eduskeptic

On Wednesday, Jan. 25, Michelle Rhee and Kevin Johnson were in Sacramento to hold what was termed “round table discussions” regarding education. Just a bit of a fact finding experience, in several different large California cities.

Rhee’s stated goal is for her StudentsFirst company to be a “voice” for children in education. The piece on her website regarding her is quite slick. It says she’s been working the last 18 years to give children what they need to succeed in school.

Of those 18 years, 3, and only 3, were spent in a classroom. She was a Teach for America Corps teacher in Baltimore, Md. Her claims of greatness in the classroom cannot be verified. At least, the Eduskeptic hasn’t found anything to support her claims. What seems to be true is that she was simply an average rookie teacher who quit after 3 years to pursue a corporate career path instead.

Her brief tenure (3 years) as Chancellor (Superintendent) of the Washington, D.C. school system was marked by a slash and burn approach and left things in chaos, with an unresolved cheating scandal. Her main claim to “reform” was firing a few hundred teachers who, according to her, weren’t good enough.

Rhee’s position is that senior teachers shouldn’t be given any preference in the layoff schedules. She leans toward keeping the newer, younger, and very much less expensive teachers. It is nothing more than an economic strategy, and has scant little to do with educational abilities.

The long and short of it is this: follow the money, always follow the money. Rhee seems to be much more interested in the economics of being on a large stage. To be sure, there is a lot more money to be had running a “non-profit” that bashes teachers, unions, and schools under the guise of reform than there ever will be in teaching. It’s about positioning for the big, national dollars, a lot of them.

If you are in the city of Sacramento, there is another caution, and it has to do with Kevin Johnson and his bid for a “strong mayor” position, which puts him in a spot to have direct effect on the city school system. His wife is Michelle Rhee. Be careful what you wish for.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything. Check all the links out, do your own research, come to your own conclusions.

Diane Ravitch, in an interview in the Sacramento Bee on Saturday, Jan. 21, mentioned something that the Eduskeptic has written about before, and most likely will again. Ravitch doesn’t think that there should be an “alternate path” to become a teacher. I agree.

There are those who believe that, somehow, becoming a teacher doesn’t really require University level educational training, along with the appropriate degree. “Life experience” is often put forth as the equivalent of the entire teacher training program.

That sentiment demeans the entire profession of teaching. It is an easy thing for those who want to run a school system like their businesses to say. Apparently the degree and training don’t count for anything in their business.

Teaching is a very complex endeavor. Having a bucket full of “life experiences” certainly can be helpful on the road to becoming a teacher. That bucket full cannot replace the foundation that teachers learn and build on at the University level, and then put to use in the classroom.

Considering the staggering number of new teachers who don’t make it past the first year, and an even greater number who quit the profession before leaving the rookie ranks at year 5, one can intuit that this may be an experience that isn’t a walk in the park.

As Ravitch, me, and many others have pointed out, there isn’t an “alternative path” to other professions. I trust that the people at the bank have the appropriate training to do what they do there. The doctors I see are all fully qualified in their fields. All of them went through University and medical training to become doctors. The nurses who have taken care of me during hospital stays were all qualified RN’s. Not one of them got their RN degree by presenting their experiences as a truck driver, engineer, or mom. And on it goes.

I can’t drive one of the big trash trucks that come to my house each week. I don’t know anything about them. If I could start one, I wouldn’t know what to do next. Ever seen inside the cab on one of those things?  It looks like a land based F-16 in there. I would need extensive training and practice to drive one.

So, why would anyone think that an “alternative path” to become a teacher would be OK? When I became a teacher, I had worked at quite a few other jobs, including selling soap door-to-door, and being a Good Humor Ice Cream man. I was a veteran, not far out of my Army service.

So what? Rightfully, I didn’t receive any credit for any of it, including being a bag boy at Ralph’s market. I had to get a university degree, get accepted into the teacher training program, get through that and my student teaching, and then, and only then, was I granted a teaching credential. There was no job guarantee after all that.

That process weeds out quite a few people. Those of us who made it through then had to get through probationary status at various school districts.

I expect that teachers, at all levels, have the necessary training, expertise, and intestinal fortitude to teach at their best. I think most parents do too. I do not believe that life experiences equal the equivalent of a fully earned teaching credential.

