation and context (feedback from the teacher, for example). The key to the success of such a program would be the independence of the evaluators as well as their adherence to agreed-upon teaching standards.  This independent evaluator would not usurp the supervisory responsibility of the district’s usual evaluator, but he would lend a second eye – a kind of inter-rater reliability – to what the supervisor sees in class.

These two changes (better training to common standards, and the use of a second evaluator) would be good for everybody.  They would be good for the community because they would ensure that teachers were meeting the standards they must meet if children are to learn, as well as giving arbitrators a clearer picture of a teacher’s ability at due process hearings. And they would be good for teachers too. Teachers deserve a system in which their livelihoods are not wholly in the hands of a single supervisor who can, in teacher parlance, “get you in the classroom if he wants to.”  Supervisors may not abuse their power very often (I hasten to add that the vast majority of supervisors I know are conscientious and sincere), but the fact remains that a single individual has inordinate (omnipotent) power over what his teachers say and do, and that has an alarming ability to change teacher behavior, sometimes for the worse. Right now, due process is the only counterbalance to that power, but few teachers believe due process can protect them from a single administrator’s claim that they can’t teach. 

So here’s my take on effective teaching. As some really smart people struggle to measure effectiveness as something more than raising achievement scores, I want to share a few stories.

At six, my son Dan could not manage his boundless energy. This led to many frustrating conversations with his kindergarten teacher who viewed him as a problem. Upon meeting his first grade teacher Mrs. B, I steeled myself for the usual diatribe against his big mouth and hyperkinetic activity. Instead Mrs. B smiled and said, “Oh, Mrs. Tompkins I have had many little boys like Daniel. Be patient. By Spring he will be able to sit in his chair and do his work and still be happy and full of energy.” And it was true. Dan’s doctor suggested drugs. My neighbors tried to get Mrs. B fired and then decamped to private schools in Northwest DC because her grammar occasionally contained the African American construction of “to be” verbs. Dan and I revere Mrs. B.

My daughter struggled with the strictures of formal schooling. A voracious reader, a knee jerk challenger of authority, a gifted writer, she now makes her living in communications. She hated math from the first grade on. Mr. S, her algebra teacher, cautioned us not to worry about an occasional C or D. One of the original geeky guys, Mr. S smiled and insisted that she was learning algebra and that was the most important thing. Later when she was a junior having completed two years of algebra that brought her cumulative grade average down, a savvy assistant principal waived the rule about GPA to allow her into college English courses where she excelled in creative writing under a published author professor and stopped talking about dropping out of high school.

Over the past ten years I have had the opportunity to visit rural schools across America. Many of them impressed me but some second grade teachers are at the top of my list. In Colorado, one of them had her class doing a year-long study of the aspen grove outside their window. On the Fall day I visited, they went outside and studied twigs. They were asked to ponder several questions. Would the trees have leaves next year? How could you tell? Students spent time collecting fallen twigs and leaves, came in to study them and write and draw in their journals about what they observed, responded to questions about which books and on line resources might give them more answers to the questions. I have imagined the dinner conversations in homes of seven year olds that evening: What did you do in school today? We pondered. Ah yes, pondering.

A final story is from Anderson Valley in northern California. Here the children of winery owners and the children of those who work in the fields all go to the public schools. The dominant language is Spanish. In the second grade computer lab that I visited, the students were learning to keyboard by typing up favorite recipes they had collected from their visits to the local nursing home. There was a buzz of English and Spanish and all mixtures in between as they contemplated measures and tastes that were unfamiliar. Later that year the recipes would be collected and illustrated in a small cookbook and the final visit of the year would be one in which parents and nursing home staff prepared some of the recipes for a celebration with the families and the elderly. I should mention that most of the nursing home residents were Anglo; most of the students were Latino. I can’t begin to tote up all the learning outcomes not only for the children but for their families and the community.

My only hope as really smart people try to measure effectiveness that they consider that context matters not as an excuse for lack of success in learning but as a rich tapestry on which the best teachers build lessons to last.

11. It represents a high but achievable goal for all teachers.

Frankly, the more I go over this, the better it seems. But perhaps I’m missing something here. I will admit this came to me in a flash late last night while switching back and forth between re-runs of Seinfeld and Miami Vice (which no doubt inspired my earlier reference to “cigarette boats”).

But seriously, wouldn’t it be great to have a nation of NBPTS teachers? And wouldn’t the NBPTS process be a nifty way of helping teachers who weren’t quite making the grade improve their skills until they did. Perhaps best of all, this idea offers something for all the quants out there: the NBPTS program provides teachers with numeric scores representing their degree of success.

So, anyone wanna whack me over the head and tell me I’m speaking gibberish?

 

National Journal Experts Blog: Education

Deborah A. Gist, R.I. Commissioner of Education

October 21, 2009

How should teacher effectiveness be assessed? What role should student performance and standardized testing have in this equation?

