2012: What's In, What's Out

This from ASCD:

As we turn the last calendar page of the year, ASCD's Capitol Connection bids adieu to the compelling people, policies, and activities of 2011, and predicts their likely successors that will demand our attention in 2012.

IN	OUT
NCLB Waivers	ESEA Reauthorization
Bake Sales	ARRA Stimulus Funds
Race to the Top Losers	Race to the Top Winners
Finland	China
48%	82%
Local Control	Federal Requirements
Harkin-Enzi	Kline-Miller
STEAM	STEM
Common Core State Implementation	Common Core State Adoption
Potatoes	Leafy Greens
Student Growth	AYP
Early Learning	High School Reform
Brinksmanship	Partisanship
Multiple Measures Teacher Eval	Value Add Teacher Eval

Obama administration scrutinizes Georgia's early Race to the Top work

It would appear that phase 2 of Race to the Top has begun: Punishing the winners for their failure to actually be the supermen and superwomen they promised to be.

This from the Journal Constitution:

The Obama administration is raising some concerns about Georgia's early work to improve public schools with a $400 million, four-year federal Race to the Top grant.

The administration is stepping up the pressure on Georgia and 11 other Race to the Top winners to make good on the reforms they promised in 2010 in exchange for millions in grant money. In mid-January, the U.S. Department of Education is set toissue a report sizing up how the winners did in the first year.

A draft of Georgia's "progress report," obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, shows the state was largely on target at the one-year mark. But it points out that Georgia was slow to fill 21 high-level jobs considered critical to executing some of the state's complicated and controversial reform plans,including the launch of a teacher evaluation system that is tied to student achievement.

The report notes that the state won the grant in August 2010 but the final member of its Race to the Top management team wasn't on board until mid-September 2011, in part because of leadership changes:a new governor,new state school superintendent and new school superintendents in Atlanta, DeKalb and four of the 26 participating local school districts.

Those 26 school districts will be piloting the new teacher evaluation system. Educators are skeptical that a fair system can be created given the wide range of student abilities, but generally acknowledge that it's difficult to weed out mediocrity when all teachers are currently rated as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory...

Pop Quiz: Education Policy in 2011

Test yourself

This from The Answer Sheet:

The year 2011 was monumental in education — monumentally good or monumentally bad, depending on your view.

School reformers who believe in using business principles to run public schools had a banner year. More states expanded the number of charter schools, promoted vouchers and moved toward using student test scores to evaluate teachers.

It was a tough year for those who believe that school reform cannot happen without taking into account the social context in which students live. Yet, toward the end of 2011 there were real signs that educators, parents and even students were pushing back.

Test yourself on 2011 issues 

that will continue to play out in 2012.

1) “Corporate education reform” refers to a set of proposals currently driving education policy at the state and federal level. What is not one of those proposals:

     a) increased test-based evaluation of students, teachers, and schools of education

     b) eliminating or weakening teacher tenure

     c) paying teachers for experience and advanced degrees

     d) replacing governance by local school boards with various forms of mayoral and state takeover or private management


2) Teach for America recruits top college graduates, trains them and then places them in high-poverty schools. How much training do the recruits get before they start teaching on their own?

     a) one year as a student teacher while earning a masters

     b) six months as a student teacher

     c) three months in a summer institute

     d) five weeks in a summer institute


3) Because Congress failed to rewrite No Child Left Behind, what did the Obama administration say it would do to help schools dealing with the law’s onerous requirements?

     a) issue waivers that would release all public schools from the onerous requirements

     b) issue waivers to states that promised to institute approved school reforms

     c) put pressure on congressional Republicans to reach an NCLB deal in 2012

     d) nothing


4) Why did the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District field-test on students 52 different standardized tests?

     a) to detect patterns of cheating

     b) to find the single best test for the district’s new accountability program

     c) to pick standardized tests in every subject so teachers can be evaluated by the scores

     d) it didn’t field-test that many exams because that would be preposterous


5) What percentage of American children live in poverty, according to new Census Bureau data?

     a) 22 percent

     b) 18 percent

     c) 13 percent

     d) 9 percent


6) Who said this: “We’ve lost our competitive spirit. We’ve become so obsessed with making kids feel good about themselves that we’ve lost sight of building the skills they need to actually be good at things.”

     a) Bill Gates

     b) Steve Jobs

     c) Michelle Rhee, former D.C. schools chancellor

     d) Amy Chua, author of “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”


7) What did President Obama do on Friday, March 4?

     a) went to Wisconsin to support teachers protesting efforts to restrict collective-bargaining rights

     b) went to Ohio to support teachers protesting efforts to restrict bargaining rights

     c) started a three-day weekend

     d) appeared in Miami with Jeb Bush, a leader of corporate education reform


8) President Obama disagrees with Republicans on:

     a) the importance of increasing charter schools

     b) whether students should get taxpayer-funded vouchers to pay for private school

     c) evaluating educators by student test scores

     d) encouraging private sector help for public schools


9) Who said, “I’m beginning to think we are living in a moment of national insanity?”

     a) Rep. Ron Paul

     b) New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie

     c) education historian Diane Ravitch

     d) Bill Gates


10) What is the Opt-Out Movement?

     a) opting out of high-stakes standardized tests

     b) opting out of sex education classes

     c) opting out of physical education classes

     d) opting out of school-required vaccines


BONUS QUESTIONS:

11) True or false: In July actor and social activist Matt Damon addressed a rally in Washington D.C. to oppose the Obama administration education policies. Education Secretary Arne Duncan wanted to meet with Damon before the rally so much that he offered to pick him up at the airport and speak with him en route to the protest.