You should be happy that I’m not driving a large trash truck through your neighborhood. It’s much safer that way.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

Diane Ravitch, has a long history of working within various educational systems. She has a doctorate in history from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, along with an impressive curriculum vitae. She has been quite active since earning it in 1975. Her focus was on history and education history.

She started out championing charter schools, choice, and got behind NCLB. She’s changed her mind. Her words: “In short, accountability turned into a nightmare for American schools, producing graduates who were drilled regularly on the basic skills but were often ignorant about almost everything else.”

She can document all that she has done. It’s there for anyone to look up and verify. That’s as it should be.

She will be addressing teachers, hundreds according to an article in the Sacramento Bee written by Melody Gutierrez, on Jan. 20 at the Sacramento Convention Center. The host for the event is the Sacramento City Teachers Association. Her goal, according to the article, is “to give public school teachers some backup.”

Ravitch is critical of the reform measures that Michelle Rhee and her StudentsFirst advocacy. The Eduskeptic has written a few times about Rhee and her lack of experience in the public school system, and the inability to find anything to substantiate her claims of being anything other than an average rookie teacher.

In short, she spent 3 years as a classroom teacher before quitting to go into the corporate world. Her claims of greatness in the classroom are not supported by any documentation the Eduskeptic has been able to find. There isn’t any. Her tenure as the chancellor (superintendent) of the Washington D.C. school system was, by any standard, a disaster.

Ravitch is right to be skeptical of Rhee and her idea of reforms. To have someone like Ravitch land in Sacramento to address the actual, real, verifiable history of the entire testing mess, should prove to be a good counterpoint to those who take a slash and burn approach to teachers, teachers associations, and students.

If you can make it to Ravitch’s presentation, do. It should be an interesting day.

It is important to look up and research all of this yourself. The Eduskeptic did, long ago. Nothing has come up since then to alter his opinion.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

The school year in most states is dictated by the state. Actually, it’s most likely to be a specified number of instructional minutes for the school year. The days in school should encompass the minutes.

Are the number of days spent in school important? Are they more important than the quality of the days? Which is more important? It is a question that is coming to the front of the class in California this year. Lack of funding may require a cut in the school year.

Ed Lascher, an associate dean at California State University, Sacramento, is the acting director of the Center for California Studies. He recently penned an article for the Sacramento Bee, based on research by two other professors at Sac State.

Lascher’s closing comment in the article is that the “…idea that we can shave a few days here and there from the school calendar without harming learning outcomes” should be called “…wishful thinking.”

The research, which he described as “vigorous” was published by Su Jin Jez, and Robert Wassmer, both of whom are Sac State profs.

Their research was funded by the state Senate’s Office of Research’s faculty research fellows program. The funding is, according to the Bee, administered by Sac States Center for California Studies, which is where Lascher comes in.

The term “vigorous” research in connection with anything that has to do with education always catches the Eduskeptics attention. Educational research is not always what one would term “vigorous”. Quite often it is simply is anything but that.

The title of the paper is The Impact of Learning Time on Academic Achievement *. I read the paper, twice. It is rigorous and seems to have been thoroughly thought out and written. It is one of the few papers the Eduskeptic has read that includes the confusing array of issues that live everyday in every classroom in the nation.

Jez and Wassmer used something called regression analysis, a statistical method that allows for “control for other explanatory factors besides learning time that may cause differences in observed standardized test scores” in their research. It’s a good thing to do when addressing educational issues.

In any research about learning, being able to control, at any level, for the complex assortment of things that effect how a child learns is critical. Without at least a passing nod to the plethora of factors that make up the learning day, conclusions are difficult, if not impossible, to accept.

The long and short of their research is that the amount of time spent in school does, along with other very important factors, effect how a child learns. “Child” in this case covers the K-12 spectrum.

The paper is 26 pages long, which includes the intro and bibliography. On pages 22 and 23, there are some extremely interesting points raised.

In three paragraphs on these 2 pages they make it quite clear that the instructional day is impacted by multifaceted issues, one of which is the length of the day. It is important to note that these issues are inter-related, and one alone does not trump any of the others in importance.

Whether this bit of research will have any impact on the legislators or the Governor here in California is an unknown. Someone in the chambers will actually have to read it, which may be too much to ask. Hopefully, the Eduskeptic will be proved wrong in his lack of faith in the politicos in Sacramento.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything. Read the article, then the research paper. Let me know what you think.