Since becoming Commissioner of Education in Rhode Island, I have said repeatedly, in many forums across the state, that the single most important factor in the education of our students is the effectiveness of our classroom teachers.

One of my first steps as commissioner has been to share what I consider to be five priorities for transforming Rhode Island education in order to ensure that our students are ready for success in college, careers, and life. At the top of the list is: ensure educator excellence. We will do everything we can in Rhode Island to make sure that every student has a highly effective teacher in every class every year. This work will engage us in all facets of the teaching profession, from preparation to recruitment, selection, development, and throughout the career ladder. As part of this work, we will ensure that districts conduct annual educator evaluations that emphasize teacher effectiveness, including indicators of student achievement.

You can get a sense of how we will go about this work from the draft Education Evaluation System Standards, which the Board of Regents approved for public comment in August. These standards are based on six components, which are:

·       a common vision of expectations for educator quality and effectiveness;

·       an emphasis on continuous growth and improvement for each educator;

·       an organized approach to growth and improvement of groups of educators;

·       a differentiated evaluation process, with clear expectations for exiting educators from the profession as needed;

·       an assurance of fair, accurate and consistent performance assessment that includes evidence of student achievement and input of feedback from many voices, including peers, parents, and student voices; and

·       a process for reviewing and revising the evaluation system.

Two aspects of the evaluation-system standards have provoked considerable comment: the call for evidence of student achievement and for feedback from many voices.

It seems obvious to me that we must include student achievement and feedback from many sources as vital elements in any meaningful educator-evaluation system. In what other professional field would we not look at feedback from various sources, including those who are closest to the experience—in this case our students? In what other profession would we not look at the results for those whom we serve, whether customers, clients, patients, or students and their families?

Principles of validity and clarity will be important as we incorporate feedback from peers, parents, and students into our evaluation system. During our public hearings on the new evaluation system, for example, some teachers asked: If I say something in a conference that might anger a parent, am I in danger of receiving a negative evaluation? We have to ensure teachers that the evaluation process will be fair and all evaluators will receive thorough training in the evaluation process. I believe that students and parents must have a voice in this process, but there’s a difference between feedback and peer evaluation or supervisor evaluation, so we will weigh the components of the evaluation system appropriately.

Developing the right tool(s) and the right system is complicated and critical. We believe a system of evaluation should be based on multiple measures and processes. Videotaped lessons, peer support, parent and student feedback, formal and informal (i.e. “walk throughs”) classroom observation, samples of classroom tasks and student work, as well as measures of student achievement from multiple sources should all be considered as parts of a comprehensive system.

We need to see evaluation as a system, and it must be transparent and consistent for all. That means we must support and train our school leaders and our evaluators, so that they have an excellent understanding of the evaluation tools. Their judgments, after all, affect people’s lives significantly, and they must be accurate and consistent across departments and over time. The system needs to be a “living” system: we should review it regularly and revise and improve it as necessary.

Recently, a member of my team at the R.I. Department of Education shared his views on educator evaluation by saying: “While many have tried to persuade me that many other things matter, I have come to the conclusion that the primary measure is student achievement or growth in student learning over time.” I agree. However, determining how to factor in student-achievement data is a complicated area. Most would agree that we should not look only at a single year of data but should evaluate teacher effectiveness by measuring the growth in student learning over time, but there are other factors as well.

One big decision point is whether individual teachers or teams of teachers should be evaluated using student-achievement data. Most systems do not have strong enough data systems to be able to evaluate at the teacher level with confidence, although those systems are rapidly improving. Also, there are factors such as collaboration at the school that should be considered. We want a system that fosters teamwork throughout our schools, where our teachers are working together to drive student achievement rather than feeling as if they are competing with one another. We should use caution before rushing into measures of student achievement until we have a strong and thoughtful systems. Yet, we must make strides toward putting those systems into place.

I have asked students from early elementary to high school all across our state what makes a great teacher, and the consistency in their answers is astounding. Students want teachers who challenge them and help them learn while making learning active, relevant, and fun. They also want a teacher who cares about them as an individual and will do whatever is necessary to make sure they are successful. Students know whether they are receiving rigorous, quality instruction, and they know when they are respected by their teachers. Their descriptions of excellent teachers are spot-on every single time. At the end of each of these conversations, I make a pledge to those students that I will work tirelessly and fearlessly to ensure that they have a teacher like the ones they described in every single classroom, every year. They deserve nothing less than that.

How to assess teachers?  I’m not sure—but here’s an idea.   Let each community choose its approach.  With one caveat: the existence of a review process on a District or State level that can  pass judgments regarding the reasonableness of  each plan.   Such a more “distanced” panel of judges representing a broader constituency can negotiate with a local community over paricular provisions in their idiosyncratic plans. 

