What was the highest traffic day ever?

December 2, 2009, the day I published this post:

“Overpaid Wall Street Private School Dad Throws a Hissy Fit”

Oh, internet.

So, OK.  There are a lot of people out there that have no problem with the literally hundreds of millions, and possibly billions, of private dollars flowing into public education.  Mayor Dean certainly doesn’t.  Charter schools and charter networks like KIPP certainly don’t.  Michelle Rhee definitely has no problem with it.

Me?  I’m not sure I like it.

I’m just not sure I’m comfortable with all that private money flowing into public schools and public school systems, even quasi-public schools like charter schools, because if there’s anything the relationship between the federal government and state governments has shown us, it’s that money always comes with strings attached.  Always.  And I know there’s at least one guy in Nashville who’ll back me up on this.

That’s why this news is both disheartening and not all that surprising:

The Gates Foundation just made a sizable grant to the American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC). 

Whatever your politics (and understand that ALEC is responsible for writing/providing the blueprint for some very controversial state legislation, from the Arizona immigration law to voter ID laws to so-called “long-form birth certificate” laws), this is a direct indication that the Gates Foundation has specific legislative priorities, and is not just a disinterested funder of worthy causes, looking to support research and best efforts in education.

Maybe the Gates Foundation never pretended to the the latter, but I don’t know.  This just seems like a bridge too far.

Edit, 9:18 a.m.: Fixed Joanne Barkan’s name (thank you Dianne Ravitch for pointing out the mistake).

In case you hadn’t heard (via ACLU press release), the Sumner County School Board became the latest in a line of Tennessee counties to succumb to the efforts of the Tennessee ACLU to keep religious activity out of public schools:

NASHVILLE – The Sumner County Board of Education voted last night to enter into a consent decree with the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN) that ends the unconstitutional pattern and practice of religious activities in the Sumner County School System.

The settlement was agreed to after ACLU-TN filed a lawsuit against the school district on May 2, 2011 in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. ACLU-TN filed the lawsuit after months of negotiations with the school district failed to create sufficient changes to school policies and practices.

. . .

In accordance with the settlement, school officials can no longer promote their personal religious beliefs to students.  Religious symbols and items may not be displayed in a place publicly visible to students.  Teachers may supervise student clubs but can no longer participate in their activities and school officials cannot encourage or solicit prayer at school functions.  School events may not be held in religious venues except under certain limited conditions and the schools can no longer take field trips to religious sites.  Only family members will be permitted to visit schools at lunchtime.  Groups wishing to distribute materials to students, such as members of Gideons International, must do so in a neutral way, minimizing contact with students and no groups will be given preferential access to students.  Non-religious clubs shall not have “chaplain” positions and all course materials and choral music must have a clear pedagogical purpose.

The “Stop the ACLU Attack on Sumner County Schools” facebook group is . . . not pleased:

Post more.

I will, I promise.  There’s way too much going on not too.

NASHVILLE — Seeking to face down concerns from Tennessee educators and state lawmakers, Gov. Bill Haslam and state Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman are defending the state’s new teacher evaluation system but concede the controversial program is not without its flaws.

“The system is not perfect, but it is a significant step forward, and the first step in an ongoing effort to refine and improve evaluation and support for educators,” Huffman wrote in an email sent to educators, obtained by the Times Free Press.

. . .

Haslam spokesman David Smith said “the governor understands there are concerns about the process, which is to be expected in this early implementation phase, and the Department of Education is working with educators to address issues.”

Smith said the administration “has no plans to change the evaluation system and believes that high standards and rigorous accountability measures play an important role in our ongoing efforts to improve education statewide.”

The Tennessean followed up with an editorial on Sunday titled “Teacher Evaluations Slow Race to the Top”:

Can it be that the fast-moving Race to the Top is getting its first gut check?

. . .

School boards, principals and teachers all are complaining about the new evaluation system, which, among other things, assigns a numerical score of 1 to 5 that largely determines whether a teacher receives tenure.

Teachers have begun to spend less time with students, as they linger over lesson plans to make sure they satisfy a three-page checklist used to rate the teacher. And administrators feel hard-pressed to schedule six classroom observations of each teacher they supervise.

. . .

What went wrong? At least part of it appears to be the “race” itself. Everyone, from the governor and legislature to school officials, parents and local business leaders, wants Tennessee’s children to get a better education, and for standards to improve right away. But elected officials did not adequately include teachers and principals in the policy- and decision-making process. This created ill will and may have led officials to overlook important qualities of good teaching that can’t be captured on a scale of 1 to 5.

