Federal or Local Control?

On the new 74million.org site, Conor Williams makes a strong argument against federal influence in education:

"I'm not some reflexively pro-centralization, big government cheerleader, OK? Let me be clear. There are plenty ofkludgeocratic, dumb regulations that creep down through federal and state mandates. Top-down accountability can get ugly fast. It works best when setting expectations and imposing (crisp, direct) consequences. Too often, it strays into unwieldy dictates for teachers' or administrators’ daily work. I get that."

And a strong argument against state and district control citing the misdirection of funds by LAUSD:

"At a systemic level, there's precious little evidence that states and districts are ready to seize their achievement gaps and make uncomfortable choices about reallocating educational resources to benefit the underserved. Remove the pressure from above, and they quickly find other priorities—like getting extra dollars to schools serving privileged white families."

His perfect solution is. . . ?

The stated primary goal of centralizers and localizers is equality of education for all students leading to closing the achievement gap. We've tried both with little no positive impact. From my perspective, placing all the responsibility on education is blaming the result for the cause. Neither the Department of Education nor state and district education bureaucracies no matter how well intentioned their efforts can ever make the needed changes to the broader underlying cultural issues that are reflected in rates of poverty, unemployment, welfare dependency, and, yes, educational inequities.

Exactly How Do We Fix It?

The following article by Peter Greene is a reasoned positive response to education reforms. Rather than just slamming reforms as do most of the anti-reformist bloggers he admits to shortcomings and goes some way toward identifying areas needing improvement regarding teacher quality, student equity, and teacher accountability. However, and it is a big HOWEVER, he stops way short of proposing any sort of plan of how to do the "real work we need to do." How do we identify and help underperforming teachers? How do we inspire administrators to do a better job of hiring and growing staff? How do we improve teacher education? How do we transition teaching into a true, professional self-governing body? How can an excellent education be offered to every child? And what does that even mean? Does it mean ensuring all children have the same education advantages as those with the wealthiest parents? How do we ensure complete transparency and actionable accountability? Exactly how do we fix it?

The Curmudgucation writes:

We Can't Go Back

Those of us who argue against reformster policies in education sometimes fall into the mistake of wanting to go back, to roll back the clock to the days before high-stakes test driven accountability, federally-coerced standards, and privateering began messing with public education in earnest.
We can't, and we shouldn't want to. Because there is real work we need to do.

Teacher Quality

The assertion that the education system is overrun with terrible teachers and that if we just root them out, all will be hunky-dory-- that's a dumb assertion. But I am not going to look you in the eye and say there are not teachers who desperately need help or even teachers who just need to get out of the classroom. Those people exist. What often does not exist is any system or mechanism for helping them out and thereby lifting up the schools in which they teach.

Some of the work needs to be done on the administrative level. School leaders can do a better job of hiring and a better job of growing staff.

We also need to look at the supply chain. One of the unfortunate effects of thirteen years of assault on public education is some real damage to the teacher pipeline.

If only teaching were like other professions. Doctors, nurses, lawyers-- they control their own professional pipelines. To become a doctor, you have to go through a doctor-certified program and win the approval of other doctors. To become a teacher you just have satisfy a bunch of bureaucrats who haven't a clue what you do.

Equity

People who hate No Child Left Behind still praise its disaggregation of results. Some folks are right now still arguing that we must test every student every year so that non-white, non-wealthy, special needs students will not be hidden and invisible. Yes, some of those folks are money-grubbing opportunists, but some are absolutely sincere, and they have a point.

We cannot just say, "Oh, just trust us to take care of those kids. We always did right by them in the past." Because we didn't. Not in some places.

Is it really that surprising to say so? Schools reflect their communities. If your community is racist, chances are racism is embedded in your institutions as well. If your community bows to the power of the wealthy, chances are your not-so-wealthy students are getting the short end of the stick.
Reform programs have not addressed equity issues. They have instead disenfrachsed community members and resegregated students. But just because someone has sold you snake oil, that doesn't mean your illness isn't real. We face the challenge of providing excellent education for all students, and we have to do a far better job of meeting that challenge.

Accountability

Real accountability is not stack ranking, and it is not making many schools compete for limited resources. But we owe taxpayers a full accounting for what we do with the tax dollars they hand to us and the trust they place in us.

Schools have not always been great at transparency. We close the doors and tell our community, "Trust us. And leave us alone." In some communities public schools really have behaved like the obnoxious monopolies reformsters accuse us of being.

Parents are entitled to know how their students are doing. taxpayers are entitled to know what they're getting for their hard-earned dollar.