At Mission Hill—a public K-8 “pilot” schools in Boston—we designed such a plan, which met the approval of both the local union and the local administration.  It involved a probationary period of up to three years during which faculty on a rotating basis engaged in a serious peer review process.  The school’s principal was one voice in the process, carrying no special power.  Candidates could appeal the committee’s decisions to the full staff or school’s governing parent/teacher governing body, and eventually to the superintendent and union President—and of course, to the courts.  All steps are well documented.  

It has worked for more than 10 years—and is still working.  It is difficult but enhances the entire school’s focus on doing our best for our students, while simultaneously acting as a kind o continuous staff development project.  But all this happens within a school in which the faculty have open doors, meet frequently to discuss every aspect of the school and make most decisions collegially.  Since the faculty also do the  hiring it makes sense that they take responsibility for “firing.”   Since it’s painful to fire someone, it puts a high premium on the selection of staff and on helping each other to constantly learn from  our shared work.

Everyone knows that effective teachers are one of the most important factors in student success. And yet only four states require that student learning be the primary criterion in teacher evaluations, and only two states require that teacher effectiveness be considered as part of tenure decisions, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality. As a nation we spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year on teacher salaries, benefits, and professional development, but do very little to ensure that we attract, prepare, support, and retain effective teachers who help students to make the most progress, and remove those who do not improve. 

In 2007, the Commission called for a major shift in the way we measure teacher quality—from evaluations based on qualifications to those based significantly on classroom results. Specifically, the Commission recommended that value-added student learning gains count for at least fifty percent of a teacher’s effectiveness determination, with the remainder to include a principal evaluation or teacher peer reviews (via a state- or district-approved process). Equally important, we recommended better supporting teachers in reaching effectiveness standards by using data and information from principal/peer reviews to target quality professional development to their needs.

Since then, more states have developed the sophisticated data systems needed to measure teacher and principal effectiveness, and now, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds may fuel additional progress in improving teacher and principal effectiveness. The potential for dramatic improvements in schools is great—but many questions remain about how to help schools get the best principals and teachers for their students.

To help answer these questions, the Commission is holding a public hearing next Wednesday morning (October 28th) at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver to examine how teacher and principal effectiveness can be measured; how we can attract, prepare, better support, and retain effective teachers and principals and remove those who do not improve; how to ensure disadvantaged students have access to effective educators and school leaders; and how NCLB can more effectively support teacher and principal effectiveness. 

Commissioner Mike Johnston, a Colorado State Senator and former principal, will lead fellow members of the Commission’s Committee on Teacher and Principal Effectiveness in hearing testimony and engaging in in-depth dialogue with diverse witnesses to gain insight for improving NCLB. Participants include: Hon. Barbara O’Brien, Lieutenant Governor of Colorado; Mr. Tom Boasberg, Superintendent, Denver Public Schools; Mr. Dennis Van Roekel, President, National Education Association; Dr. F. King Alexander, President, California State University, Long Beach; and Dr. Dan Goldhaber, Research Professor, Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington.

For more information, go here. Anyone can attend the hearing—just RSVP to nclb.commission@aspeninstitute.org.

I will miss him greatly, and I send my and FairTest's condolences to his widow, Iris.

Sometimes it is worth weighing in late in the development of a discussion because you can see a wide array of interesting posts. I will avoid repeating them, but I want to give special kudos to Bob Peterson for reminding us that unless the nation is willing to pay enough to provide good schools and ensure skilled professionals (which we do not in most urban, some suburban, and many rural areas), we cannot expect good results.

Yes, serious evaluation of teachers aimed primarily at improving their craft is fundamental to improving schools, and that means principals and other teachers having the time and knowledge to do that job well. Decisions on denying tenure, structuring pay, or removing teachers requires even more careful evidence, though good ongoing evaluation of teachers by principals and their peers is the place to start.

But we should consider all this in light of an emerging politics of charging pell mell into mandated high stakes evaluation of teachers despite the absence of good structures, the lack of resources to do it well, and a continuing propensity to rely on the same inadequate tests inflicted on children as a key part of "evaluating" teachers. (I put "evaluation in quotes, because major use of these instruments no more deserves to be called an "evaluation" than a trivial five-paragraph write to a prompt is an "essay.")

The October 5, 2009 National Academy of Sciences Board on Testing and Assessment letter on the "Race to the Top" draft guidelines should be required reading for key personnel in the Department of Education and for Education Committee members and their staffs in both Houses of Congress. It makes clear that the preponderance of evidence shows that current tests are not adequate to the job of seriously evaluating either students or teachers, and that "value added" or "growth" measures are not ready for prime time use. This is not a matter of waiting for perfection (as Sandy correctly cautions us against), but a warning not to cause further damage to education by intensifying the misuse of tests built into NCLB. In this letter, neutral scholars back up key positions not only of FairTest, but the Forum on Educational Accountability, the Forum on Education and Democracy, the NEA and the AFT, as stated in their letters on RTTT submitted to the Department. 

All the good advice posed on this list won't matter if the Department insists that states rapidly impose evaluation systems and require they use current standardized tests as a "significant part" of evaluating teachers. Let's stop this one cold, then use RTTT money to start building solid evaluation systems and far better assessment systems. (This means not just a new array of standardized tests pretending under the pretense that one-shot exams can be good enough for controlling curriculum and instruction and making decisions about students, teachers, principals and schools).

 
School-effects research has shown clearly that teachers are the most important school-based factor in student learning, and it seems logical to evaluate teachers on just how much or how little learning they “produce” in students. However, assessing teachers’ contributions to student learning is tremendously difficult, not always practical, and more science needs to be conducted to develop valid and reliable ways to do this. Teacher evaluation systems must therefore be built using multiple measures, not only of student outcomes but also of teacher performance in the classroom.

No matter how we assess teacher effectiveness, however, it is critical that we consider the systems that support teaching and learning and assure that they are effective as well. First, for all 3.2 million public school teachers to be effective, they need high quality consistent curricula, that is tied to common high standards and aligned with high quality assessments. It should go without saying that we cannot hold teachers accountable for student test scores if their students are tested on things they did not have the opportunity to teach. Our preparation programs and professional developers also play a vital role and can more effectively target their programs toward meeting the specific needs of the 21st century teacher and bring them to more efficient and effective scale if there are common learning standards and assessments.
 
Second, teachers need multiple opportunities to learn and improve their skill. They need to learn how to personalize learning, to use student data and quality research evidence to make sound instructional decisions, and to analyze their own instruction when the evidence is uncertain. Third, they need to be part of a genuine professional learning community. Teaching and learning are social endeavors, and students do not learn from just one teacher in a school day or an academic year, they learn from many teachers.
 
Noting these needs that lie beyond evaluation alone, it is critical to have systems ready to identify teachers who are not currently effective. And teachers agree. A forthcoming national research report from Learning Point Associates and Public Agenda, will show that approximately a third of all teachers believe that removing ineffective teachers from the classroom would be a “very effective” way to improve teaching. This finding implies a couple of things: first, teachers feel the impact of colleagues on their own ability to teach well, and second, we need better systems to identify those ineffective teachers and swiftly and humanely replace them with more effective teachers. A difficult endeavor to be sure, but one that must be undertaken to ensure that all students learn what they need to be successful in the 21st Century.

I think it is silly to suggest that there is one single best way to do this, and pursuing such a belief only ends us up where Secretary Spellings suggests...everybody gets a star. Schools are different; they value different kinds of behaviors.The point is that in order to be excellent, they must engage in vigorous and ongoing self-evaluation in all sectors of the school. There is not an excellent school in the country that does not do that.

What policy makers need to ensure is that schools are not PREVENTED from doing so. Today's discussion seems blithely dismissive of the fact that we have laws and regulations that prevent a principal from using ANY test data to evaluate a teacher...even test data from measurements the school chooses itself. Secretary Duncan has called this out, and we should be grateful for the added push he gives to eliminating this serious barrier.

Schools struggling to be great will always want to evaluate all their staff in ways that reflect the school mission. We must not prevent them from doing so.

Schools that are not struggling to be great will not want to evaluate anybody, and the results for students will reflect that sad reality. 

While there is a significant amount of interest in assessing teacher effectiveness, it’s not new in education and we have been struggling with it for decades. Back in Texas (and other states and districts) in the mid-80’s, policymakers were busy creating career ladders for teachers as a way to identify and reward excellence and target professional development to teachers who needed more help.  After putting lots of time and effort into creating a system that would allow excellent teachers to move up the pay scale without leaving the classroom, almost all the teachers were rated as excellent.  A few years later the entire system was thrown out and went the way of the dinosaur. We went back to giving across-the-board pay increases to all teachers. Since that time, we’ve started innovative practices on performance pay in some districts and states, but we’ve clearly not learned our lesson in a meaningful enough way across the country.

It’s clear that education is never going to be a high-performing enterprise with such a random and imprecise means of determining quality and effectiveness, especially when human capital is so integral to the success of our kids. Other sectors have figured this out—and it’s high time that we used those lessons in education. My colleagues at the Boston Consulting Group have broad experience in this area and have worked with school districts that want to do a better job of measuring teacher effectiveness. They have found that districts rarely use objective measures to evaluate teachers and usually don’t have clear rubrics to evaluate performance that are understood by teachers, principals, and other managers.    Without those essential components, it’s no wonder that we aren’t effectively assessing the performance of teachers. They have also found that principals are often the sole evaluator of a teacher’s performance and that they have little time or training in how to do that.  Without addressing these most critical issues, today’s teacher effectiveness systems will go the way of the career ladder and the dinosaur.  