The outcry is such that at least one Republican legislator, Rep. Rick Womick of Rockvale, agrees the system isn’t working, and House Education Committee hearings have been set early next month.

What the Tennessean points out is true: This new evaluation system looks decent on paper, but has been a train wreck in practice.  There were some obvious problems from the start — finding the 50% student achievement input for teachers without tests, figuring out how principals who are used to a Principal/manager job rather than Principal/instructional leader are going to cope with so many evaluations, the psychological impact of starting up a new system and making it so high-stakes right from the get-go (i.e., tenure ramifications)– but there was at least a nod to collaboration and the gathering of input from various stakeholders (remember the TEAC?).  It’s just that the whole “collaboration,” “self-reflection,” and concern with implementation thing didn’t really happen like it was supposed to.

The funny thing is, while all this is going down in Tennessee, the Democrats for Education Reform (there’s a whole ‘nother blog post about whether DFER are actually Democrats, how DFER is funded, etc.) have looked down from on high and applauded (with gusto!) Tennessee’s new evaluation system in their report released yesterday, Built to Succeed? Ranking New Statewide Teacher Evaluation Practices [pdf].  From the report:

Tennessee is strongest in the Rating/Performance Measures category, but this should not be surprising since Tennessee has had the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) and used value-added measures to gauge student performance for years. Whereas most states use four rating categories for teacher performance, Tennessee uses five effectiveness groups.

The guidelines for the Tennessee teacher and principal evaluation models are very specific and allow little room for weakening at the local district level. Of the 50% of the evaluation criteria that is based on student achievement data, 35% is based on student growth data comprised of TVAAS scores or other measures approved by the Department of Education that have been shown capable of measuring student growth. The remaining 15% is determined from a long list of state sanctioned, high quality measures that are aligned with the educator’s primary responsibility.

Of the remaining 50%, the state will approve or provide rigorous evaluation models that use multiple data sources to evaluate educator practice and will include at least four classroom visits a year, of which two must be unannounced. New teachers will have a minimum of six observations in a year.

Quite the praise!

Here’s the problem, though.  From what I’ve heard, the Teacher Evaluation Advisory Committee (TEAC) was not, shall we say, “highly effective” (to quote NCLB).  The folks appointed to the committee were extremely busy (and Important — why else would they be on the TEAC?) and, besides, they only met, well, infrequently, as important people are wont to do (what with their schedules and all).  There were only a total of 18 meetings, according to the website (scroll down).  As well, roughly every other meeting was a conference call.  10-12 meetings, with some conference calls thrown in, seems woefully insufficient to design AND field test a new, statewide evaluation system.  I mean, field-testing alone, to account for implementation problems, differences between urban and rural systems, etc. should have run at least a year on its own, if not longer.  The design of the system beforehand should have taken roughly a year.

Our problem?  Everyone got really excited, but we didn’t do a great job with the follow-through.

Governor Haslam used the catch phrase “let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good” when he presented his legislative package to the General Assembly back in February; Commissioner Huffman has been echoing it.  That’s all well and good; but I’m afraid we’ve rushed so fast that we took a pretty good law and ended up making a mediocre policy out of it.  Far from letting the perfect be the enemy of the good; we let the hasty has become the enemy of the good.

Tennessee will not apply for up to $60 million in onetime Race to the Top funds for early childhood education, with officials saying requirements don’t meet the state’s needs.

“It’s hard sometimes to understand why you would not attempt to secure more money,” said Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman.

“After spending a lot of time thinking about it, we feel the right decision is for us to stay out of the competition.”

The main reason, he said, is that the money cannot be used to expand existing pre-kindergarten services.

“We want to be very careful in the current fiscal environment not to take on additional activities we can’t sustain financially,” Huffman said.

. . .

Instead, through a partnership with Vanderbilt University, Tennessee is researching the effectiveness of its current investment before adding more, Huffman said.

Hardaway is disappointed.

“Saying it is not sustainable is no reason not to apply. Everything we have is sustainable. It’s just a matter of prioritizing the dollars,” he said.

“If you look at the true fiscal note, we would be saving money on remedial programs, incarceration and downturns in the economy if we had a better-educated work force.”

