AFT's Weingarten Speaks to 'Those' Charter School Cap Opponents

Any broad reading of the research on charter school success - and I don't mean simply reading the stories one agrees with - leads one to the conclusion that charters are completely devoid of magical properties and taken as a whole are no better than public schools. Some studies have proclaimed charter success. Other reports have described dismal failure and even graft. Most are somewhere in between.

But now that Arne Duncan has made them a centerpiece of his administration, and attached huge sums of money to the effort, folks are starting to pay attention to charter's - and their shortcomings.

Many states have experimented with charters, but placed caps on their number awaiting the heretofore promised free-market magic. Duncan doesn't want to wait. He'd rather believe. Since giving people choice is a populist notion that rarely draws controversy, the political downside for Duncan appears to be relatively small.

This from Politics K-12:

In response to new research that casts doubt on the quality of charter schools, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weigarten had this to say, in an official statement:

"...the inconsistencies in the quality of charter schools should give pause to those who want to lift charter caps, particularly when they are not matched with calls for legislatures to increase accountability."

It's been Two Decades. Anybody Up for a Radical Restructuring of Kentucky's School System?

That's what we've been talking about (among other things) for the past two days at the CPE's annual conference in Lexington.

The Kentucky Conference on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning merged with the Teacher Quality Summit to offer college faculty and administrators a forum to examine topics related to K-12, adult, and postsecondary education. The 9th annual conference was jointly sponsored by the Council on Postsecondary Education, Kentucky's public postsecondary institutions, and the Kentucky Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

Aside from the usual presentations, panel discussions, and poster sessions the participants heard from new CPE head Robert King at dinner and Marc S. Tucker, author of the report Tough Choices or Tough Times at lunch. (Photo: Robert King)

King, a former budget director to New York Governor George Pataki (R) and former SUNY Chancellor has been on the job in Kentucky for four months now. King's invitation to Tucker may have shed some light on the direction he wants Kentucky to go.

His old boss, Pataki, came under fire for politicizing public education in New York. According to the Village Voice, Pataki brought "a dramatic shift in mission and tone."

A Republican elected on a small-government platform, Pataki has slowly but markedly moved the university away from its stated mission of access and affordability and shaped it along the lines of his free-market, lower-taxes philosophy. Its deepening relationship with the corporate sector is only one example of the changes.."

Would King do the same in Kentucky?

Marc Tucker is President and CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy, a leader in the movement for standards-based school reform in the United States. Tucker authored the 1986 Carnegie Report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, which called for a restructuring of America’s schools based on standards.

CPE says,

Although Kentucky has made measurable progress since passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) of 1990 and the Kentucky Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997, we still have a long way to go to be considered among the best educational systems in the world. While Kentucky continues to be innovative in teaching and learning, the stakes are higher now, and the system is losing ground in a number of important areas. This is compounded by an economic downturn of severe proportions that calls for a new educational reform framework.

Tucker presented a compelling set of ideas on how America might maintain it's (slipping) standing among world nations through a radical restructuring of the whole system of schooling.

Among its problems, however, is that it directly attacks "the system" for a cure and a whole host of sacred cows like, the Carnegie Unit, the graded structure that under girds high school athletics, teacher pay, early childhood education, local school boards, social promotion, teacher qualifications, graduation ...and those are the ones off the top of my head.

Senior Fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution and President of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Chester E. Finn Jr. called Tucker's report a “penetrating, scary analysis" with "astute, far-reaching recommendations [that] amount to A Nation at Risk for the next generation. "...a brave, clear call for top-to-bottom reforms in U.S. education. While overturning plenty of creaky applecarts, Tough Choices sketches a bold and efficient new vehicle for equipping 21st century Americans with the skills and knowledge they will need—and that the nation needs.”

The recommendations include:

S T E P 1 : Assume that we will do the job right the first time and get students are ready for college — really ready for college — when they are 16 years old.

S T E P 2 : Make much more efficient use of the available resources. The changes will save $60 billion nationally.

S T E P 3 : Recruit from the top third of the high school graduates going on to college for the next generation of school teachers.

S T E P 4 : Develop standards, assessments, and curriculum that reflect today’s needs and
tomorrow’s requirements.

S T E P 5 : Create high performance schools and districts everywhere — how the system
should be governed, financed, organized, and managed.