Bob Peterson's excellent post makes two things clear:

1.  Unless evaluating teachers includes evaluating the conditions under which they work, it is of little value for improving professional practice.

2. Teachers need to be at center of the evaluation process in both its design and implementation.

Peterson describes a school where, due to an underlying lack of funding, teachers lack planning time (common or otherwise), music or art staff, administrative and other supports, in short, a school without the work environment or support system to make professional growth a serious priority.  In light of the deep funding inequities in our state finance regimes, such conditions exist in many schools, especially in low wealth communities serving high concentrations of poor students and students of color.  In these under-resourced schools, teacher evaluation becomes a monitoring charade -- or a contractual battle -- between employees and supervisors instead of a collaborative process of professional growth and development.  

Give teachers models of good instructional practice, a healthy school culture in partnership with the community it serves, and system-wide responsibility for providing the resources essential for a quality education and you have the basis for a meaningful accountability system.  Give over-extended and under-supported school personnel inadequate funding, decrepit facilities, poor working conditions, and a lack of professional supports, coupled with unrealistic expectations handed down from the state capitol or Washington, and you have the makings of more grievance procedures and pass-the-buck evasion.  

Peterson’s description of the on-the-ground reality should give us pause. Efforts to tie teacher evaluation in under-funded schools to standardized test scores will only make things worse. The overuse and misuse of testing for "accountability" purposes has already contributed to the de-skilling of new teachers and the demoralization of veteran ones.  It also feeds narrow notions of "rigor" and "academic achievement" on the students and teachers experiencing educational inequality, a distraction from the state officials responsible for it.

Although there is no magic federal formula to assess teacher effectiveness, this discussion is certainly worthwhile. We have seen promising local models that have helped districts put the right teachers in the classrooms – examples that can be replicated, and localized, elsewhere. We know programs like the Teacher Incentive Fund, in which teachers are financially rewarded for improving student achievement in low-income schools, work because they treat teachers like professionals and allow them to be recognized for their achievements. We can also learn from initiatives like the Teacher Advancement Program or promising strategies being tested in charter schools – data-driven approaches that help teachers identify their weaknesses and implement strategies for improvement. With a program such as TAP, which provides a framework of four main tenets for assessing and promoting teacher effectiveness, local flexibility is essential. 

Finally, to assess teacher effectiveness and take the next step of actually utilizing that data to improve students’ access to quality teachers, districts must be willing to tackle the tough political challenges. For instance, collective bargaining agreements sometimes require the last teachers hired to be the first fired – irrespective of merit. Similarly, a stubborn refusal to even discuss linking student achievement to performance pay will stymie even the most ambitious local efforts to improve teacher quality. Measuring teacher effectiveness is important, but what we do with that information is equally critical. 

“The Widget Effect” report offered a comprehensive and crisp diagnosis of the problem with existing teacher evaluation systems. Evaluations typically do not result in sufficient gradations to reward the most exemplary educators and hold the most ineffective accountable for unacceptable performance. Even more important, they rarely provide informative feedback to help individual educators improve their practice.

How do we best define and measure teacher effectiveness? Some conceive the definition of teacher effectiveness as exclusively based upon value-added student achievement data. While value-added data can be used to reward and recognize teacher performance and should be used to inform teacher evaluations, it should not be the sole method by which teachers are evaluated and deemed “effective” or “ineffective.”

Great teachers are made – not born. Teachers need professional support and opportunities to develop their practice, including focused induction during their initial years in the profession. Those who see the firing of the least effective teachers and the rewarding of the most effective as the primary goal of value-added driven evaluation are missing the bigger picture. They ignore the vast majority of good-to-very good teachers who can achieve even greater success if given access to high-quality induction and professional development, supported by data and evidence of student learning.

There’s room to embrace value-added methodology without allowing it become an end-game. It is important to measure teacher impact on student learning, but measuring impact without providing the means to help educators strengthen their practice will ultimately fail our schools. In our induction work at the New Teacher Center, we employ a Formative Assessment System (FAS) to increase teacher effectiveness through support provided by carefully selected and trained instructional coaches and mentors. Beginning teacher formative assessment can help build a more complete picture of teacher effectiveness than student assessment data alone. Through the use of FAS, high-quality induction programs and job-embedded professional development rapidly advance teacher practice. We also feel that it has tremendous applicability to inform changes in teacher evaluation systems.

Numerous states have developed definitions of effective teaching that incorporate essential knowledge, skills and classroom practices, and which do not rely exclusively on outcome-based measures such as student achievement. Effective teaching includes aspects of teacher leadership, the ability to embrace diversity and individual learning characteristics, and content knowledge. Planning instruction to meet the needs of all students, provide relevant instruction, make connection across content areas, develop effective communication, and foster critical thinking skills are measures of teacher effectiveness as well.

Effective education reform strategies must recognize teacher development as a primary means to maximize classroom effectiveness. States, districts and schools must go beyond merely identifying the most and least effective teachers, but see that the successes of our best educators form the building blocks of a better understanding of effective teaching practice that can be replicated in classrooms across America.

