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.

A recent trip to hear a local symphony perform holiday music brought into sharp focus the folly of assuming that the arts are expendable in schools.

Watching a group of musicians as they play is a lesson in just how many aspects of education are well served by keeping music programs as an integral part of the curriculum.

We expect children to learn and retain quite a few things as they progress through the school system. We want them to be able to read, to comprehend what they read, to be able to use math as an every day tool, to have an understanding of science and history.

We expect them to use multiple approaches to solve programs, to work together, respect each other, and the world around them. We want them to help each other and to seek a different direction if the one that is being used isn’t working.

In short, we want them to be full, productive members of society. With this in mind, it is apparent to the Eduskeptic that the arts curricula should always be as valued a part of learning as language arts, math, science, and history.

Musicians, playing in a small group or an orchestra, must work together if they are to produce the intended sound. They have to plan ahead, read and comprehend the language of music, understand how their instrument produces various sounds, follow directions, and lead when called upon.

They are responsible to their own group and the orchestra as a whole. It is important for them to understand what the composer wanted to accomplish with the piece they are playing and what was going on when it was composed.

Musicians must be attuned to the nuances of the music, and be able to follow and respond to the direction of the conductor.

All of these skills are directly related to the entire spectrum of the educational system. In the small school district that the Eduskeptic taught in, a rather high number of the valedictorians and salutatorians at the local high school came from, and still come from, this small district. All of them went through the music program here.

The music teacher, an accomplished musician, retired after a long and distinguished career teaching music and voice to her middle school students. She had to  constantly fight for keeping the program. It is like that in most school districts. The first things to be considered as expendable are the arts programs, despite the reams of research that say how important they are for learning.

Learning to read music and play an instrument demands a very high level of concentration and dedication. One must problem solve. There are no short cuts. Short attention span activities don’t work here. It is the same with reading, math, science. Success takes work.

If any readers of this column have doubts about any of this, please do go to hear your local symphony play. Watch carefully as the experience plays out. It takes the entire orchestra, and everyone associated with the production, to make it work. It is complicated, intricate, and educationally astounding.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

The Governor of California, Jerry Brown, announced recently that due to a severe budget shortfall, transportation funds for the 2012-2013 school year will be eliminated from the school funding process.

What this means is quite simple: except for federally mandated transportation of handicapped students, there will be no home to school transportation provided for students.

The state can do this because home to school transportation is simply not mandated by law. The state has never fully funded the transportation costs of school districts.

As a result, districts have, for many years, had to dip into the general fund to pay for the buses. When that burden got to be too much, bus fees appeared. Districts had to spend quite a bit of money to figure out how much to charge families whose children rode the bus to school.

It isn’t a very straight forward proposition either. Free and reduced breakfast/lunch families had to receive the same free/reduced fees for busing. Families with multiple children riding buses were given family rates.

All of this set up another set of bookkeeping chores for the district offices, which in turn, of course, costs the district money. Nothing is free.

It also set in motion rules governing what to do when families didn’t pay their bus fees. Bus drivers were, and are, put in the position of making sure that the children on the bus have tickets to ride the bus. It’s been done for quite some time now.

The problem that surfaces with a completely cut transportation budget is multi-faceted. The schools in California, and probably the rest of the states as well, don’t have anywhere near the funds to simply fund the transportation system. They barely had the funds to supplement it.

Raising bus fees to cover the loss won’t work, as most families don’t have that much extra money to pay what the new fees would be. Transportation costs can be in the millions of dollars for a large district, and still hit the million mark for small districts.

In urban and sub-urban districts that have neighborhood schools, more children will simply walk. More car-pools will pop up. It is completely likely that the first child who is injured while walking to school will prompt a lawsuit claiming it’s the districts fault.

In rural districts, walking to school becomes very problematic. The distances are too great. There are very few sidewalks. There aren’t any neighborhood schools. Only the children who live very close to the schools might be able to walk, as long as the weather is good.

In areas where it snows, no one is going to walk to school in snow, or for that matter, the rain. It just isn’t going to happen.

More cars on the roads, heading to schools in the morning and in the afternoon, bring with them more pollution, longer lines getting into and out of school parking lots, and the increased likelihood of fender benders and frayed nerves.

It is going to be an extremely complex puzzle to solve. While it seems as though the 2012-2013 school year is quite a ways off, those of us who have or who are working in school districts know full well that it isn’t much time at all.

It is unknown what will actually happen. What is for sure is that eliminating home to school transportation isn’t going to be good, if it actually happens.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

School districts sometimes have to face the unpleasant task of deciding what school or schools should be closed. The issues that can trigger the discussions vary from declining enrollment, financial disruptions within the district, or deterioration of the school itself.