12) The Obama administration’s key education initiative, Race to the Top, had a competition for states to compete for federal dollars for early learning initiatives. What was not included as a top priority listed in the Education Department’s criteria for applicants?

     a) making sure kids have ample opportunity to learn through play

     b) encouraging private sector support

     c) using kindergarten entry assessments to promote school readiness

ANSWERS: 1) c; 2) d; 3) b; 4) c; 5) a; 6) c; 7) d; 8) b; 9) c; 10) a; BONUS: 11) True; 12) a.

Will NCLB Waivers Reverse Narrowing of the Curriculum?

This from Curriculum Matters:

The waiver plans some states have developed to gain relief from core provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act contain a dimension that may be of keen interest to those who worry that the federal law has narrowed the curriculum.

Seven of the 11 states propose to include tests in subjects beyond reading and mathematics as part of their reconfigured accountability systems, with the most popular being science assessments, but social studies and writing also are included in some cases.

These waiver plans are a very big deal, as they essentially rewrite the map for accountability in the No Child Left Behind era. Most readers are only too well aware that the federal law currently relies mainly on test scores in reading and mathematics to drive accountability.

For the big picture on the state waiver plans, check out this recent EdWeek story. In it, my colleague Michele McNeil explains that states seeking waivers from the U.S. Department of Education would "replace what is widely considered an outdated, but consistent, school accountability regime with a hodgepodge of complex school grading systems that are as diverse as the states themselves."

The very idea that states who win waivers will be permitted far greater leeway in how they approach school accountability could well have important implications for the curriculum. (In fact, they would have a lot of flexibility in both how they identify school as low performing and what consequences would kick in.) As we reported here just recently, most educators believe the strong emphasis on improving reading and math scores since the enactment of NCLB has meant less time and attention to science, social studies, the arts, and a variety of other subjects.

Seven of the 11 states who so far have applied for waivers (many more are expected to do so soon) say they would include assessments in one or more additional subjects as part of their revamped accountability systems. Of those, three states, Georgia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma would include assessments in writing, science, and social studies. (It's important to say here that in certain cases, these states may well have parallel state accountability systems in which such tests already are factored into making judgments on schools. I haven't done that analysis, but it would be interesting to see.)

Here's a rundown for all 11 states highlighting which, if any, additional assessments they will include in their accountability systems, as described in their waiver proposals. (This is based on an EdWeek analysis of those plans.)

• Colorado: Writing, Science, English language proficiency
• Florida: Writing, Science
• Georgia: Writing, Science, Social Studies, high school end-of-course exams
• Indiana: No additional subjects
• Kentucky: Writing, Science Social Studies
• Massachusetts: Science
• Minnesota: No additional subjects
• New Jersey: No additional subjects
• New Mexico: No additional subjects
• Oklahoma: Writing, Science, Social Studies
• Tennessee: Science

Of course, some key questions remain. First, will these states win the waivers? Second, if they do, to what extent will the use of these tests reflect a change from current practice under the state accountability system?...

New effort to make kids college-ready

This from The Columbus Dispatch

Teachers in elementary, middle and high school often team up to help students prepare for the next level.

In a new twist, some high-school teachers in Columbus City Schools will be paired with local college professors to ensure that more students are college-ready.

“Over the long term, we hope to reduce the number of our graduates who start college but don’t finish because they weren’t prepared,” Superintendent Gene Harris said.

Starting in January, 10 teachers from East, Eastmoor and North high schools will begin working with professors from Columbus State Community College, DeVry University and Ohio State University.

Together, they will plan and co-teach about 200 sophomores and juniors in English and math, two subjects that give many students trouble. The focus, at least initially, will be on standard English and math classes in those grades.

Students would not receive college credit, but they would be spared the cost and time of remedial classes after high school.

By partnering, the college professors will get a better idea of what is being taught in the high schools. The teachers will gain a better understanding of what is expected of college freshmen...

Mason Co 7th Graders Tweet

Mason County Middle School classroom 

uses social network in classroom

This from the Ledger Independent:

Ella Bowling's seventh grade science class has something to tweet about. It's their use of the popular social networking site, Twitter, in the classroom.

Bowling, who teaches at Mason County Middle School, said she had heard about colleges and even the Kentucky Department of Education using Twitter in order to share information. Most of Bowling's students have cell phones and use Twitter or other sites regularly.

"I know in the past we have been so afraid of using social media and have discouraged it," Bowling said in an email sent to MCMS coworkers. "But, it's like they always say, if you can't beat them, join them! Students are going to use social media so why not find a way to get them to use it for an educational purpose!"

Bowling's first use of Twitter came in the format of a review she had Dec. 14 for a unit test. Approximately 40 students from two "teams" logged on to take part. Bowling put out questions and tweeted pictures of graphs the students might see on the test.

"The kids had to answer the questions," she said. "They loved it. They thought it was the best thing ever for a review."

Students participated by using the hash tag #mcmsscience in their tweets, Bowling said.

Bowling said several students told her they would likely not have studied if it had not been for the Twitter review.

The average grade for the test was 87 percent, Bowling said.

"I was pretty pleased with that," she said...

Mcmsscience MCMS Science

Bring your iPods, iPads, and phones to class on Jan. 4! 

You can tweet live pics and videos of the

awesome demos I'll be doing! 

#mcmsscience

27 Dec 

Flipped Class Method Gaining Ground

This from District Administration Magazine:

Community Schools’ high school has turned the traditional school day upside-down by asking teachers to assign short video lectures as homework and have students do activities, participate in discussions and complete assignments in class, with their teacher at hand to answer questions.

Clintondale High School applied the flipped model gradually, beginning with just a couple of classes in the 2009-2010 school year. In the fall of 2010, all freshmen classes were taught using this model. After seeing an increase in student achievement and a decrease in the failure rate, administrators decided to flip the entire school this year.

The flipped class is a type of blended learning, which combines online and traditional face-to-face methods. Students can review videos at their own pace, pausing to take notes or review a point. While the number of educators using this method is tough to calculate, 2,500 have joined the Flipped Class Network, a learning community for teachers using vodcasting (video podcasting) in class...

Kindergarten kids: A pencil, eraser and an iPad

This from ZDNet:

K-12 learners studying at the Burris Laboratory School have been using iPads as a learning tool this year.

Thanks to a grant of $200,000 by the Indiana Department of Education, the school’s kindergarten through to fifth grade students and their teachers have been equipped with their own iPads.

Stefanie Onieal, first-grade teacher at Burris, considers it a wonderful experience. However, the teachers make sure iPad use does not dominate classroom learning.

At most, the Apple devices are used for 40 minutes per day. School curriculum content takes priority, and according to Onieal: “We are just trying to come up with new ways that enhance that curriculum with technology.”

The teachers at the Burris Laboratory School also make use of Twitter; posting photos and status updates on a regular basis...

The Apple products have been used to promote interactivity in conjunction with technology use in the classroom. From using their tablets to take pictures in scavenger hunts to producing public safety announcements, students are able to upload their projects to a classroom blog.

The blog can be accessed publicly, and parents are able to receive email notifications when new items are posted...

Wyoming's journey to finding common education standards slows down

This from the Trib.com:

One year ago, many people assumed Wyoming and most of the nation would adopt national standards in language arts and math.

The State Board of Education first approved them in June 2010. Committees of educators reviewed the common core standards, as they are called, compared them to Wyoming standards, recommended adoption and drafted new state standards.

Public comment was held in late spring of this year. The process seemed to be chugging along until September, when lawmakers questioned the standards and how Wyoming came to adopt them without legislative input.

The decision rests with the State Board of Education, which sets standards — not curriculum — according to state law. A final decision is expected in the spring of 2012 — a little more than two years from the time the discussion began.

Once the common core standards were released, committees comprised of Wyoming educators, students, parents and other citizens reviewed the Wyoming standards and compared them to the common core. The language arts committee overwhelmingly recommended the board adopt common core standards.

The math committee split, and many commented the common core would increase the rigor in math. About one-third said they couldn’t recommend the common core because the standards might be too difficult for recommended grades and don’t clearly align from grade to grade.

Educators have said the Wyoming standards align well for language arts but the math standards are, generally, tougher and expect mastery of certain skills in earlier grades. For example, Wyoming students were expected to know multiplication in fourth grade. The common core places that benchmark in third grade...

In 2011: 

Common Core State Standards were incorporated into Wyoming content standards

for language arts and math. 

Public comment was accepted in the spring.

Lawmakers questioned the process in the fall 

and considered repealing the state Board of Education's authority to set standards.

The state board approved revised standards in September 

and began the formal rules-making process.

Coming in 2012: 

Public comment will be collected online through Jan. 25 

and during several public hearings held across the state. 

The board will respond to every comment before making a final decision in early spring.

Sandra Day O'Connor promotes civics education

Retired U.S. Supreme Court justice

helped initiate an online program

called iCivics because

not enough Americans know how government works.

This from the L A Times:

"It's very disturbing," said O'Connor, 81, the first woman to serve on the nation's highest court. "I want to educate several generations of young people so we won't have the lack of public knowledge we have today."