The initiative builds on existing efforts in New York City to improve teacher effectiveness. Last year, we provided “Teacher Data Reports” to principals of schools that provided instruction in grades 4-8 reading and math. The reports show the “added value” teachers brought to their students’ performance. Principals (who could share the reports with individual teachers) are using these measurements to provide targeted mentoring and professional development. In the longer term, teacher data reports and similar instruments should be part of a comprehensive approach to improving the quality of the instruction teachers provide: not as the sole determinant of how a teacher performed but as one means to improve support to teachers, assess performance, and reward effectiveness.  

It is not only appropriate, but essential that we use test-based measures like New York City’s school progress reports and teacher data reports to help gauge the effectiveness of our schools and educators. I also believe, however, that we need to improve classroom observation tools and performance measurement of teacher skills to find robust approaches, validated empirically as being related to student achievement, which can be combined with quantitative measures for a rich picture of teacher strengths and development needs. A combination of validated skills measurements, school-wide achievement, and teacher value-added measures could be combined into a fair and balanced approach to assessing teacher effectiveness. I should add that this multi-faceted approach to teacher evaluation is a critical component of the agenda of the Education Equality Project (www.edequality.org), of which I am a Founder.

It amazes me that we continue to rely on subjective teacher performance management systems that proclaim 99% of the adults in our schools to be doing a satisfactory job even as we fail so many of our students. As we look to the future, we must develop a more holistic approach, which includes evidence of student learning as the central focus in our assessment of effective teaching.

So yes, teacher evaluation needs to be improved. But before talking about how, one reality must be addressed. No new system will work unless we also change the growing problem of inadequate time, a problem which makes it almost impossible for classroom teachers to seriously reflect, evaluate student work and collaborate with colleagues to learn best practices from one another.

Let me be specific.

The bilingual public school where I work has 413 students. We have one principal and no other administrative staff. Because of annual cutbacks in our funding we have no educational support personnel except for two who work in special education. We have no physical education or music teacher. Our head secretary position was cut to half time, and we have one assistant secretary.

This means that classroom teachers have only 45 minutes of preparation time every six days (we are on a six-day rotation) and have lunch or recess duty every other day. The consequences for teaching and learning are significant: there is virtually no time for staff to observe each other’s teaching, plan together, talk about students, collaboratively assess student work portfolios, and so forth. It also means that the principal has virtually no time to be in teachers’ classrooms to observe, evaluate, meet individually with teachers, or act as a pedagogical leader. She is too busy supervising lunch, resolving transportation mix-ups, or dealing with discipline and safety issues.

If we want serious – not superficial –principal observation to be part of a new evaluation system, we need to fund schools so principals have time to do quality observations and to meet with teachers before and after such evaluations.

If we want teachers to improve their teaching, we need to fund schools so teachers are treated like professionals and have adequate planning and collaboration time every day, not just once or twice a year during so-called professional development days.

Let’s assume that policymakers take the issue of teacher assessment seriously and devote sufficient resources. There is another, more fundamental question that also needs to be answered and that goes beyond the question of how. And that is, why should teacher effectiveness be assessed?

I see two main reasons.

The first is to identify the small percentage of teachers who are obviously ineffective, dysfunctional, or dislike children. The second is to help improve the teaching of the those who don’t fall into the first category – I’d estimate that being around 95% or more – in order to improve student learning.

I know that it is easy to identify the “bad” teachers. Virtually everyone in a school knows if there is a teacher like that and who that teacher is; teachers know, educational support staff know, the principal knows, and many parents and students know. There is no need for some test-driven evaluation system to determine this. The question is what’s going to be done about such teachers.

In the past, our school district administrators argued that due process rights of teachers prevented them from getting rid of bad teachers. In my experience, the real problem rested in either overworked or ineffective building principals. The result was that instead of doing the work of documenting the teacher’s ineffectiveness and either helping them get better or get out of teaching, they would give the teacher a satisfactory evaluation and help them transfer to another school. After several years of satisfactory evaluations, it was even harder to get rid of the teacher.

Several of my colleagues in the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association and I pushed for a very different approach, which is commonly known as peer evaluation. In Milwaukee it is known as the TEAM (Teacher Evaluation and Mentoring) Program. It is a district-wide program that provides support to struggling teachers, assists principals in evaluating such teachers, and if the teachers don’t show satisfactory improvement in one or two semesters, provides job counseling in careers other than teaching. The program is run by a joint board of administrators and teachers while a group of veteran teachers (released from classroom responsibilities) work with individual teachers. Since the TEAM program started in 1997, 65 participants successfully completed the program and are now performing effectively in the classroom, while 96 teachers resigned or retired from Milwaukee Public Schools while participating in the program. If you extrapolated those numbers to large districts such as New York, it would encompass hundreds of teachers.

If the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wants to significantly improve the quality of the teaching profession, he would encourage and aggressively fund the expansion of such programs.

And if we want teacher evaluation to include how well students are learning, then we need to be clear about the following:

a) student assessment means students must demonstrate what they know through performance-based assessments in writing, science, math and oral presentations. Snapshot standardized tests cannot, and must not, be the backbone of student and teacher evaluation.

b) student assessments should be thoughtfully evaluated by groups of educators in such a way that fosters the growth of students as learners and teachers as teachers.

c) quality assessment systems – whether they are based on performance assessments, portfolios and rubrics or exhibitions of student work – are significantly more rigorous than standardized tests, and push teachers towards teaching practices that we know are more effective than the drill and kill approaches fostered by standardized tests.

It is time to treat teachers like the professionals our craft requires. Relying disproportionately on standardized tests reduces teaching to a data-driven, sterile game of numbers – one that negates not only the craft of teaching, but fundamentally disrespects the intelligence, creativity and life of the students we serve.

Teaching is a complex professional task and requires assessments that are designed to capture that complexity. That means we need to stop thinking simplistically about measuring teacher effectiveness and start thinking systemically.

Assessments of teacher performance should include a comprehensive and collaborative approach. And assessments and evaluation should have as their central principle the improvement of teacher knowledge, skills, and classroom practice—with the ultimate goal of enhancing student learning.

Assessments should also incorporate multiple sources and kinds of evidence. Why? Because all measures provide only a partial view of teacher performance. Student performance on standardized tests is an important part of this richer array of documentation – including classroom observations and portfolios – that can provide educators with truly useful information that informs diagnostic, curricular, and instructional decisions.

However, we shouldn’t continue the unhealthy focus on standardized tests as the primary evidence of student success. Test-based measures of teacher “effects” are all the rage despite warnings from respected researchers that these measures should not be used for individual teacher evaluation. I also worry that our present “tyranny of testing” is jeopardizing our ability to match the neediest students with the most able professionals.

That is why NEA launched its Priority Schools Initiative aimed at attracting, preparing, and supporting accomplished teaching in high-needs schools. Our report, Children of Poverty Deserve Great Teachers, outlines ideas for better ways to gauge teacher effectiveness and teacher success.

I recommend that policymakers closely watch the progress of our colleagues at AACTE, CCSSO, and Stanford University, who are partnering to create performance assessments that might provide us with a valid, national teacher assessment that will truly meet our needs. I am also hopeful that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's recent initiative to support the development of new measures will yield methods we can all agree on—methods that are fair, powerful, and reliable.

Rather I simply want to praise The New Teacher Project for the wonderful work they've done here. There is groundbreaking work from others as well, including the NCTQ, TFA, and TAP, that deserve tremendous credit.

I recall all too vividly my years on a school board when the only data we had on teacher performance was subjective evaluations showing virtually all ratings to be "exceeds expectations" or better. This was so despite the fact that student achievement was pretty universally well below expectations.

The new tools that these fine folks are developing will not be perfect, nor should they be expected to be. They should be fair, as precise and accurate as possible, and always subject to being improved. Mainly they should be designed and used to help teachers do better. Further, they should help those who are in a position to help teachers do better themselves. But, importantly, these tools should not be measured or dismissed because they are imperfect. Judge them not against a standard of perfection but rather against the awful "measures" they will replace. True professionalization of teaching depends upon it.

Finally, I want to express gratitude to Chairman Miller and Secretary Duncan for their leadership on this issue. I would be remiss if I didn't also remember the work on teacher effectiveness of former Secretary Spellings and the late Senator Kennedy and their staffs.

I don't know and I don't care, because I'm never asked a similar question when it comes to police, firefighters, architects, accountants, the military, engineers, nurses or even college professors. We judge those folks on whether they perform the tasks assigned and get the results we desire. If that doesn't happen, we either take our business elsewhere (private sector) or demand changes from elected officials (public sector).

I am unqualified to design a test for architects, but if her bridges collapse when they should have stood, I want a different architect.

I am unqualified to judge generalship, but if he loses battles he should have won, I want a different general.

I am unqualified to practice medicine, but if patients die when they should have survived, I want a different doctor, nurse and hospital.

I'm flummoxed by the notion that K-12 teaching is different from every other profession, and that the inability of a raft of children to read, write and compute has no relation to teacher quality. It might please education professionals if someone somewhere could design the perfect combination of credentials, certification, experience, personal qualities, subjective and objective evaluations, which when mixed according to the proper formula, would yield a figure by which we could assess teacher effectiveness, akin to batting averages for baseball players.

Alas, I'm afraid pig-headed parents and taxpayers will continue to assess schools and teachers based on whether their children are learning. Why bother with "great teachers" if we don't end up with great students?

The current  demand to evaluate teachers by their students' test scores is of limited value. It has no application to teachers in the earliest grades, because their students are not tested. Nor does it apply to high school teachers, for the same reason. Many of those who now teach in elementary and middle schools also do not have student test scores by which to be evaluated. 

For those whose classes do produce scores, the scores have some value but are not nearly as important as the judgment of supervisors and peers. If we put too much emphasis on test scores as an evaluative tools, we will encourage bad teaching of a rote sort and help to squash creativity and demoralize teachers.

Diane Ravitch

Any new system must recognize the complexity of teaching, use a balanced approach to gauge teacher effectiveness, and promote professional growth by offering all educators meaningful feedback and opportunities to advance in their careers.

There must be an empirical component in both teacher (and administrator) evaluation. This would emerge from the results of standardized tests using robust value-added models to identify the most effective and least effective performers. Research makes clear that value added models are accurate in identifying the “tails” of distribution.

These student-learning results would be accompanied by a peer-review process that uses rigorous evaluation protocols to differentiate the quality of teaching behaviors, such as Charlotte Danielson’s “Framework for Teaching” that examines 22 components of teacher performance in four broad domains. Taken together, they would replace simplistic ratings of “satisfactory” and “unsatisfactory” and offer a much more comprehensive picture of teacher and administrator effectiveness.

Evaluation should feed into a system that has both positive and negative consequences. The multiple discussed above would then be used to determine the progress teachers and administrators make in climbing a career ladder. No teacher would earn less in the new system than he or she did in the old. Much higher salaries would be available for highly effective educators and those serving in leadership roles, and all teachers, regardless of subject taught or specialist function, would have an opportunity to earn additional compensation.

Teachers identified as “ineffective” would be provided with extensive supports through a program “peer assistance and review,” or PAR, but would lead to timely dismissal if a panel of teachers and administrators agreed on that recommendation. Unions would still provide legal representation to ensure due process, but experience suggests that courts would not be likely to overturn decisions made by a PAR panel.

 Ted Hershberg and Claire Robertson-Kraft

Value-added measures should incorporate periodic as well as summative assessment--it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone at the end of the year when a third grade classroom fails to make a year of progress in reading.  I'm hoping that the $350 million the feds plan to spend on assessment around the Common Core results in a new generation of adaptive online assessment that with better data systems give us much better real time data about student progress.  Frequent conversations about a body of evidence should replace 'gotcha' use of end of year standardized tests. 

As Rozman points out, this gets a bit more complicated at the secondary level especially outside core subjects but the basic frame of frequent conversations about data and observation feedback should become a regular part of teacher evaluation.  

Knowing how much teachers matter in the function of an education, it seems obvious that we would do everything possible to ensure all students get the best and only the best. But as The Widget Effect demonstrated, this is not the case. Instead, schools nationwide operate as though all teachers are about the same and essentially interchangeable.

At the heart of this problem is the fundamental failure of our school systems to evaluate teachers accurately and credibly. Unable to distinguish differences between teachers in their impact on student learning, our schools cannot recognize or reward excellence, address poor performance, or give teachers the critical feedback and individualized support they need to grow as professionals. So we find ourselves in a situation where 99 percent of our teachers receive satisfactory ratings, while wide swaths of our students are failing.

If we are serious about changing this paradigm and ending the injustice of educational inequality, we have to focus steadfastly on one overarching goal: providing all students with highly effective teachers. And to do that, evaluations of teachers have to give us an accurate picture of their performance.

For decades, our teacher evaluation systems have relied on rote observations and checklists of teacher behaviors and other factors – such as classroom neatness – that have little or nothing to do with student outcomes. But great teachers are who they are not because of the orderliness of their bulletin boards, the impressiveness of their credentials, or even their years of experience; what makes them great is their consistent ability to advance student learning. Excellent teachers come in many shapes and sizes, but no teacher can be considered effective if his or her students do not show real evidence of academic growth.

How we measure a teacher’s impact on student academic growth will vary. For some teachers, value-added models based on standardized test scores provide useful information, particularly when multiple years of data show consistently outstanding or poor performance.  For most teachers, however, we have to create other measures of their impact on academic growth, such as periodic examinations of student work according to standard rubrics or district or school-designed assessment results.  This will require substantial work – most districts have no tools to measure the impact of art, physical education or even 10th grade social studies teachers on student achievement. 

In addition, it will be important to evaluate teachers’ instructional practice through classroom observations and examinations of lesson plans, though much more frequently than the current “drive-by” standard of once or twice a year for 20 or 30 minutes. 

But no matter which tools we use, we must focus evaluations squarely on a teacher’s impact on student learning. Just as importantly, we have to use that information to recognize the differences between teachers and act on those differences, retaining the most effective teachers at high rates, addressing poor performance fairly and swiftly, and helping all teachers reach their peak potential. Only then will we be able to give all students the chance to learn from effective teachers, year after year.