Combing through the article (there’s not a press release from the Department of Education or Governor’s Office that I can find), there seem to be a few rationales for this decision:

1. The money cannot be used to expand existing services.
2. The state is worried about starting up programs that will be paid for by the federal government in the short term, but for which Tennessee will have to keep paying after the grant period runs out.
3. Tennessee is “researching the effectiveness of its current investment before adding more.”

Here [pdf] is the Early Childhood RTTT application Executive Summary (everything else, including the program overview, application, FAQs, transcripts of press conference calls, and more can be found here).

As for the first point, I don’t think it’s much of a response.  The application clearly is geared towards a comprehensive state-wide pre-K to Kindergarten program, integrated with social services and including data and assessment.  However, an important part of the application (just like the earlier RTTT application), is documenting existing programs and existing efforts.  The federal government is cognizant of the fact that many states already have existing pre-K programs; it just wants to ramp them up, make them more comprehensive, and make them better.  A more accurate response would have been, “Governor Haslam and the TNGOP are not interested in expanding Pre-K.”

Republicans in Tennessee have, in general, had a baffling (and generally negative) relationship with pre-K.  Most of them (with the exception of Zach Wamp of “read good” fame) are sort-of OK with existing services, but take every opportunity to trumpet findings showing that pre-K is of limited help (even when those findings should be ignored).  Of course, Sen. Ron Ramsey, wielding considerable power considering Governor Haslam’s deference to the priorities of Tennessee Republicans in the General Assembly, is on the record as not being a fan of Pre-K.  So, there’s that.

Let me just diverge here and say that when Rep. Dunn (R-Knoxville) says that Pre-K “may be the largest hoax ever perpetrated on the people of Tennessee,” he needs to spend some time learning about the issue before spouting off politically-charged gibberish.  (Quote courtesy of Tennessee Report).

As for the second point, it is true that the application includes a requirement in the “budget” section that a state must demonstrate that the programs it implements “can be sustained after the grant period ends to ensure that the number and percentage of Children with High Needs served by Early Learning and Development Programs in the State will be maintained or expanded.” (p. 12)  However, the “we’re committing ourselves to spending more” argument has two problems: (1) The same argument was made, and rejected  during the debate over the original RTTT application (see # 2 in this post) and (2) As Rep. Hardaway points out, it’s all about spending priorities.  The General Assembly made the decision in 2010 that it wanted to go after federal dollars, and potentially put the state on the hook for sustaining expenditures down the line, because turning around the worst schools, reforming teacher evaluations, and creating great teachers and leaders were goals in which it is worthwhile to invest.

I have been clear about my opinion on this issue: Early childhood education, especially for at-risk kids, is equally worthy, if not more so, of our time and tax dollars compared to spending on revamping teacher evaluation and tenure.

It’s the third point that troubles me the most.  Commissioner Huffman is certainly aware of studies like the Perry Preschool Study (discussed here) and Tennessee’s own Project STAR that show the very real effects of pre-K and early childhood intervention.  To pawn our lack of interest in RTTT funds for early childhood education off on “we’re still studying it” is disingenuous.

The fact is, while Republicans are in charge of state government, Tennessee will not be very interested in Pre-K in general, and certainly not in expanding it, even with the offer of millions of federal dollars.  It’s a political decision, pure and simple.  Someone just needs to say that.

The number one most important principle for the use of assessment and data:

First do no harm.

I think this is what Diane Ravitch, among many others (I’m going to refer to her and them as “Ravitchians” for simplicity’s sake), has a great point about.  The aims of NCLB were good: closing the achievement gap, promoting equality of education, and improving teacher quality/distribution among underserved student populations (minorities, low SES students, ELL students, special ed. students, etc.). All great.  Ravitch’s point is that, unfortunately, the cure has been worse than the disease.  Specifying minimum goals for reading and math, and then attaching high-stakes tests to those goals, has meant that other crucial subjects such as science, history, art, and music, have been crowded out.  This is becoming more and more of a concern, as people begin to ask whether killing ourselves to excel on multiple choice tests is sacrificing the innovative/creative ability of future generations, which is generally considered to be America’s greatest strength.

In light of the obvious negative effects of the NCLB standards/high-stakes testing regime, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is what comes to mind for me.  In an (oversimplified) nutshell, the principle states that you cannot accurately know both the position and the velocity of a particle at the same time, because the very act of measurement of one changes your ability to measure/effect the other.