STEP 6: Provide high-quality, universal early childhood education.

S T E P 7 : Give strong support to the students who need it the most.

S T E P 8 : Enable every member of the adult workforce to get the new literacy skills.

S T E P 9 : Create personal competitiveness accounts — a GI Bill for our times.

S T E P 10 : Create regional competitiveness authorities to make America competitive.

This righty-approach challenges us to look at better ways to do schooling, but it's going to take legislators with political death wishes and balls the size of Alpha Centauri to get it done in Kentucky.

According to Mission Measurement, six states - Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Utah, Arizona, Delaware, and New Mexico – have committed to the “Tough Choices or Tough Times” education reform agenda so far.

Writing for the Tom Mooney Institute for Teacher and Union Leadership, Mark Simon argues that the plan gets several things right - brightest teachers; current accountability measures are failing; reality of social inequities; need for expanded pre-school - but that it makes some unsubstantiated leaps. Simon says,

What we need is not a new system based on flawed assumptions about the efficacy of the private marketplace, but a system guided by the wisdom of educators. In the past decade, the voice of teachers has been absent. That fact speaks volumes about the theory of change – the strategy – of the reformers. Reforms that also dis-empower the key actors, teachers, have bred cynicism, and have failed to unleash the creative energy of the profession.

The key "Tough Choices" prescriptions take us in the wrong direction. They essentially sidestep the issue of how to get us better teaching and learning to world class standards, because, at their core, they are not about improving the quality of teaching and learning in our schools. They focus instead on who should administer public education.

Shannon T. Hodge reviewing for the Harvard Education Review expressed serious concerns for higher education under the plan.

While the report focuses on preK–12 issues, the commission’s recommendations place heavy demands on institutions of higher education, which would need to make substantial changes in the way they operate to align with restructured high schools. The commission itself notes, “The sea changes we propose in higher education will not happen unless the higher education community is deeply involved in the discussion” (p. 48). However, while the commission demands much from colleges and universities, Tough Choices or Tough Times fails to engage thoughtfully with the challenges currently confronting postsecondary institutions, such as access, accountability, cost, quality, and student success.

Hodge points out similarities and differences with the Spellings Commission report and recommends that policy makers take care "to explore whether the ambitious high school plan is feasible and actionable, given the challenges facing postsecondary institutions."

Given both the criticism of the report and the lack of enthusiastic support from key players such as state education boards and teachers unions (see, e.g., McNeil, 2007; National Education Association, 2006; Ravitch, 2007), worth serious consideration is whether these recommendations are even desirable, much less attainable, or whether they merely serve a symbolic function. For example, the report’s recommendation to restructure high schools clearly responds to existing problems with secondary schools and the transition to college, but its heavy reliance on a shift in postsecondary education without any discussion of what it will take to get there reveals a substantial weakness.

As a provocative conversation starter Tough Choices or Tough Times is terrific. As a policy, it lacks a strong constituency and far too many details regarding implementation to be a serious proposal. For that to change, there's going to have to be a lot of conversation that includes the very stakeholders Tough Choices seems to dismiss - teachers and community leaders.

In 2007 AFT President Randi Weingarten sat beside Tucker and expressed teachers union objections to privatization as a solution and Tough Choices' plan to pay teachers more - but at the expense of retirement pensions - which she calls a false choice. (Video at Celebration of Teaching and Learning from 13/WNET, WLIW21 )

Back at the CPE conference, King followed Tucker with a keynote that underscored the need for American education to hop up off its laurels and expand advanced educational opportunities once again.

Access to higher education in America since the civil war a was truly an anomaly in the world. While attendance at a university in Europe and Asia had historically been reserved for the sons of wealthy or politically connected families, the United States had chosen a different path expanding access to anyone with the intellectual talent and determination to seek a college education.

There is broad agreement that America's economic prowess was directly related to the expansion of high schools in the early twentieth century and a higher education system that was the envy of the world. But not any more. In fact the world was so envious, that many nations went out and surpassed America in the number of its citizens with advanced degrees. In India, for example, it is commonplace for a family to spend 50% of their worth educating their children. This has implications for America's future economic competitiveness.

King's data supported the direct relationship between America's educational success and its economic success as measured by Gross Domestic Product from 1820 to 1994. His presentation was compelling and important but would be strengthened if he would drop the old-school pretense that running a PowerPoint slideshow is difficult to master, while exhorting Kentucky's students to higher standards. It undermines the message.