Nationwide, her work has influenced a new civics education law in Florida and pending legislation in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Civics education involves explaining the structure of U.S. government, including the meaning and influence of the Constitution and its evolution over time. Advocates also emphasize the importance of getting students to engage in the democratic process, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Philadelphia-based Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Limited knowledge about the three branches of government — executive, legislative and judicial — emerges starkly in Annenberg surveys, which also found that 15% of adults correctly named John Roberts as United States chief justice, but almost twice as many (27%) could identify Randy Jackson as a judge on the television show "American Idol."

Poor understanding of civics has persisted for decades despite increased college attendance, Jamieson said...

The English Approach: Getting Students Through College

Free online courses has been so successful

in Britain, it is being

imported to the United States

to confront one of the biggest challenges

in American higher education:

helping ill-prepared, self-conscious students

adapt to and succeed in college.

This from the Hechinger Report:

When he was 14, Daniel Conn was part of a circle of friends so bright they programmed computer code for fun. One of his classmates went on to work in financial services, while another opened his own business.

But when Conn tried college, he said, “I lost confidence in myself. The exams came and I just freaked out. So I stopped the whole lot.” Every year, he said, he would write to universities for a prospectus, “get completely daunted, and throw it away.”

It was by accident that Conn, now 28, stumbled across free courses offered over the Internet as an experiment by Open University, a British online public university. Not having to pay to try them removed one major obstacle for him; after all, he said, “You’re not going to lose any money.” He could also study where and when he wanted, which helped, too, since he works full time at a car dealership in his English seaside hometown.

Most important of all, Conn found, he was no longer worried he might fail.

“No one would even know that I was looking at the page,” he said over a pint in a Brighton pub. “After a few months, it was, I can actually do this.”...

Getting Serious About Bullying in Iowa

Online reports: bullying suspicions sent to school districts

This from ZDNet:

A new website has been launched this month by the Eychaner Foundation, in the hopes that it will become a valuable tool to help tackle the problem of bullying.

ReportbullyingIowa.com takes reports submitted by students, parents and staff, and sends them to an ‘appropriate person in your school district’. The information is sent via email and US Postal mail, with an additional copy sent to the email inbox of the one reporting the incident.

By filling in the incident form on the website, you are able to specify the school and its district, the date and type of incident — for example, student to student or student to staff — and input information on the complainants.

You are also able to specify what factors the incident was based on, such as age, colour, sex, disabilities or socioeconomic status.

After describing the incident, the reporter is required to input their status, whether student, teacher or parent, contact details and address.

The website’s privacy policy is designed to ensure reports remain anonymous. According to the policy, no personal identifiable information is revealed in either the preliminary reports sent to school districts, or the annual reports that are sent to the Iowa legislature.

The Des Moines non-profit group that is sponsoring the website launch said that its goal is to ‘promote tolerance and nondiscrimination’...

Arizona Schools' Ethnic Studies Program Ruled Illegal

This from The Huffington Post:

An administrative law judge ruled Tuesday that a Tucson school district's ethnic studies program violates state law, agreeing with the findings of Arizona's public schools chief.

Judge Lewis Kowal's ruling marked a defeat for the Tucson Unified School District, which appealed the findings issued in June by Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal.

Kowal's ruling, first reported by The Arizona Daily Star, said the district's Mexican-American Studies program violated state law by having one or more classes designed primarily for one ethnic group, promoting racial resentment and advocating ethnic solidarity instead of treating students as individuals.

The judge, who found grounds to withhold 10 percent of the district's monthly state aid until it comes into compliance, said the law permits the objective instruction about the oppression of people that may result in racial resentment or ethnic solidarity.

"However, teaching oppression objectively is quite different than actively presenting material in a biased, political and emotionally charged manner, which is what occurred in (Mexican-American Studies) classes," Kowal wrote.

The judge said such teaching promotes activism against white people, promotes racial resentment and advocates ethnic solidarity...

Duncan Tosses Kentucky a Bone

7 Runners-Up Finally Share (a Much Smaller) Race to Top Prize

Unfunded by the State
Holliday Gets a Pittance Toward SB 1 Implementation 
from the Feds

Kentucky has been positioning itself as the nation's first and foremost supporter of "school reform." Education Commissioner Terry Holliday has stood with Education Secretary Arne Duncan to tout the Obama administration's approach to education. But while Kentucky was the first to sign up for national standards (and the national testing that will follow), the federal government has done little to return the love. Some KSN&C readers wonder if the toxic relationship between Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell and the White House has cost the state the recognition it deserved, and might have otherwise received. Others wonder if Kentucky's application was really all the department of education would have us believe. Still others wonder if Senate Bill 1 and the whole Race to the Top thing is even a good idea and worth the effort. Go figure.

This from Politics K-12:

Seven states that were runners-up in last year's $4 billion Race to the Top competition will share a $200 million consolation prize that will fund small pieces of their original plans, with many choosing to focus on implementing common standards and improving teacher evaluation systems.

The seven winners are: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Their grants range in size, based on each state's student population, from $17 million for Colorado, Kentucky, and Louisiana to nearly $43 million for Illinois.

"These states are absolutely ready to do great things," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a conference call with reporters yesterday evening.

The announcement comes as the U.S. Department of Education has begun to raise the pressure on the 12 winners of last year's competition...

The announcement of the latest, $200 million in awards was surrounded by little suspense. The department made all nine runners-up from last year eligible to win this time around so long as they agreed to stick to the reform agenda they pitched last year, and demonstrated how the piece of their plan that they chose to highlight also benefited the STEM, or science, technology, engineering, and math, subjects...

With just $200 million to be split this time around—far less than the $4 billion up for grabs last year—the fact that two states did not participate bumped up everyone else's prize.

The department has now awarded all of its fiscal 2011 Race to the Top money, and can turn to figuring out what to do with the nearly $550 million Congress set aside to extend the brand during fiscal 2012. Duncan has said no decisions have been made on how that money will be awarded. However, during last night's call, he made clear that he does want to use at least some of the money for districts, saying that Congress' decision to open up Race to the Top to the local level was a "great opportunity." He also said the money is an opportunity to focus more on early learning and STEM...

And this KDE press release:

KENTUCKY AWARDED 

RACE TO THE TOP ROUND 3 FUNDING

Today, the U.S. Department of Education announced that Kentucky will receive a Race to the Top grant of $17 million to advance targeted K-12 reforms aimed at improving student achievement.

Kentucky and six other states -- Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey and Pennsylvania -- will each receive a share of the $200 million in Race to the Top Round 3 (RTT3) fund.

“While the grant amount is significantly less than the original $175 million request, we are very excited about being able to gain funds to implement Senate Bill 1 initiatives and expand AdvanceKentucky sites,” said Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday. “Within the budget of $17 million, we will use state and district allocations to implement professional development and resources for Senate Bill 1.”

Senate Bill 1, passed in the 2009 session of the General Assembly, calls for a new assessment and accountability system for the state’s public schools, along with more rigorous academic standards, intensive teacher and administrator training, and strengthened collaboration among higher education, teacher/administrator certification and P-12 education sectors.

AdvanceKentucky is a statewide math-science initiative and partnership between Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC) and the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI). AdvanceKentucky expands access to, preparation for and participation in academically rigorous coursework, specifically the Advanced Placement (AP) Program.

As runners-up in the last year’s Race to the Top competitions, Kentucky and eight other states were eligible for Round Three awards to invest in a portion of their Round Two plans. However, South Carolina opted out, and California submitted an incomplete application.

RTT3 focuses on supporting efforts to leverage comprehensive statewide reform, while also improving science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.

Audit calls for overhaul of JCPS central office

Outside experts' report assails favoritism, 

biased hiring, unqualified personnel

This from the The Courier-Journal:

Jefferson County Public Schools’ administration is riddled with favoritism, biased hiring and unqualified personnel and should be overhauled, according to a disparaging report released Tuesday by two outside experts hired to examine the district’s central office.

The 70-page report — the result of an organizational review ordered by the school board this summer — also states that in some cases, administrators are overpaid based on the current marketplace and when compared to other school districts.

“We see this report as a start of a conversation that the superintendent will need to have with the school board and the community in Jefferson County about the future of the central-office staffing,” said the report’s co-author, Fenwick English, a professor of educational leadership at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The bottom line, English said, is that JCPS must realign its central office — retooling 31 positions to establish better support to its 155 schools and eliminating five other positions that the auditors say are unnecessary...

Kovacs: Teach For America Research Fails the Test

This from Phillip Kovacs at Living in Dialogue

In the lengthy piece that follows this introduction Kovacs is reacting to a decision by the Huntsville, Alabama Board of Education to spend $1.7 million to bring Teach For America interns to district classrooms. He debunks TFA claims using only their own research.

On the web page where Teach For America shares research, they boldly state: "A large and growing body of independent research shows that Teach For America corps members make as much of an impact on student achievement as veteran teachers." I will show this is an absurd claim simply by analyzing the reports made public on their "research" page. I will not look at or include other research which shows that TFA has negative effects on student test scores in some places, as others have already done so.

However, it pains me to engage in this analysis because it forces me to enter a conversation that I don't believe we should be having, a conversation that is undergirded by the belief that the best way to evaluate teachers is to look at student scores on tests that have been shown to be invalid, unreliable and flat out ridiculous.

When we reduce children to numbers and teachers to spreadsheet-managers we undermine education by dehumanizing the process. In our test-driven world, teachers have become bureaucrats; we've reduced "learning" to scoring, and, shamefully, we've reduced schooling to sorting, equating a slight change in a test score with "achievement." ...

Indiana Schools Grapple With Voucher Law's Impact

This from Education Week:

As the 3,919 students who participated in the first year of Indiana’s new, wide-reaching school voucher program near the end of the first semester in their new schools, the program faces up to its next challenge: A state court hearing opens today on a lawsuit arguing the program violates Indiana’s constitution.

The Choice Scholarship program, one of a number of education reforms passed and signed into law by Indiana’s Republican-dominated state government during this year’s legislative session, has drawn national attention for a number of bold components. It is the only active state voucher program in the country that is not limited to low-income students or students who have attended a low-performing school, and the only active voucher program with no eventual cap on enrollment.

With the program moving into full gear, public schools across the state are bracing for an outflow of funds from already-tight budgets while private schools prepare for an increased demand for spaces in their classrooms. Meanwhile, debate still rages over the initiative as schools and families consider the financial, educational, and social consequences of a program that is projected to grow substantially. Advocates say the voucher program allows all families to make a choice once limited to the well-off; opponents question its constitutionality and wonder if the program is really serving who it’s intended to serve.

Billionaire Education Policy

This from  Sara Goldrick-Rab at the Education Optimists:

A lot of people who work in education, philanthropy, and government are wary of the rise in billionaire policymaking, but are reticent in voicing their concerns. Perhaps this is fear of retaliation -- what Edward Skloot calls the “Brass-Knuckles philanthropy”of the Gates Foundation. But I see another, more heartening piece to this puzzle. People in the philanthropic and advocacy communities don’t want to harm the mission of philanthropy. We fear that revealing the pitfalls of billionaire philanthropy might have some unforeseen effect on the good work that these foundations support.

Billionaire policymaking is the elephant in the room, but nobody seems sure how to approach it. I say that we should name the elephant, but we don’t have to shoot him. There is a middle road.

We’ve named the elephant – it is philanthro-policymaking. It is here to stay. A small, well-networked group of the super-rich will make and fund social policy globally. We don’t have to shoot the elephant, but we need to understand its nature and learn to live happily with it. Like any powerful institution, billionaire philanthropy needs checks and balances. Our task is to develop them.

Now, to education policy. If you’re not a policy wonk, wonkette, or even a wink, as my more politically savvy friends called me in college, stay with me. Once you get past the odd language of experimentation and evaluation, it’s all politics and human folly.

Testing new policy ideas is appealing. Why have a political battle over education reform, when you can experiment with a bunch on a small scale, and then pick the one that works best? In my last post, I mentioned the recent New York Times article “Policy-Making Billionaires” by Nicholas Confessore. In his coverage of Mark Zuckerberg’s controversial 100 million dollar donation to the Newark, NJ school system, Confessore wrote that NJ officials now plan use the money to “experiment” with education policy and find “what works” and then replicate the best programs with public money: “Whatever proves most effective [in the experiments] can then be rolled out on a larger scale.”

This approach to policy reform is not new. It was a central part of welfare reform in the 1990s. Testing and measuring are particlulary attractive to super-wealthy business oriented philanthropists – philanthrocapitalists. Philanthrocapitalist apply business models to philanthropy. They want to measure everything like money.

Social good is harder to measure than money. The official U.S. poverty line was changed this year after years of debate and controversy. We are struggling to even measure poverty. How do we measure student performance? Teacher quality? Our measurements are imprecise at best and meaningless and misleading at worst. Most educators, advocates, researchers, philanthropists, and policymakers are well aware of the problem of measuring complex outcomes. That awareness disappears when we talk about policy experiments. We act as if testing these programs will lead to some empirical, objective truth about what work bests...

What does Kentucky’s business community want out of the 2012 Kentucky General Assembly?

This from the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce:

This year, the Kentucky Chamber’s policy councils have placed special emphasis on policies that warrant immediate action and yield long-term benefits for the Kentucky business community. It’s time to get Kentuckians back to work with policies that will promote economic growth, because growth cannot be sustained without proper policies to support it.
On January 3, as the 2012 General Assembly begins, Kentucky Chamber policy advocates will work directly with legislators to create policies that will:

• support career and technical training.
• raise the high school drop-out age from 16 to 18.
• uphold new, tougher academic standards.
• promote quality teaching – reward great teachers, remove bad teachers.
• implement performance funding for new investment in higher education.
• promote sound budgeting – adhere to the Chamber’s spending principles.
• reform public pension systems to put them on sound financial footing.
• stop prescription drug abuse.
• reduce smoking and improve health and productivity.
• promote a competitive tax climate – reform taxes that hinder job growth.
• allow our horse industry to compete through expanded gaming.
• encourage business investment through angel investment and economic development plans.
• address unemployment interest payments in an employer-friendly manner.
• promote cleaner coal as a key source of reliable energy.
• support low-cost energy by protecting the current Public Service Commission structure.

Download the Chamber’s 2012 Legislative Agenda for a detailed look at the business community’s 2012 priorities.

The New Stupid

This from Straight Up:

A while back Rick Hess published a piece titled "The New Stupid" in Educational Leadership. He has revisited the piece at his blog, Straight Up. In part one, Hess wrote, "It is hard to attend an education conference or read an education magazine without encountering broad claims for data-based decision making and research-based practice. Yet these phrases can too readily morph into convenient buzzwords that obscure rather than clarify." ...and he sets off to provide examples of how misused data can lead to unintended consequences.

The first element of the new stupid is Using Data in Half-Baked Ways. I first encountered the inclination to energetically misuse data a few years ago, while giving a presentation to a group of aspiring superintendents. They were passionate, eager to make data-driven decisions and employ research, and committed to leaving no child behind. We had clearly left the old stupid in the rearview mirror. New grounds for concern emerged, however, as we discussed value-added assessment and teacher assignments.

The group had recently read a research brief high-lighting the effect of teachers on student achievement as well as the inequitable distribution of teachers within districts, with higher-income, higher-performing schools getting the pick of the litter. The aspirants were fired up and ready to put this knowledge to use. To a roomful of nods, one declared, "Day one, we're going to start identifying those high value-added teachers and moving them to the schools that aren't making AYP."

Now, although I was generally sympathetic to the premise, the certainty of the stance provoked me to ask a series of questions: Can we be confident that teachers who are effective in their current classrooms would be equally effective elsewhere? What effect would shifting teachers to different schools have on the likelihood that teachers would remain in the district? Are the measures in question good proxies for teacher quality? What steps might either encourage teachers to accept reassignment or improve recruiting for underserved schools?

My concern was not that the would-be superintendents lacked firm answers to these questions--that's natural even for veteran big-district superintendents who are able to lean on research and assessment departments. It was that they seemingly regarded such questions as distractions.

In part two, Hess takes on those who oversimplify the meaning behind the data, and who underestimate the value of a well-run school.

The second element of the new stupid is Translating Research Simplistically. For two decades, advocates of class-size reduction have referenced the findings from the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project, a class-size experiment conducted in Tennessee in the late 1980s. Researchers found significant achievement gains for students in small kindergarten classes and additional gains in 1st grade, especially for black students. The results seemed to validate a crowd-pleasing reform and were famously embraced in California, where in 1996 legislators adopted a program to reduce class sizes that cost nearly $800 million in its first year and billions in its first decade. The dollars ultimately yielded disappointing results, however, with the only major evaluation (a joint American Institutes for Research and RAND study) finding no effect on student achievement.

What happened? Policymakers ignored nuance and context. California encouraged districts to place students in classes of no more than 20--but that class size was substantially larger than those for which STAR found benefits. Moreover, STAR was a pilot program serving a limited population, which minimized the need for new teachers. California's statewide effort created a voracious appetite for new educators, diluting teacher quality and encouraging well-off districts to strip-mine teachers from less affluent communities. The moral is that even policies or practices informed by rigorous research can prove ineffective if the translation is clumsy or ill considered.

When it comes to "research-based practice," the most vexing problem may be the failure to recognize the limits of what even rigorous scientific research can tell us...

A third and final element of the new stupid is Giving Short Shrift to Management Data. School and district leaders have embraced student achievement data but have paid scant attention to collecting or using data that are more relevant to improving the performance of schools and school systems. The result is "data-driven" systems in which leaders give short shrift to the operations, hiring, and financial practices that are the backbone of any well-run organization and that are crucial to supporting educators.

Existing achievement data are of limited utility for management purposes. State tests tend to provide results that are too coarse to offer more than a snapshot of student and school performance, and few district data systems link student achievement metrics to teachers, practices, or programs in a way that can help determine what is working. More significant, successful public and private organizations monitor their operations extensively and intensively. FedEx and UPS know at any given time where millions of packages are across the United States and around the globe. Yet few districts know how long it takes to respond to a teaching applicant, how frequently teachers use formative assessments, or how rapidly school requests for supplies are processed and fulfilled.

For all of our attention to testing and assessment, student achievement measures are largely irrelevant to judging the performance of many school district employees...

Three Ways to Improve America's Teachers

Wendy Kopp is the founder and CEO of Teach For America and Dennis Van Roekel is president of the National Education Association. They got together to write this in USA Today:

Teaching is one of the most challenging jobs in the USA— and one of the most vital. According to the Census Bureau, about one in five American children live in poverty, and they face enormous obstacles as they journey through the public school system. Despite these challenges, skilled teachers manage every day to change the trajectory of students' lives.

As the leaders of the National Education Association and Teach For America, we know from experience that great teachers are made, not born. Continuous learning, reflection and improvement are the building blocks of a successful teaching career. Unfortunately, not all teachers are getting the high-quality preparation they need to excel with students in the classroom.

In recent years we have seen increased emphasis on teacher quality and evaluating teacher performance. As a logical next step, we must measure the effectiveness of the programs that prepare teachers. That's why we're glad to see that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the Department of Education are tackling this issue head-on with a recent blueprint for teacher education reform.

As the architects of school policy begin implementing this blueprint, we urge them to keep the following in mind:

•Use data to improve teacher preparation. In Louisiana, a state aggressively tackling the question of teacher quality, studies have found significant differences in student outcomes based on where their teachers trained. As described in the Education Department's blueprint, Louisiana is using a three-tiered system to assess whether a teacher preparation program's graduates perform at, above or below the level of the average new teacher. States such as California and Maryland are evaluating programs based on multiple measures, including student, principal and alumni surveys. The common thread is a system for evaluating training programs that prepare teachers for today's classrooms and students for today's information age.

•Bring new talent to the teaching profession. There is an increasing breadth of talent and experience among new teachers — from recent college grads to career-changing professionals — and it is critical that they all have access to high-quality training for a smooth transition into the classroom. One viable path is the proposed Presidential Teaching Fellows, a federal program that would give funding to states that commit to improving teacher training, as well as provide merit-based scholarships for candidates entering teaching through traditional or alternate routes. The Presidential Teaching Fellows places a priority on scholarships for candidates from low-income backgrounds, and also helps recruit and train more teachers of color.

•Give teachers opportunities for continuous professional development. Even after teachers reach the classroom, they need a strong support network and continuing opportunities to hone their skills. The most successful teacher preparation programs recognize this by helping facilitate mentoring relationships with veteran teachers during student teaching and encouraging ongoing professional development opportunities for their graduates. High-quality programs also offer leadership opportunities to their teachers, allowing them to build their skills in areas like curriculum development and peer mentoring. If we expand professional development, new teachers will be much more likely to stick it out past the first challenging years.

One in three K-12 students will be assigned a teacher who is in the first three years of his or her career. As a new generation embarks on a career in teaching, we must commit to giving them the best preparation possible. Secretary Duncan's blueprint is a much-needed catalyst for change. Now schools of education and other teacher education programs must band together and reform practices to better prepare educators for classroom success.

Variations on a Theme of Hallelujah

To celebrate the holidays enjoy this... well actually, theatrical Easter music. But we'll just say Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a nice winter break. It's so confusing.

This from the Alaskan village of Quinhagak, Alaska.



Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus



Random Acts of Culture - Handel's Messiah at Macy's in Philly with the Wanamaker Organ.



Silent Monks Singing Hallelujah



This from the West Side Market Cleveland, Ohio - Hallelujah Chorus Flash Mob



Orlando International Airport Hallelujah Chorus Christmas Flash Mob



The Santa Rosa Symphonic Choir and friends flash Mob at the Mall



Saint Severin Choir at Church Saint Jean-Baptiste de Grenelle (Paris)



Hallelujah Handel's Messiah - Mormon Tabernacle Choir



Seattle Symphony's Hallelujah Chorus flash mob at Nordstrom



Hallelujah Flash Mob, Scottsdale Fashion Square, Arizona



Hallelujah Chorus Flash Mob at Brent Cross Shopping Centre, England



The Andre Rieu Orchestra at The Vrijthof, Maastricht, Netherland



Chicago Gay Men's Chorus: The Hallelujah Chorus

Ky Fails to Win Another RTTT Grant: early childhood

9 States Win Race to Top Early Learning Grants 

This from Politics K-12:

Nine states will share $500 million in Race to the Top early learning grants, the U.S. Department of Education confirmed this morning.

They are: California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Washington. They will get grants ranging from $50 million to $100 million, based on the state's student population, to significantly improve early-education programs in their states. North Carolina was ranked No. 1 by the outside peer reviewers who judged the competition. California, by at least one account, was the surprise dark-horse winner. A must-read New America Foundation blog post also agrees that California—and even North Carolina—were surprises.

"Investing in early learning is one of the smartest things we can do," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said during the White House announcement of the winners this morning. "I'm confident these nine states will lead the transformation."

Duncan added that there were far more stellar applications than he could fund, and he and others in the Obama administration indicated they would like to fund more states if they can. And indeed, it seems the Education Department will get another $550 million in Race to the Top money in fiscal 2012, according to a budget deal just reached by congressional negotiators. However, later in a conference call with reporters, Duncan would not commit to using that money for early learning, saying he didn't know yet what the focus of future competitions would be....

The Corporate Assault on Public Education

This from the Horace Mann League:

The Assault on Public Education: Confronting the Politics of Corporate School Reform, edited by William H. Watkins, interrogates the ways in which neoliberalism and corporate school reform have become tools to attack American public education. Drawn from the “critical studies” tradition—that is, a broader application of critical theory to capitalist hegemony—this collection of essays by nine authors addresses “Who benefits?” and “Who loses?” (p. 3) in a time when neoliberalism widens, not narrows, the economic, political, and cultural inequity in American public education. The book aims to “re-imagine” and “create” public spaces to educate students who value democratic dialogues, collaboration, and equity.

Major contributions of the essays are the powerful case studies that elaborate the causes and the consequences of the privatization of education. Readers can investigate the outcomes of corporate school reform in Oakland, Chicago, and New Orleans public schools, such as raising costs on education, using tax dollars to realize profits for corporations, and implementing outcome-oriented goals in education. This book debunks the myths that elites, the rich, or outside experts can “save” the lives of the underprivileged through competition-based school reform. Rather, under the guise of equality, choice, and accountability, current corporate-oriented school reform supports meritocracy, for-profits in education, and survival of the fittest. The real lessons of Neoliberalism are that “the poor subsidize the rich” (p. 99) and that “one group’s reform can be another group’s calamity” (p. 100). The nine chapters of this book provide concrete examples of social inequity resulting from neoliberal, corporate-model, and venture philanthropy-initiated educational reform...

Hat tip to Tom.