Black is out - maybe we do more than just manage

Cathie Black's brief and tumultuous tenure as NYC Chancellor ended yesterday.   I recall not long ago all the voices heralding her appointment as brillant while derailing archaic regulations that require specific credentials for Superintendents.   Does Black's failure validate these regulations?  I hope not.  Our profession is over regulated.  Rather, I hope her failure will give the elites driving present day education reform pause.  I hope they will take a moment to see the similarities in Black and Michelle Rhee's failure.  They both share a righteousness about their role in the public education system -- as if they know what is best for all kids.   Regardless of how their righteousness is framed (often as savior) the evidence suggests it is oppressive.   This undercurrent of oppressive righteousness remains the driving force behind public school reform policies.  As a result,  I suspect there will be many more Rhee's and Blacks on the horizon eager to "serve."  I worry until professional educators reclaim our profession from the elites, sustainable and effective reforms for all kids well remain elusive.  I don't want to suggest our profession must wall itself off and establish an "us against them" mentality.   This is not realistic and would not be helpful.   Rather, we must demand educational leaders born from successful experience in education.   This seems obvious but a close examination of modern day education leaders reveals a lot of  inspiring ideology from leaders with limited experience in schools working with teachers and students.   Our profession must value itself more and honor the experience of educators for the wisdom, humility and empathy it engenders.  By doing so, we will discover authentic leaders (with innovative ideas) and the experience needed to lead successful reform efforts.  Present day reformers whose resumes imply working in schools is beneath them, cause our profession much harm.

A school with promise and a union

http://lindanathan.com/2011/03/31/a-school-with-promise/

Par for the course, my mentor beautifully sifts through the conflicting issues of present day reform agendas and describes a balanced view of authentic success in one public school.  With each passing year I am increasingly impressed with how Linda engages school reform issues with humility and deep appreciation for the "whole" child school experience.  Furthermore, her skepticism about non union systems is rooted in almost 40 years of experience worthy of great respect.  On this final day of Women's History Month, it seems appropriate to honor her voice with this blog post.  Linda has been a progressive educator throughout her entire career.  She was working to create lasting reforms in systems many years before this work has been made en vogue by Teach For America.  Most important, she IS a school leader of a great, innovative high school.  A school where arts and academics are weighted equally - The Boston Arts Academy.  The school is not designed to be all things to all students.  It is one great school.  In today's world it is an anomaly because it values the arts in so many meaningful ways.  I can't help think there are still many lessons to be learned from BAA and Linda about effective school reform and curriculum development.  If nothing else, it seems schools like BAA and leaders like Linda are deserving of much credibility in the debate about school reform.  Much more so than righteous TFAers with light resumes.   Why shouldn't we be looking to create systems where more anomalies like BAA and leaders like Linda can flourish? Why aren't the cautious tales told by these schools and their leaders about the impact of present day reforms on schools being heard?  Sadly, I am increasingly convinced the unspoken end game of present day reform initiatives is to defund public school institutions and force them to privatize their services.  This will work well for some kids.  The story of privatization in other markets tells us this will not work well for all kids.

Common Core Standards

My doctorate studies have reconnected me with my progressive roots.  I am more skeptical than ever of standards based reform and high-stakes assessment data.  I knew this in the late 1990s.  When I founded my charter school in 2000 I remember our teachers asking me about the standards.  I dismissed them.  I wanted them to design curricula relevant to the students and aimed at challenging students to think critically.  I was confident this would lead to high test scores.  It didn't.  Our test results stunk.  So we revised our curriculum to align with state standards.  We even designed a benchmark assessment system to more tightly align our curriculum to the standards.  Our test results rose dramatically and remained high.  We were deemed a success by the elites.  If not for our greater mission of educating the whole child and not screening students, I can't help but believe the "success" would have rung hollow.  I have had the privilege to know and work with a few amazing (master) teachers over the past decade.  I recently asked them about the Common Core.  Did they like them? Did they think they would be harmful to their curriculum? Would this be the final straw that drove them from the profession?  I was surprised by their response.  Despite my ideological issue with the idea of National Standards and belief they would effectively limit curricula, my idols unanimously loved them.  The best, most passionate and energetic teachers I have known and worked with, love Common Core.  They told me stories how it helped their planning and provided them with much needed clarity in many areas.  I find my self forced to take a bit of my own medicine.  I must pause and reflect about Common Core.  Maybe there is value here? Maybe the devil is in the high-stakes consequences associated with them?

Public Schools

I have been thinking a lot about the concept of a public school lately.  Most of this thinking has been driven by my growing displeasure with public policy and the influential power of "elite" reformers with slim resumes over our entire public school system.  More and more, however, my thinking is driven by my work with individual students.  The more I think about the individual students and their individual stories the more apparent the need becomes to me for us to protect the concept of a public school for all.  Presently, I am serving a fairly affluent community with an abundance of resources.   The recession has hit this community but not as hard as many others.  Even with this relative abundance of resources, many of our students continue to struggle with learning issues and anxieties about self.  There needs are each unique and require much from our school.  When I reflect about how we actually meet these various needs the debates about school reform seem appallingly trivial.  Debates about teacher pay, standards, testing, unions and teacher training really do miss the central point.  It is about the uniqueness of each student.  Yes, we should embrace our profession as one of constant reform and learning that includes appropriate levels of accountability.  For me, however, it seems more important that we defend the concept of a public school.  By doing so, we defend our ability as educators to welcome and work with all students regardless of their need.  I worry accepting anything less than the principle of a public school will lead us to create a system with incentives for schools to not work with all students.  More and more, it seems to me this is how the debate about school reform needs to be framed.   Either we are for public schools, or we are not.   This foundational principle should be what drives our debate about policy and practice.  It might just lead us to authentic reform ideas rather than back to the same old debate.  

Where are the results?

The ed report that all 'reformers' should read  -- http://diigo.com/0fuc3

I think this article raises questions about the quality of the leadership driving present day education reform policy.  These leaders tend to operate with a missionary zeal and righteousness about being focused on results for kids.   But where are their results?  What does this say about the quality of their leadership?

This article highlights the many challenges with Michelle Rhee's policy initiatives once they began to be implemented.  As an ideologue at "war" for students, she frames the debate as being either for kids or not.  But where are her results?  Why do her failures in Washington DC not give her and similar reformers pause about their policy agenda?

The common response of present day education reformers to such criticism is to frame career educators as weak and lacking the moral fortitude to "do the right thing for kids."  Indeed they are superior to criticism.  For example, Rhee's resignation as D.C. Chancellor has been reframed as simply a failure to communicate effectively with the community about the reform agenda.  Hence, the large community outreach initiative happening in Newark, NJ funded by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckenberg.  The possibility Rhee's superior management approach was actually ineffective and oppressive is not contemplated as an option.  For example, she was quoted often as referring to collaboration and consensus building as overrated virtues of school leadership.  Rather, her resignation is seen by "reformers" as cause to "double-down" efforts in support of Rhee's policies.  Again, what about the results? Where is the pause?

We can all agree the status quo is unacceptable for many schools serving our neediest communities.  Instead, we should be asking more difficult questions about what we value in our schools.   These answers may not lead to easily quantifiable outcomes, but that does not make these answers any less important or mean the vision they suggest is unattainable.  Rather, these answers will be unattractive to venture capitalists attempting to leverage the educational marketplace to create investment opportunities.  Results, however, suggest these policies will not best for all students and families.  We must be willing to disappoint the venture capitalists and in doing so the true courageous reformers will be uncovered.  The true leaders.

Indeed the change theory advanced by Kurt Lewin would likely serve present day school reformers well, rather than top-down reform initiatives imposed on students and teachers.  In the end, I am convinced this righteousness, regardless of intention, will be oppressive to those it aims to serve.  Stan Karp predicts, "But its Achilles' heel -- which is in fact the Achilles' heel of the whole society -- is acute racial and class inequality.  And although this inequality once spurred a clarion call to expand government and public sector programs to address it, today a massively well-financed set of campaigns, groups, and projects is driving an agenda that flies the banner of reform but promotes proposals that are likely to do for education what market reform has done for healthcare, housing, and employment: produce fabulous profits for a few and unequal access for the many.  Waiting for Superman is not only blind to this agenda, it also presents some of its key architects as heros (Karp 2010)."