It is never an easy path to take. It can be even more difficult within an urban or sub-urban district that is populated with “neighborhood” schools. Multiple generations of families sometimes have attended the same school. There is a very real sense of ownership by families who attend these schools.

It is no surprise that when the subject comes up that emotions begin to rise. The staff at the school that is being considered for closing generally don’t like the idea too much. Neither do the children and families who consider their school special.

They are all special. They are all also subject to the very cold objective reach of reality. Declining enrollment is probably the most common trigger for closing a school. Declining enrollment equals a loss of revenue for the district. Money doesn’t care about emotion.

It is vitally important for any district considering a school closing to be in very real contact with the constituents of that school. Even under the best of circumstances, it is disruptive, divisive, and difficult.

That is understandable. No one likes the familiar to be disrupted. With enough of a loss of revenue though, closing or consolidating schools becomes a necessity. The choices get down to either loosing staff and increasing class sizes, or closing a school. There are costs involved in closing and maintaining a closed school, but the savings far outweigh the costs.

Several districts in the greater Sacramento area are faced with this reality. Actually, districts all over the state, and nation, are faced with it. While the uproar by parents, students and staff is loud and heartfelt, the financial and practical realities simply cannot be ignored.

When a school is closed, it takes years for some staff and parents to come to grips with it. The system will prevail though, like it or not.

The teacher unions and associations are, for the most part, fully aware of the consequences of ignoring financial reality, just as the school boards and superintendents are.

The financial morass that we seem to be in right now will effect every school district in this state, sooner or later. It would be good for everyone to look at the survival of the whole rather than a small part of it. It’s not easy, not pleasant, just necessary, and quite frankly, sad.

On November 23 California was notified that it was once again out of the running for federal money in the Race to the Top funding. In this round of possible funding, states were competing for $200 million.

Diana Lambert and Vanessa Gibbons, both of the Sacramento Bee, reported on the rejection. According to Gibbons, California lost out on $49 million. The reported reason? State officials would not sign off on “endorsing the establishment of statewide teacher evaluation methods…”

As Eduskeptic has said many times before, it’s not quite that simple. It is clear that the states have to play by the federal rules to get federal funds. Not every has to play either.

Teacher evaluations in California are generally subject to negotiations with teachers unions or associations. Districts simply aren’t legally able to unilaterally impose evaluation systems on teachers. For the most part, this works out pretty well, unless of course one is intent on either bashing teachers, teachers unions/associations, or collective bargaining in general.

Evaluating how effective teachers are is difficult at best. There is no clear cut way to do it. It is important to note that business models applied to evaluating teachers simply won’t work. Business is not in the same boat as education, no matter how much business types wish it to be so.

It is relatively easy to evaluate workers on an assembly line, or in a cubicle farm. Since the business has complete control over raw material and processes, metrics are easy to apply.

The software end of the tech businesses is the same. Evaluation is based on whether the code produced works. Either one produces workable solutions to whatever software issue is at hand or not. Proof is immediately available. As soon as the code is launched, the system either works with the newest release, or crashes everything in sight.

Teachers, and districts, in  the public sector, do not have that kind of luxury. Public school teachers have no control over the raw material they work with: the children who show up in their classrooms. Districts have no control either. Whoever shows up is put into the mix, and the school year begins. 180 or so days later, a grade level is completed, and the children either stay in the same grade level or move on to the next.

It is extremely problematic to fairly evaluate teacher performance over those 180 days, or over a few years. The mix of children changes constantly, from day to day in some cases, and every year for everyone. The curriculum is subject to change as well. Just because a district pushes one set of books and approaches this year, which the teachers are responsible to know, with little or no training, is no indication that the same approach with the same materials will be in place the following year.

Within each classroom is a mix of children who range from simply not ready to the very bright, and every iteration in between. The only constant is the teacher. One fabulous year may be followed by a year that is beyond polite description.

Developing an evaluation system that works across the entire state, any state, is an admirable goal. In California, no one has yet come up with one. No one else has either, despite what the feds say.

The teachers in California aren’t against a good, fair system. They are rightly concerned, as is the State, that just cobbling something together to get the federal money would simply not be worth the damage done to the profession, and by extension, the children in our schools.

If you have the solution to this issue, let me know. As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

Beginning with the 2012-2013 school year, children in California will have to be 5 years old by November 1 to enroll in Kindergarten. By the 2014-2015 school year, children will have to be 5 by September 1 to enroll.

As a long time Kindergarten teacher (24 years when I retired), the shift to children being a full 5 years old at the start of Kindergarten simply makes sense. As the Eduskeptic has reflected on many times, developmental processes cannot be made to happen sooner than is natural. There is no amount of anything that will make it happen.