Strengthening America’s Competitiveness through Common Academic Standards

An official chat on national standards took place this morning in the House Education and Labor Committee. The hearing was intended to examine how states can better prepare their students to compete in a global economy by using internationally benchmarked common standards.

Congressman George Miller, Chairman, opened the hearing with the following comment:

Today our Committee will examine the great momentum that is building for improving our schools and our competitiveness though internationally-benchmarked common academic standards.

Our nation faces unprecedented challenges that threaten our competitiveness. We face an achievement gap within our schools but we also face an achievement gap between the U.S. and other countries whose educational outcomes are surging while ours are stagnating.

President Obama and Secretary Duncan recognize that our economy’s fate is directly linked to addressing both achievement gaps.

They know we won’t be able to build the world-class education system our economy needs and our children deserve unless all students are taught to rigorous standards hat prepare them for college and good jobs.

We all know the statistics – we’ve fallen to 21st in math achievement, 25th in science, and 24th in problem solving. We used to be number one in college completion. Now we are 18th...

... Let me be clear: I want this committee, and the Congress, to do whatever we can to support this state-led, bipartisan effort. That’s why we’re here today – to learn more about this work and to hear from you all about how the federal government can best support it.

We forged a good start by making historic investments in education in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

We created an unprecedented, $5 billion Race to the Top fund that will allow Secretary Duncan to encourage states to innovate. This includes improving standards and assessments so they are aligned with career and college-readiness.

This fund will lay the foundation for the significant changes we’ll need to make to truly improve our schools, make sure students graduate with the skills they need, and cultivate a workforce that can compete globally...

As NAEP shows us year after year, the unintended consequences of a system that varies vastly from state to state is rather than striving for excellence, states are camouflaging poor performance.

The result is a generation of students without the complex skills and knowledge needed to succeed in the jobs of the future...

This from former North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt, Jr:

Let me be clear from the very beginning. We need a set of common state standards that are rigorous and relevant, and we must stop fooling around. Today, the variability in state standards is off the charts. There should not be 50 different versions of algebra I across the nation. It’s just not logical; students in California learn the same as students in North Carolina.

We must be vigilant in our development of common standards that are fewer, clearer, and higher. The process for getting there must be based on evidence of what’s necessary and sufficient for students to succeed in college and in work—not on including everyone’s, or every interest group’s, opinion. It should be a tight common core that teachers can teach and students can understand and master.

This from former drive-by Fayette County Superintendent and current Educatin Commissioner of Arkansas, Ken James.

First and foremost, this is a voluntary, state-led effort to establish a common core of standards across the states. Let me be clear, this is not an effort to establish federal standards. The effort to establish a common core will build directly on the recent work of leading states and initiatives that have focused on college- and career-ready standards. Leading states will be called upon to participate and add their knowledge to the standards setting process, and it is expected that leading states, based on their prior work, will be furthest along toward adoption of the common core. Furthermore, no state will see their standards lowered as a result of this collaboration. Rather, the purpose of the common state standards initiative is to raise the bar for all states by drawing on the best research and evidence from leading states and experts regarding, among other things, college- and work-readiness, rigorous knowledge and skills, and international benchmarking.

KIPP co-founder David Levin testified:

When the KIPP network reaches 100 fully grown schools, it will serve the same number of students as the public school district in Atlanta, Georgia. And yet, as a national network the lack of common standards makes it difficult to gauge how well KIPP is meeting its ultimate goal: preparing all of our students with the character and academic skills for success, self-sufficiency, and happiness in college and in life.

Currently, states set their own standards and determine how hard or easy it will be for students to pass. The result? We have passing hurdles that are very high in some states and close to the ground in others. According to Education Next, which reviews the rigor of state standards each year, only three states—Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Missouri—have established world class standards in reading and math. Some states, like Georgia and Tennessee, have established such mediocre expectations that nearly every student is considered to be on grade level.

With states held accountable for meeting the standards they set, there’s an unfortunate incentive for states to set the bar low...

President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten said

We should start with standards. The AFT supports the development of rigorous common state standards. Our reasons are straightforward. We live in a highly mobile, instantly connected world in which knowledge travels on highways we can’t even see. Our students need to be able to navigate through that world—to study, work and live in states other than the one in which they were educated, if they so chose or if circumstances demand it. Their ability to do that, and to do it well, will be limited if we don’t change our current patchwork of varying state standards.

Politics K-12 conducted a little Live Blogging: The Common Standards Hearing here.

AFT President Signals Openness to Reforms

This from Ed Week:

Other than vouchers, Randi Weingarten says “no issue should be off the table, provided it is good for children and fair to teachers.”

Randi Weingarten positioned herself as an education reformer during her first speech in the nation’s capital since taking over as president of the American Federation of Teachers. She signaled her union was wide open to discussing once-taboo issues ranging from merit pay to charter schools to tenure changes.

“With the exception of vouchers, which siphon resources from public schools, no issue should be off the table, provided it is good for children and fair to teachers,” said Ms. Weingarten, who took over the reins of the 1.4 million-member union in July....

Ravitch, Finn in a 'Clash of the Titans' on Education Policy

This from the New York Sun:

In a sign of how substantially her thinking on school policy has evolved, the education historian Diane Ravitch this week is engaging in an online debate with one of her oldest friends and collaborators, the education policy analyst Chester Finn Jr.

At issue: an emerging divide among education policymakers about the best way to improve America's schools.

Everyone seems to agree that the schools are in dire straits, but there is a divide about how to solve that problem.

On one side are leaders including the schools chancellor, Joel Klein; the Reverend Al Sharpton; the federal education secretary, Margaret Spellings, and the mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, who have started an initiative called the Education Equality Project, endorsing strong accountability measures such as those currently written into No Child Left Behind as well as choice options such as charter schools.

On the other side is a group calling itself the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, which has criticized No Child Left Behind and declared that students need help in more fields than just education to succeed, arguing for improved health care and after-school programs. That group includes the teachers union president Randi Weingarten, the labor economist Lawrence Mishel, and the former Boston school superintendent Thomas Payzant.

The debate between Mr. Finn, the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, and Ms. Ravitch, a trustee of Fordham, kicked off when Mr. Finn criticized the Broader, Bolder group, whose proposal Ms. Ravitch has signed.

Mr. Finn said in a Web log post that this camp reflects a dangerous move to shift away from an emphasis on academic excellence and toward a sloppier and less meaningful focus on the "whole child" that happens throughout American history.

"It's a darn shame," Mr. Finn wrote. "Yesterday's push for achievement hasn't yet produced the learning gains we need. But it may be starting to do so. The surest way to curb tomorrow's gains is to change the policy focus and ease the pressure."

He added, "As for the AFT's future direction, all I can say is that President Weingarten's early signals do no credit to Al Shanker's legacy."

Ms. Ravitch is fighting back with a counter-post on Fordham's Web site, edexcellence.net, which is billing the debate as a "Clash of the Titans."

"Will it help or harm children's academic achievement — most especially children who are living in poverty — if they have access to good pre-K programs?

Will it help or harm children's academic achievement — most especially the neediest children — if they have access to good medical care, with dental treatment, vision screening, and the like?" she writes.

She also dismisses Mr. Finn's assertion that she is opposing academic standards by criticizing No Child Left Behind, asking how the law can have worked if American students have been falling behind international competitors through its inception.

Mr. Finn's response is that while he believes Ms. Ravitch is not straying from setting high standards, he worries that others are merely searching for diversions.

Teachers to have 1st major union led by women

Randi Weingarten,

Antonia Cortese and

Lorretta Johnson

are set to lead

the American Federation of Teachers.

This from USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton's bid to become the first female U.S. president could falter, but another milestone for women probably will fall into place this summer with little fanfare: Three women are slated to become the first to run a major labor union.

Delegates to the American Federation of Teachers' biennial meeting here in July are expected to elect Randi Weingarten their new president, along with two other longtime AFT officials: Antonia Cortese and Lorretta Johnson as secretary-treasurer and executive vice president, respectively.

The three announced their candidacy last week at a small, private event for top union officials.

"It's powerful because these are three knowledgeable women," says Marietta English, president of the Baltimore Teachers Union. "This is the year for women. I'm excited."

With more than 1.4 million members, AFT is one of the largest unions in the USA and its second-largest teachers union, behind the National Education Association (NEA), which has more than 3 million members. Unlike its rival, AFT represents many big-city teachers and is a member of the AFL-CIO...