The Irony

There are some schools that have met and conquered these challenges, and the rest of us can learn from them. We need to learn from them.

The irony is that many reformster programs, like the high stakes testing currently under the legislative microscope, have been sold as solutions to all of these problems, when in fact they don't solve any of these problems.

But in pushing back, we have to remember two things. First, don't confuse pointing out the false solutions with dismissing the actual problems, second, don't forget that the problems still need to be addressed.

We cannot go back, and even if we had a fully-tricked out DeLorean, we shouldn't go back. The problem with reformster policies is not that they keep us from staying in a perfect past, but that they keep us from moving forward into a better future. That journey into the future, that pursuit of real solutions and real improvements that actually address our real challenges-- that's what we need to reclaim.

Too Much or Not Enough High-Tech in Classrooms

NOTE: I use the term "high technology" to recognize the many non-digital forms of technology, e.g., the printed word, ball-point pens, etc.

This raging debate has been pretty much overshadowed by Common Core and high-stakes testing, but I believe we should revisit it periodically rather than just going with the flow which appears to be the status quo. Lacking definitive research we still forge ahead spending big bucks. "Just what if technology really does enhance learning?" "Do I, the teacher, the administrator, the board member, want to be responsible for denying students opportunities to achieve, gain a college degree, get a good job, succeed in the future digital world?" The answer: "We can't take the chance, we must spend the money." Or as is in many one-to-one schools, "We will dictate a BYOD policy and let the parents/guardians spend the money." Maybe we don't need to speed up, slow or stop the momentum, maybe we need allow the direction of the technology momentum to be guided by the practitioners, the teachers.

SmithSystem.com does a fairly good job of capturing the more common valid reasons behind too much or too little (http://smithsystem.com/smithfiles/2014/10/20/classroom-technology-much-enough/). Reasoning for more: eBooks, post-school tech use, gaming develops spatial skills and inductive reasoning, collaboration/communication, deeper engagement/broader learning, teacher tools, and support for PLEs. Reasoning for less: meaningful engagement comes from people, too much too soon, distracting, cost and obsolescence, taxes teachers' expertise, and classroom management. I can agree with both sides.

So my answer (too much, too little?) is both. We are all aware of the technology resource "gap" between wealthy and poor community schools. (A short aside: this gap also exists within Catholic schools systems, particularly in urban areas where many schools are dependent on donors for the majority of their technology resources.) This is without doubt a too little situation. I don't pretend to have an answer regarding how to close this gap without spreading the wealth which would mean lowering the amount of technology available to wealthier schools in order to raise the amount of technology available to poorer schools. Or without increasing taxes. Either solution requires more big government involvement, ala Common Core and high-stakes testing and I'm a firm believer in locally controlled schools, among most other things.

We are also aware, although we seldom admit, that gaps exist among teachers within even the better-resourced schools. Recent research points out that the teacher gap is not so much due to age and the digital native/digital immigrant thing but more to the pedagogical maturity and content adeptness of teachers. And that the gap is not so much regarding how much technology is in play but more so about how successful it is employed whatever the level of integration. In short, well-grounded teachers, if allowed, do their homework, select and implement the technology that works best for them. That's not an easy chore. There are many hardware choices and tens of thousands of educational apps and applications. Each teacher can't vet them all and obviously a certain amount of standardization is necessary. The standardization should occur at the lowest possible economically viable level but no higher than school level. Full collaboration among all stakeholders is essential. Technology budgets should be built from the bottom up beginning with individual teachers. Teachers should have full reign over the software applied within their classrooms. Again, not easy decisions, however, help is available through PLCs; individualized, non-workshop-based PD (please!); the Internet; mentorship; and the technology department.

School Reformers vs Anti-reformers

I want to be careful to not appear to support the education reform movement. I truly do not yet have an educated opinion on either the positive or negative effects reform initiatives are having. I have a "feeling" derived partly from logic, experience and reading summaries from recent studies that most of the initiatives are the result of a panicked "we must do something quickly" mentality resulting in throwing a bunch of ideas against the wall hoping that some will stick. Most of the studies are inconclusive--comparison and correlations but little causation. From recent research, I don't think any of them is sticking and I don't think allocating more money or time will produce positive casual student achievement results. Which is basically the same criticism anti-reformers have with possibly a "more harm than good" emphasis. But that's not enough. If anti-reformers agree that we need to improve K-12, exactly what is their plan? As a group, who are the ant-reformers and who are their designated spokespersons? And were "they"  to put  forward proposals, would they not be considered "reforms"? Or do the anti-reformers believe that the pre-reform movement system was producing desired results and no changes were necessary?