The problem with children who are a few months shy of their 5th birthday when they enter Kindergarten isn’t necessarily how they will do in Kindergarten, or maybe even first grade. The problems, for the most part, show up later. Starting school on a relatively equal basis with the other children is a good idea.

California has established a “transitional kindergarten” to accommodate those children who are not 5 by the time school starts.

An article in the Sacramento Bee, on November 14, provided some information regarding transitional kindergarten. This new “grade level” accomplishes a couple of things that probably aren’t part of the up front reasoning behind the move.

Districts will be able to keep teachers in the classroom. Districts budgets are based on the number of enrolled children. If all of the not yet 5 year olds weren’t enrolled somewhere in the district, revenues would drop. By the time September 2014 rolls around, it could be a significant drop, as the full impact of the 5 year old requirement hits home. Transitional kindergarten eliminates this issue.

Another thing it does is provide what one hopes is a very high level of day care for all of those not quite 5’s. It’s a gift to the parents who were counting on having there little one in school as soon as possible. The goals are currently unclear, but rest assured that there will be goals aplenty, which brings up the question of whether a child could fail to “pass” transitional kindergarten.

It will be a challenge for districts to come up with the appropriate people and method of caring for these very young children. Teachers of young children, being the caring and professional people they are, will undoubtedly do their very best for these young ones.

The issue of age appropriate starts in Kindergarten has been discussed by Kindergarten teachers since the first Kindergartners stepped into classrooms. The state legislators have been batting the idea around for 25 years, according to Sen. Joe Simitian, who was quoted in the Bee article.

He authored the legislation that created transitional kindergarten. His take on it is that it will be a “game changer” (Sac. Bee). While it is unclear in the article, authored by Diana Lambert of the Bee, who said that it will “ultimately lead to better test scores, fewer children placed inappropriately into special education classes and fewer held back in school”, there is no supporting link or evidence related to the statement. How such a “grade level” would do such a thing is at this point a mystery.

Here is another quote from the article: “TK will focus on improving motor and social skills to prepare children for the academic rigors of kindergarten.”

It’s a pretty simple statement, except for the last four words: “academic rigors of kindergarten.” Academic rigors should, in the Eduskeptics opinion, never ever be used in conjunction with Kindergarten. Ever. Never.

That kind of statement reflects a very disturbing direction in our schools. The only rigors children in Kindergarten should encounter is who will be line leader, what’s for lunch, what’s going on in their world, how many A/B patterns can you make, and what stories will we hear today.

More to come on this issue as the days flow by. As always, assume nothing, verify everything.

The K-12 educational institutions throughout this country have a few things in common. They cost a lot of money to run, they are complex, they are full of children, adolescents, and adults. Some work better than others, and the ratio of working to not working so well changes all the time.

The constant clamor for change is always there too, no matter where the school is located, and no matter what the grade level mix is. That is, in the Eduskeptic’s opinion, as it should be. Education is not a static enterprise.

It is common today to hear complaints about teachers, the system, the results. Political agendas are liberally mixed into the goulash of what is wrong and how to fix it. For some rather strange reason, teachers seem to the main target of those who rail against the public system.

Teachers in the K-12 system, with rare exception, have professional credentials to teach, gained after a five year march through the University and teacher ed system. The credentials are pretty specific as to what the individual may teach. Having a credential for self-contained K-8 classrooms does not permit one to teach any stand alone subject to rotating groups of students. A specialized credential for a single subject is required to do that.

It is true that some teachers come into the field with other licensed skills, or gain them while also teaching. An RN, PhD, Marriage, Family, Child Counseling, Nutritionist license pop up occasionally.

Except for the nurses, schools generally don’t have other licensed professionals on the payroll, in the classroom. School psychologists simply have a Masters Degree, and credential and expertise in testing. They are not Phd level psychologists who are licensed or able to provide psychological services.

Here are some things that regular classroom teachers are simply not either licensed to do, or necessarily have the requisite skills for: counseling of any kind, including marriage, psychological or any other kind, medical or legal advice or expertise, nutrition, qualified expertise in any of the alphabet named syndromes, disabilities, or special needs, life style coach, clairvoyance, palm reading, or the ability to see into the future, to name a few.

We simply teach. That is what our license permits us to do. Expecting a teacher to enter into other professional fields without the proper credentials or expertise is simply wrong. Yet, every day, it happens. Teachers are increasingly finding themselves pressured to be all things to all people.

Classroom teachers already have a full day teaching. Districts need to place professionals in the schools to address the other issues, if the district believes that is necessary. Parents need to understand that teaching is in and of itself a rather intense, full time endeavor.

If other services are needed or wanted, parents and district officials need to figure out how to offer them, or not, outside the confines of the classroom.

Let the teachers teach. Let the other professionals do whatever it is they have a license to do.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything.