rheeForm

Proposed education reforms that do not imagine that current and beginning teachers can become more effective while on the job should be considered null and void. This postulation, if accepted, would direct Michelle Rhee's new StudentsFirst agenda to the nearest paper shredder.

To be blunt, it is just plain naive and short-sighted to think that we can maximize teacher effectiveness purely by firing more teachers and marginally changing the cadre of incoming teacher candidates. Is supporting and strengthening the teaching practice of our veteran educators not worthy of our focus and investment?

StudentsFirst's "Elevate Teaching" policy objectives are limited to evaluating teachers and principals, reforming teacher certification laws, reforming teacher compensation, "exiting" teachers, and eliminating teacher tenure. Specifically, the objectives are:

• State law must require evaluation that is based substantially on student achievement. Evaluation tools should measure at least half of a teacher's performance based on student achievement, using a value-added growth model. The other aspects of a teacher's evaluations should derive from measures that align with student results, including high-quality observations and student evaluations of teacher practice.
• To avoid all teachers being ranked as effective without meaningful assessment, evaluations must anchor effectiveness around a year's worth of growth.
• State law must require principal evaluation that is based on student achievement and effective management of teachers. Districts should evaluate at least half of a school administrator's performance based on student achievement, and the remaining portion should mostly relate to their ability to attract, retain, manage, and develop excellent teachers.
• State law should give districts the autonomy to develop teacher evaluation systems apart from the collective bargaining process. Evaluations should be a matter of district policy.
• States must reduce legal barriers to entry in the teaching profession, including complicated credentialing or certification schemes that rely upon factors that do not clearly correlate with teacher effectiveness.
• State law should not be structured to penalize districts financially for recruiting teachers from alternate certification programs.
• States should adopt a clear process by which alternative certification programs are authorized, continually evaluated, and decommissioned if not producing high-quality educators.
• State law must facilitate digital learning by allowing certification for online instruction and modifying or eliminating mandatory "seat time" laws.
• State law must require pay structures based primarily on effectiveness. Teacher contracts must allow for individual performance-based pay.
• State law and district policy should not mandate higher salaries for master's degrees or additional education credits.
• State law should require staffing decisions (transfers, reductions, placements) be based on teacher effectiveness.
• State laws must prohibit forced placements and allow district control in staffing. Districts should ensure that teacher contracts require mutual consent placements. Districts should have the flexibility to offer defined grace periods, severance, or other options for teachers who have effective ratings, but do not find a mutually agreeable placement. Teachers rated ineffective should be exited from the system.
• State law should not grant, implicitly or directly, tenure or permanent contracts for PK–12 education professionals.

There is evidence (from sources such as IES and AIR) that shows that high-quality approaches to new teacher induction and professional development pay dividends in terms of student outcomes. Why would a "student first" agenda utterly ignore initiatives that work in favor of some that have a paltry or non-existent research base?

To keep it brief, please read some of my most relevant past posts arguing why a focus on teacher support and development makes sense and why it should be at the centerpiece of every education reform agenda.

• Teacher Quality: What You Need To Know
• Adding Value To The Value-Added Debate
• Positive Effects Of Comprehensive Teacher Induction
• State Teacher Policies Suck!
• Race To The Top: Under The Hood
• Research: Attracting New Teachers To Urban Schools
• Thoughts On Equitable Teacher Distribution
• Measurement Is Not Destiny
• Does Mentoring Improve New Teachers?
  

With regard to the StudentsFirst plan, to use a Twitter construct, #edreformfail.

Tots (with a Tool) Tuesday

In their favorite colors, a sorting activity with tweezers. This is the first time they used tweezers for a sorting activity, as the first tool is the hand. I was smiling ear to ear when I put this together, because I knew they would love it. We used to dress them in these colors to keep our twin-sleep-deprived minds straight ;) My little ones are growing up. How long can I call them tots?

Huck Finn, Post Two: Beyond Bowdlerization

I know, I know. A few days ago with great fanfare (ha!) I launched a series of posts about teacher, I mean teaching quality, and that series is, indeed, simmering on the stove. However, before the moment passed, I wanted to do a post or two on the whole Huck Finn firestorm. For those of you who aren't familiar, a professor of English from Auburn University recently decided to publish a version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the K-12 classroom that would substitute all the "nigger" words with "slave."

My first reaction was to say "that is sooo ridiculous." Granted, I hadn't read anything about it or spent any time thinking about it, nor do I know much about Huck Finn or Mark Twain; I didn't think I needed to. Once I started reading more, though, I realized that just saying "that's ridiculous" was simplistic of me, that it's a complex topic.


Colorlines had a thoughtful post about it, supported by some good links. (Um, math) teacher and blogger Jose Vilson has some interesting things to say on the topic, i.e., so this is what we're going to do to counter racism?!?! I also recommend reading Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog on the topic here (by guest blogger Jamelle Bouie) and here.

I also read The New York Times "Room for Debate" segment on the issue. At "Room for Debate" only a few people are selected to give their insights, and unlike Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog, it doesn't take me as long to slog through the hundreds of comments normally posted in response to a post. I did have a hard time, though, being lectured by some of the NYT commentators on the literary travesty of not keeping the word "nigger" in the text while they themselves employed the "n-word" version of the word. They and other commentators can hardly urge classroom teachers and students to dig deep and find their comfort zone with the word "nigger" as it is in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, when they hardly seem able to refer to it themselves.

There is, honestly, also something that rubs me the wrong way about firestorms such as these. I had a somewhat similar response during the Louis Gates Jr. arrest incident (see ironically, The New York Times, "Room for Debate" on this for perspectives that convinced me of the incident's complexity). It's not that I'm a proponent of teaching Huck Finn devoid of the word "nigger" or that I think what happened with Gates wasn't outrageous, or that we shouldn't have public conversations about such events. Rather, it seems like they provide the impetus for well meaning and "enlightened" citizens, writers, pundits, and literature enthusiasts (yes, in essence, me) to scream, that's ridiculous!, denounce racism, racial profiling, white washing, and censorship, and announce their unwavering support for teachable moments and acceptance of our white supremacist, slave-holding past. All of this clamor is (sincerely) well and good, but even better would be to expand the conversation, to take a step beyond the default setting of outrage, to roll up our sleeves and get into the muck of the causes of the disease--righteously condemning its symptoms is a no-brainer, and it's not enough. As Ta-Nehisi Coates characteristically said regarding the NAACP's response to the secessionist brouhaha in South Carolina, "At some point, there has to be something more than 'You're wrong.'"

So while I agree with the sentiments expressed by Bouie, TNC, and the diverse array of viewpoints at "Room for Debate," besides the few teachers who spoke up in the TNC comments' section, I wanted to hear from more K-12 English teachers and K-12 students on the topic, especially from those who are actually teaching and receiving the work. With that in mind, I asked my father-in-law, Joe Riener, who has spent four to six classes per year for nearly fifteen years on Huck Finn while teaching high school English at Wilson Senior High School in DCPS, to write a guest blog post here. (Also, after I wrote this, I came across this forum for student input in The New York Times.)

Joe's take is similar to some of the English professors' at "Room for Debate." I value his opinion because I liked and learned from what he has to say, but also because he is actually doing the work of teaching high school students Huck Finn. That being said, I still think it's important to think beyond ideals and theories, and to seriously consider the practicalities of teaching either version of Huck Finn, and all of the depth, analysis, discussion, and learning that should go along with it. This is particularly true in the context of the currently popular education reformers and Obama administration's emphasis on tenure reform and accountability.

I'm all in favor of removing teachers who are refusing to do their jobs, but tenure is meant to help protect teachers from unfounded dismissal, based, for example, on curricular choices, politics, race, or ethnicity. The teaching of Huck Finn has long been problematic, causing its censorship in schools. Tenure could protect a teacher from consequences to her career when she, for example, takes on the worthwhile project of teaching Huck Finn in all its complexities. Furthermore, I'm afraid this attack on the idea of this version of Huck Finn is missing the big picture. In the face of ceaseless, out-of-proportion emphasis on accountability via standardized tests and the inevitable math and reading skills drills that accompany them, the entire study of liberal arts including literature, art, music, history, science and humanities is being corroded. Bye bye, in depth and interdisciplinary coverage and discussion of Huck Finn. Bye bye, rich and meaningful curriculum. Hello, knowing who wrote the book, in what year, what it's main idea is, and how to identify those correct answers on the multiple choice standardized test. Hello, anti-intellectualism.

So, yes, by all means, let's preserve and teach Huck Finn as is, but let's consider the pressures that cause educators to request the "white washed" version in the first place. And let's confront the possibility that soon the likes of Huck Finn and its historical and cultural context won't be taught at all, especially not by Joe Riener, who refused to put on an "IMPACT" lesson. His feedback on thousands of student essays was not deemed relevant to his evaluation. His time and energy spent on mentoring the student newspaper, the drama players, and his nuanced teaching of Huck Finn, other texts, and of the writing process to a diverse group of students landed him towards the bottom of IMPACT's scale, and for this he received a letter that stated,

"You have been rated 'ineffective' under IMPACT. As a result, your position as a Teacher, English with the DCPS is terminated." 

He has become one of the hundreds of teachers Michelle Rhee brags about firing.

You want teachers like Joe Riener who will take hold of teachable moments and teach a rich and challenging curriculum? Then stop blaming them for our society's failures and start supporting them. You want Huck Finn in schools? Then as you fight to keep a crucial word from being purged from its text, fight against the purging of those teachers who are experienced, skilled, and bold enough to teach it. Now.

Children Of The World

No words needed :)

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Busy As a Bee

You may have noticed the recent near radio silence from Sara on our blog. No, she isn't on a secret mission and hasn't left academia to join the NSA. She, however, has been busy as a bee this past year, starting with giving birth to our daughter, being named a W.T. Grant Scholar, and engaging in important academic research.

My pride in her commitment to, excellence in and passion for issues of educational and social inequality is coupled with a recognition of her unwillingness to see academic research relegated to dusty and sometimes impenetrable academic journals. Sara has been aggressive and public with her research and committed to engaging in and communicating her work in a policy relevant manner. That fits a critical need in public policy conversations.

That's why I was quite pleased to see Sara's name mentioned among the ranks of the most prominent academics in the nation in the "EduScholar" rankings issued by the American Enterprise Institute's Rick Hess. And Sara isn't even yet a senior scholar nor is she an economist (who are overrepresented). Hess says:

The academy today does a passable job of recognizing good disciplinary scholarship but a pretty mediocre job of recognizing scholars with the full range of skills that enables them to really contribute to the policy debate. Today, there are substantial professional rewards for scholars who do hyper-sophisticated, narrowly conceived research, but little institutional recognition, acknowledgment, or support for scholars who carry their efforts into the public discourse. One result is that the public square is filled by impassioned advocates, while silence reigns among those who may be more versed on the research or more likely to recognize complexities and hard truths.

I think these kinds of metrics are relevant because I believe it's the scholars who do these kinds of things "who can cross boundaries, foster crucial collaborations, and bring research into the world of policy in smart and useful ways."

Jay Greene -- seeking to give credit to more junior scholars who have had a great impact on contemporary public policy conversations and to move beyond rankings based on a single year (2010) of performance -- perfected the Hess rubric, causing Sara's ranking to increase by about 30 points to #39.

Hotshot researchers like Roland Fryer, Jacob Vigdor, Susanna Loeb, Matthew Springer, Brian Jacob, Jonah Rockoff, and Sara Goldrick-Rab are having a large impact on current education policy discussions even though their careers have not been long enough to accumulate a longer list of books and articles. The original ranking shortchanged these scholars in measuring their current “public presence.”

I agree. As I mentioned in this recent post, advocates who too often simply echo one another's opinions are too influential in policy debates. There is an important void to be filled by the likes of academic researchers as well as classroom teachers.

Congrats, Sara! Keep up the great work!

A New Year

We hope all our readers enjoyed relaxing holidays and have returned refreshed for the new year. While our family and professional lives continue to make it difficult to blog with great frequency, we hope you'll continue to read our infrequent commentary and join in the discussion during 2011.

A few thoughts to start the new year...

(1) Outcomes First? If outcomes are what really matter in education, it is interesting that so many advocates, commentators and policy organizations seem to count adoption of favored policy reforms as ends in themselves. We are all guilty of this to some degree. It is only when there is a research base to suggest that specific reforms and programs work that there is a strong argument to be made. Examples might include targeted class size reduction in grades k-3, high-quality early childhood education, and comprehensive, multi-year induction support for new teachers. But, at a macro level, certain arguments fall apart when there is no evidence to back them up, such as teachers' unions being a wart on the ass of progress. Take Massachusetts, for example, a strong union state. It leads the nation in TIMMS scores in spite of the fact that the Massachusetts Teachers Association looms large in state politics.

(2) Teachers, Teachers: One of the best developments of 2010 was an increased focus on teachers and on teacher effectiveness in particular. This focus was not always for the better, as in the case of the Los Angeles Times' decision to publish value-added scores for individual teachers or the misleading, union-bashing documentary Waiting For Superman. But an overall focus on the outcomes of teaching is the right policy conversation to be having. However, that conversation must lead to solutions that create comprehensive structures and systems to maximize benefits for all involved -- students, teachers, parents, etc. Regular feedback about teaching is critical for educators, not just summative data or annual evaluations that don't provide actionable feedback. A key goal around improving teacher effectiveness should be the development of schools and districts as communities of practice that make teaching more of a collective endeavor and support all educators to strengthen their individual practices and skills.

(3) ESEA: I am increasingly of the mind that something -- but not much of anything -- will happen with regard to reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2011. If successful, reauthorization will primarily serve as a token of bipartisanship that both parties can carry into the 2012 elections to say "we can work together to get things done." If accomplished, it may be one of the few significant bipartisan accomplishments of this Congress. Look for substantive tweaks to the No Child Left Behind Act rather than a wholesale overhaul of it. More flexibility around AYP. Attention to the needs of rural districts. More local control. Perhaps a stronger focus on teacher performance pay, charter schools and school choice options -- some elements of the Obama Blueprint combined with priority issues for Republicans like John Kline and Lamar Alexander. And level funding, at best.

(4) Exclusivity: One of my wishes for the New Year is that the DC echo chamber would become less and less influential in conversations about education policy. I am constantly amazed at how regularly the usual suspects parrot, squawk about and retweet the comments and ideas of the other usual suspects, especially those with whom they have personal or proprietary relationships. And how the same usual suspects are quoted saying the same usual things by the mainstream and educational media. This dynamic plays out, too, in conversations within multiple exclusive fiefdoms within education that generally have little to no intersection with fiefdoms with competing worldviews or different policy priorities. As someone who once worked in DC and who now works for a non-DC-based national non-profit organization that has relationships with all sides of the education community, I am especially cognizant of this dynamic in which voices outside of the Beltway 'influentials' are not heard.

One alternative stream recently profiled by Rick Hess and Jay Greene are academics doing policy-relevant research and cutting a high profile in policy conversations. We need more of that type of intellect in play -- and not just from economists. Another is the rise of state-based reform groups like Stand for Children, the PIE Network, Delaware's Rodel Foundation and Oregon's Chalkboard Project. Finally, the voice of actual teachers is too often missing from policy conversations. Fortunately, there are numerous efforts afoot to remedy this. Two, in particular, worth checking out are Teach PLUS and the VIVA Project. My organization, the New Teacher Center, in conjunction with the College Board, recently profiled real-life teachers in a publication about the importance of teacher mentoring.

One way or another, 2011 undoubtedly will be an interesting year for education.

A High School English Teacher on Huck Finn's Bowdlerization

After doing some reading and thinking about the bowdlerization of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huck Finn, I realized I wasn't hearing as much directly from K-12 teachers or students as I wanted to. Hence, I asked what my father-in-law, Joe Riener, had to say. He's a high school English teacher and Mark Twain aficionado who spends four to six classes each year teaching Huck Finn.

I would LOVE to hear from other teachers and students on this, and I hope they'll comment below or on my next post, my own analysis of the controversy.


Here's are Joe's thoughts on the recent revision of Huck Finn:


It seems quite natural to me that the descendants of those who felt this
word’s lash would seek to protect their children from it. Like the swastika, it
evokes the enormity of human suffering in our collective souls. I can
imagine, if I were to stand outside a DC Metro stop shouting “Nigger!” that
middle-aged men and women, in suits on their way to work, would beat me
to death, or weep as they flee from the sound of that terrible word.

I do remember the knot in my stomach when my ten year old son asked me,
“Dad, what’s the Holocaust?” To explain human evil to children robs them.
Let’s not have children read this book. We don’t want them to know. This is
better than concealing the truth, covering up our awful history like a mass
grave or a burial at sea. When we decide we want to educate the young,
let’s do it for real.

I’m an educator who teaches Huck Finn every year to high school students.
Before we begin, I have them read Gloria Naylor’s short essay, “Mommy,
what does nigger mean?” Naylor came home one day from grade school. A
white boy, irritated that she’d done better on a test that he did, had used it.
She’d heard it many times before that, fondly characterizing relatives or
friends. Clearly the angry boy intended it differently. So mom told her what
he meant. We then talk in class about the power of language to oppress.
That’s the word’s purpose. It’s in the novel 219 times because oppressors
have to work hard to maintain a lie.

We then read Mark Twain’s painful and ultimately tragic depiction of the
power of American racism, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I am
ushering high school students out of their childhoods into our collective
horror.

We see Huck, after much struggle and careful tutoring on Jim’s part, decide
to defy his slave-holding culture rather than betray his friend Jim, now
recaptured at Phelps Plantation. When he rips up the note informing Miss
Watson of Jim’s whereabouts, and asserts, “all right, I’ll go to hell,” Huck
intends to free Jim as soon as he can. He doesn’t. Tom arrives, has plans
that preempt Jim’s immediate release. Jim becomes their plaything, a way to
act out their escape fantasies. Ultimately, despite Huck’s report to us of Jim’s
suffering, Huck can’t even tell Tom to go to hell. In the end we find that all
their efforts were for nothing. Tom knew Miss Watson had died, and freed
Jim. Huck is relieved his friend Tom was not a nigger-stealer. There’s no
anger from Huck towards Tom, that they’d almost gotten killed, that Jim had
been put through needless suffering. To see that Huck’s perception of Jim as
a human being had no consequence in Huck’s behavior breaks the heart.
Huck’s feelings for Jim are no match for the power of Huck’s racism. It’s a
novel with a very sad ending.

Twain put the book away, unfinished, in the 1870's, after the chapter where
Huck resolves to go to hell rather than betray his friend. Twain didn’t want to
publish it with that ending. It wasn’t published until the 1880's. What Twain
saw happening in that time was the abandonment of the cause of the freed
slaves by the victorious North. To read Huck Finn alongside Race and Reunion, The Civil War in American Memory, by David W. Blight; or The Day Freedom Died, The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction by Charles Lane; or Redemption, The Last Battle of the Civil War, by Nicholas Lemann makes it clear that Twain has Huck embody the
North’s retreat. The novel is a prescient depiction of the unfolding tragedy.

Union soldiers had gone into battle singing, “[Christ] died to make men holy,
let us die to make men free.” They indeed perished by the hundreds of
thousands. Yet the North pulled out their soldiers from the conquered South
in the 1870's and 1880's. This left the former slave masters to determine the
fate of their freed slaves. The militarily defeated Confederates established a
social and economic system of oppression that endured for 80 years, until
the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950-60's.

Many critics say Twain wrote a good book, except for those Phelps Plantation
Chapters. I’m with them. Better the feel-good ending, of the white boy, now
enlightened, rescuing his friend, than a truthful yet disturbing historical
metaphor. And let’s have Romeo and Juliet wake up, there in the tomb, and
laugh and embrace.

We’re talking about changing the word nigger for slave (that’s better? Less
difficult to explain to children?) because Twain’s novel about the enduring
power of racism still troubles our country. We’d like to protect children from
its power in our lives. Let’s do that completely. For the rest of us, Twain’s
masterpiece shows us how much work we’ve left to do.