That’s what the Ravitchians (and myself), have become worried about: We’re testing so much that the testing itself is causing far too many negative consequences to be worth it.

But there’s an important difference between saying that standardized testing, as we do it now, is bad, and all testing/assessment is bad.  Here’s where I think anti-Ravitchian folks get it wrong: I don’t think that critics of the NCLB and standardized testing regimes don’t want to know how students and teachers are doing, and I don’t necessarily believe they think it’s bad to hold teachers at least somewhat accountable for student achievement.  They’re not anti-assessment.  Of course it’s crucial to know how well a student is learning and grasping concepts.  It’s just as important to know how a teacher is doing — where a teacher can improve and where a teacher is excelling.

It’s just a matter of figuring out how we do those latter things.  The point of the Ravitchians is that assessment matters, but how we do assessment is just as crucial.  To take a (fairly tired) example, it’s not that teachers and administrators in Finland don’t know how the students are doing, but it’s that they’ve figured out how to assess progress (and teacher quality/need for improvement) in a way that doesn’t create a drill-and-kill, standardized-test-cheating infused culture.

Let me say it again: Data is crucial, and should not be used in a punitive manner.  We know how to assess students without using multiple choice tests.  Half of what teachers do is assess, often in informal ways.  Tests are just one, highly formalized, way of finding out what students have learned.  Classroom polls, portfolios, exit slips, one-on-ones, tracking journals, etc. are all ways of keeping track of what students learn.

For those (including myself) who say that we must tie student achievement to teacher performance, it is no answer to say that we must use standardized testing as our standard for “student achievement.”  Given the problems with using value-added data down at the individual teacher level, it’s at least worth discussing what measures of student achievement we want to use when evaluating teachers.  Standardized, multiple choice tests are not our only option, and they are probably (certainly?) not the best option.

I know.  Eugenics.  Uncomfortable.

Still, though, I think there are some incredibly interesting things about the article, even if it is a bit broad.  The title of the article is “Deselection of the Bottom 8%: Lessons from Eugenics for Modern School Reform.”  Here’s the part I want to talk about:

I do not wish impugn the statistical techniques themselves, or doubt progress in measuring what we aim to measure. However, in each moment, a refinement of the science of testing has been mistaken for readiness to apply to public policyand specific individual cases. A strong general relationship between conveniently measurable variables becomes riddled with errors when applied to individual personnel decisions. As these tools leave the lab (or the economist’s model) and enter policy reality, the uncertainty magnifies the bias and corruption that science is supposed to prevent. Whether using early IQ tests to reject immigrants at Ellis Island, or using Value-Added Measures (VAM) scores to fire or reward teachers, policymakers convinced they are using the latest microscope, are later seen holding a distorted mirror.

There is a very important point here, that cheerleaders of TVAAS (myself included) and other such value-added data systems overlook: Broad data systems like these are great at identifying state-wide, system-wide, district-wide, and maybe even school-wide trends and concerns, but they’re often crap when it comes to individual teachers/students.  Not always, but certainly often enough to give us pause.  From one of my earlier posts:

TVAAS isn’t perfect.  It’s a good data system, but it has flaws.  Studies have shown [pdf] that teachers’ ratings can fluctuate wildly, even teachers that are presumed to be good ones (“Only a few studies have explored the stability of teacher effects (Ballou, 2005, Aaronson, et al (2007) and Koedel and Betts (2007). Such studies find that teacher effects are quite unstable.” (p.9))

That’s why I’m somewhat hesitant to make firing decisions with that data, especially right now, when TVAAS has demonstrable problems (and is controlled under contract by a secretive, private company to boot).  From yet another earlier post:

I hesitate, lest I be labeled repetitious, but Rule #1 is: Data should not be used in a punitive manner.

Some of the more market-oriented educational researchers out there would disagree (I think).  These are the folks clamoring for more teacher firings, relaxation of the regulations and red tape required to become a teacher, and other market-driven reforms which would ease both the entry into and exit from the profession.  Many believe (and I don’t think I’m creating a straw man here) that we can hire and fire our way to success.  That is, with enough supply out there, we can spend our time weeding out the bad teachers, and hiring enough new ones so that, eventually, we keep the good teachers and are able to sort out the chaff.  This assumes, however, that there’s an infinite teacher pipeline and that room for experience/improvement is limited. Both of those assumptions fly in the face of what I know about the profession: 1) Even if it is easier to become a teacher (and I do support alternative licensure and the reform of traditional teacher preparation), there aren’t enough folks out there, at current salary/benefit levels, to fill the void of all the mediocre-to-bad teachers we would have to fire, and 2) Experience matters — teachers can get better if you give them the support and opportunities that they need.

I still support the idea that student performance needs to be a strong part of evaluating teachers (including tenure decisions), that teacher development, planning, and support needs to be strongly informed by student performance, and that pay needs to be linked, in some way, with student performance.  It’s simply that we need to be reflective on how we use data, and understand its limitations.

Overconfidence and a lack of self-reflection can kill any good thing.  To take one example, look at subprime lending.  It originally started as a way to allow more lower and middle income folks to buy homes.  Then it got out of control, people stopped being rigorous and examining their behavior and assumptions, and it ended up decimating the entire world economy.  Let’s not let the same thing happen with the use of data in our schools.

P.S. Some great resources on subprime lending and the economic crisis, I always turn to NPR’s Planet Money and This American Life (especially these three episodes) and the books All The Devils Are Here (by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera) and The Big Short (by Michael Lewis, of Moneyball fame), both of which are excellent reads.

Note: The image above comes from this blog, written by David B. Cohen, and is a great read on using value-added data to evaluate teachers.

Before the 107th General Assembly, Governor Haslam took vouchers off the table.  It looks like he may be changing his mind (courtesy of Tennessee Report, who are awesome):

Might this be the re-emergence of a trend?  Dana Goldstein thinks so:

Well. One mid-term shellacking and a few Tea Parties later, vouchers are back, and in a very big way. Yesterday the education committee of the New Jersey state assembly advanced a bill to give corporations tax credits if they donate money for private school vouchers. Florida’ new Republican governor, Rick Scott–who is being advised by Michelle Rhee–is offering up a number of creative voucher and voucher-like proposals that would suck tax dollars out of the public schools and inject them into Catholic schools and private tutoring services.

The Pennsylvania state senate is considering a voucher bill that one Democratic state senator has called a small but “very expensive new entitlement program in the midst of an unprecedented budget crisis.” Something similar is going on in Indiana under the leadership of yet another GOP presidential hopeful, Gov. Mitch Daniels.

It’s something to keep an eye on.  I’ve said before that I’m not beholden to any political ideology, so long as it shows proven results for underserved populations.  I have to say, though — my reservations about the privatization of the public school system (which I regard as a bad thing), are somewhat piqued by charter schools, but go on full alert when talking about vouchers.  My gut reaction is just bad; I can’t help it.  Maybe it’s because there’s no proof that they work; maybe it’s because they’ve often been used as political cover for ulterior motives.  It’s probably all that and more.  I guess I better get ready for the fight, though, ’cause it looks like it’s coming to Tennessee.

Too bad the report doesn’t mention MNPS (or Memphis, for that matter), the two highest payouts by far (MNPS: ~$30 million, Memphis: ~$68.6 million).

Check out MNPS’ plans on how we’re spending our Race to the Top money here.

Of the more interesting things that LEAs appear to be doing:

Clarkesville-Montgomery County: Create a New Teacher Induction program based on the New Teacher Center model.  Mentors will assist new teachers. Pay stipends to new teachers for training time  outside of the contractual day.56 Clarksville-Montgomery County hopes these activities will result in an improved retention rate of 0.5 percent for new teachers.

Let me say this: Good for Clarkesville ($4,990,841).  MNPS needs to take a page out of their book.  Supporting teachers is great, and I’m glad we’re working on it, but it is a HUGE failing that we have a nonexistent induction program.  Brand new teachers need a LOT of support (I can speak from experience).  Race to the Top money would have been a good way to get such a program started (as I argued before we submitted our application).  Good for Clarkesville; shame on MNPS.

Hamilton County: Improve principals’ performance through support for new principals. There will be a one-day orientation for principals new to the profession, as well as an advisor program for them.  A Principals Leadership Academy will provide leadership development resources, such as opportunities to attend conferences.

OK.  Well, good-ish for Hamilton County ($10,927,153).  Focus on principals?  Great (as another colleague would no doubt agree).  One day orientation?  Not so great.  The Principals Leadership Academy sounds pretty good, though.

All in all, the report is actually all that helpful, but it’s a good start.  It’s great that we won Race to the Top, but it’s all about implementation, folks.  Check out the Report itself for more.