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45 states and the District of Columbia have all agreed to adopt new guidelines called the Common Core State Standards. The “Common Core” spells out what students are expected to learn and includes a list of the types of books kids should be reading.

We went to three schools in the New York City area — using three different reading programs to teach their students how to read — to see if any of their books are up to snuff with the new standards.

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Evaluating The Common Core

How should we view the emergent standards? Positively or negatively — or a mix of both? Join the discussion!

Peter Dewitz On Basal Readers

Peter Dewitz, who wrote basal readers for many years, talks to producer Cat McGrath about the business side of the industry: who’s profiting? How big are the numbers? And most importantly, are basals effective? Listen and join the discussion!

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Peter Dewitz is a professor, author, and educational consultant. For years, he worked on basal readers — you could even say (literally!) that he’s written the book on the topic: The Essential Guide To Selecting And Using Core Reading Programs.

As part of our PBS NewsHour piece on reading and the Common Core, producer Cat McGrath spoke to Dewitz about the business of basal readers — and the future of what our kids will be reading as a result of the Common Core.

Click the red play button above to listen.

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On April 30, 2012, John Merrow capped the 2011-12 Center for Research on Educational Opportunity (CREO) Seminar series at Notre Dame by speaking about education myths. The event was organized by the Alliance for Catholic Education and The Institute for Educational Initiatives at ND.

John was hosted and introduced by CREO director Mark Berends, an education sociologist and IEI fellow.

Check out video above. To listen to our previous podcast with ACE Academies head Christian Dallavis, click here.

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John Merrow appeared with former NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein at The JCC in Manhattan on May 2, 2012. Above is the full video of their discussion. You can click the audio play button above that to listen to just the audio in podcast format.

This was John’s fourth “JCC Conversations” appearance of 2011-2012. Previous guests included Randi Weingarten and Wendy Kopp; you can watch the Kopp video here.

John’s series of conversations with education luminaries will resume in the fall of 2012; “JCC Conversations” continues year-round.

If you’d like to see some reporting that John did on Joel Klein back in 2005, click this link.

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In 2006, Shelbyville, Indiana became the face of America’s dropout crisis as part of a TIME Magazine cover story. At the time, their graduation rate was about 75 percent.

In the six years since, Shelbyville has launched a variety of dropout prevention strategies, including online credit recovery programs. Critics argue it’s not real learning — but proponents speak to the concept that every student learns differently, and when traditional models don’t work, we shouldn’t doom an adolescent’s future.

Producers John Tulenko and Mike Joseloff traveled to Shelbyville for this report for PBS NewsHour.

Download Transcript (PDF)

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Melissa Lakes On Dropout Prevention

A full 40-minute interview with Melissa Lakes (featured in the piece above) about the Student Achievement Center in Shelbyville and various approaches to preventing dropping out. Listen and comment!

The Forum: Preventing Dropouts

How do we best prevent students from dropping out of school? The Forum convened several experts to discuss the topic. Join the discussion!

1991 PBS Reporting: Preventing Dropouts

John Merrow did some reporting in 1991 on this same topic; it’s presented in three parts, all of which you can access at this link. Watch and join the discussion!

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Dropping out of school is something that hundreds of kids decide to do every day. How do we prevent the problem from happening in the first place? We asked several experts — and one former HS dropout — to weigh in. Their answers are below; please feel free to offer your own thoughts in the comments.

In This Discussion

It starts with re-engaging students

Jennifer Dounay Zinth, Senior Policy Analyst, co-directs the ECS Information Clearinghouse, which provides policy and research information and analysis to state education leaders and their staffs, the media and the general public. Zinth also leads ECS’ High School Policy Center, which provides state policy information, analysis and research on a number of high school reform issues, including dropout prevention.

Surveys of dropouts clearly tell us why young people are leaving school before high school graduation: Students are bored and disengaged. Students see no relationship between what they are expected to learn and their future goals. Particularly in large high schools, students say they feel no adult in the building cares about them. And teen pregnancy, or needing to support a young family (or parents and siblings), can lead students to put work and other priorities ahead of finishing school. Research also tells us that even before students themselves may realize they are on the path to dropping out, they give us clear signals, such as low reading proficiency in the early grades, poor grades in core academic courses, poor attendance and misbehavior.

To maximize their effectiveness, dropout prevention approaches need to eliminate the school-related reasons young people are giving us for dropping out, provide supports and incentives for those struggling with personal and economic challenges, and set in place mechanisms to identify students exhibiting warning signs.

To reduce boredom and disengagement, states might consider expanding opportunities for project-based and hands-on learning, and opportunities for high school students to earn credit for learning outside the traditional school day and year — acquired through internships and apprenticeships, independent study and community service, for example. Teacher preparation and professional development programs should ensure educators across the disciplines can draw connections between the curriculum and students’ post-secondary and career aspirations. Efforts, particularly in the secondary grades, to connect students with a caring adult — to phone home after a student’s first absence, for example, to recognize and reward good attendance, to place “graduation coaches” in schools to identify and address diverse student needs — have all demonstrated positive results.

States should also implement early warning data systems that promptly notify appropriate school staff when student grades, attendance or behavior create a red flag. Such systems should ensure that staff quickly act to provide appropriate interventions, and ramp up efforts if initial interventions do not demonstrate results.

A connection between post-secondary and jobs is crucial

Adria Steinberg is a vice president at Jobs for the Future. She leads JFF’s work to improve educational options and outcomes for struggling students and out-of-school youth.

Every year, another 1.2 million students drop out of high school. These students too often are concentrated in low-performing, high-poverty schools that fail to graduate them or prepare them for further education or careers.

A growing number of educational innovators are developing new, Back on Track Through College schools and programs that not only graduate off-track students and young people who have dropped out of school altogether, but help to put them on a pathway to post-secondary education. What these schools have taught us about how to reengage young people can be applied to improve all our schools.

It is important to combine the academic acceleration and delivery efficiencies of secondary-post-secondary partnerships — found in early college high schools and in college bridge programming — with the deep academic and social support, and youth development and leadership practices, found in the best alternative schools. Through post-secondary partnerships, schools can help students gain exposure to the demands of college and even earn some college credits while they still have support — powerful motivators to continue school.

To support academic success, we must offer students a more engaging learning experience in which substantial reading, writing, and inquiry take place daily across the curriculum, and students take advantage of next-generation digital learning tools. Coursework aligned to college readiness must be scaffolded through collaborative group work and other strategies that enable students of diverse skill levels to support one another.

In addition, we need to give young people better guidance into post-secondary programs that lead to high-wage, high-demand jobs in the regional labor market — so that they see transparent paths leading from school to high-quality employment. And, throughout, we must keep a closer watch on the warning signals of student disengagement, systemically monitoring failing grades, poor attendance, and other warning signs most closely linked with dropping out.

We can take what is working in the best of our dropout recovery programs and embed these strategies into mainstream schooling. The result would be a smoother transition from secondary to post-secondary, a more effective delivery of academic and social supports, a more intentional matching of students to the right post-secondary programs, and a far greater likelihood that students will succeed.

There is no such thing as “traditional” support

Diane Spencer is the Student Support Advocate at Park View Education Centre in Nova Scotia.

At the turn of the 20th century, John Dewey argued that all children deserve an education that addresses their own individual needs, capabilities, and interests.

He also professed that not all children should receive the same education. Today, however, the public education system remains largely designed to accommodate the average to above-average academic student. The lack of student engagement in our current system is the result of a divide between what schools can offer and what is important for today’s students, which has led to less student motivation and a reduction in school connectedness. Students who struggle in school are those who do not fit the traditional academic mold. A system that is more tailored to the individual needs of students, focusing on making positive connections, and with flexible scheduling possibilities is the best way to retain the most students.

I work in a large, rural 10-12 high school in Nova Scotia as a Student Support Advocate (SSA). The SSA maintains a caseload of at-risk youth (considered at-risk for any number of reasons, with academic difficulty being only one). This position is necessary because there are often students who do not “fit the mold” for school, who miss time due to different circumstances, who need extra support to catch-up on assignments missed, or who need assistive technology due to a learning disability. Many of these students also need an advocate who can be a voice for them, and who will fight to ensure they receive the support they need. The position relies not only on experience, but also a thorough understanding of student motivation and school connectedness. The role of Student Support Advocate goes a long way in supporting more children in non-traditional ways, which in turn, keeps more youth in school.

How about we start with empathy?

BethAnn Berliner is a Senior Research Associate at WestEd. Her work seeks better ways to close the achievement gap, increase graduation rates, and recover dropouts. She is the author of Grappling with the Gap: Toward a Research Agenda to Meet the Educational Needs of Children and Youth in Foster Care and Imagine the Possibilities: Sourcebook for Educators Committed to the Educational Success of Students Experiencing Homelessness.

Preventing students from dropping out starts with understanding their personal lives and education histories better; that is, knowing the whole kid. Right now, there are one million students currently homeless in the U.S. Another half million children and youth are in foster care. They don’t aspire to drop out of school, but life outside the classroom makes it particularly difficult to reach graduation.

At the same time, schools can provide homeless and foster youth with needed stability and protection from the potentially negative effects of domestic upheaval and uncertainty. Positive and successful school experiences play multiple, reinforcing roles by enhancing students’ well-being, forging enduring relationships with caring adults, fostering resilience, and increasing chances for self-sufficiency and fulfillment as adults.

While there are significant gaps in education research and limited evidence-based practices to help support these students, we do know schools can help to prevent dropout. They can use early warning systems to flag faltering students and monitor interventions to get them on track to graduate. They can reengage students with flexible school hours, self-paced credit recovery courses, and relevant curriculum tied to individualized graduation plans. And schools can be safe havens where students receive personal and academic supports needed to be successful learners and another chance to earn a diploma.

Just as much as formal research and practical improvements are still needed, we need to extend some basic empathy to these students. It’s easy to blame students for their behaviors that frustrate us — when they don’t submit homework or disrupt classrooms. But how can we blame a kid for not doing assignments when there is no place to do homework? Since dropping out is a process that starts long before students decide to not set foot back in a classroom, there are opportunities to stem the tide.

A first-hand account

Tori Walston is from Moss Bluff, La. She graduated from the Louisiana Youth ChalleNGe Program in 2011 with her GED. She currently resides in Arlington, Va. and is taking college courses at Northern Virginia Community College.

My name is Tori Walston and I am 17 years old. I decided to drop out of school at the age of 14. I dropped out because I lacked discipline, structure, and my priorities were out of focus. I slacked a lot in school and as a result I dreaded going. Eventually I fell too far behind and had to repeat a year. It wasn’t long into the second year that I just stopped going to school and dropped out completely.

I believe — and from experience I know — that most children drop out because they either come from broken families, they have parents that don’t pay close enough attention, or parents that pay too close attention. Some parents are too controlling and as a result the child often retaliates.

Dropping out can be prevented by adding more structure and discipline and eliminating the many distractions that get in the way of school. This has to be done both at school and at home.

After realizing that I did not have many options after dropping out, I found out about a residential ‘second chance’ program. I lived there for six months and it changed my life. I was able to concentrate on myself and school. It helped me to realize that education can give you a path to a better life and should be taken seriously. Among the things I learned there, time management has helped me the most during my transition into adulthood. I am now able to schedule things wisely and I am able to balance school and work.

I believe that parents should be provided the opportunity to attend classes on parenthood and should also be provided an advisor if/when they need advice. I am not a parent but I know that being a parent is a full-time job and it can get difficult at times. I believe that an advisor could give them the support and guidance they need to make the right decisions in order to raise a well-rounded young person who can contribute to society.

It all begins in middle school

Eric Schwarz is CEO of Citizen Schools.

According to “Putting Middle Grade Students on the Graduation Path,” a research brief by Robert Balfanz based on more than a decade of research and development work, in high-poverty environments a student’s middle grades experience strongly impacts the odds of graduating from high school. The brief reports that sixth graders who failed math or English Language Arts, or attended school less than 80% of the time, or had behavior issues in school, had only a 10% to 20% chance of graduating from high school on time. Less than 1 out of every 4 students with at least one off-track indicator graduated within one extra year of on-time graduation.

These statistics are jaw-dropping, but they make sense and they indicate a clear path for increasing graduation rates. By intervening early and helping middle school students succeed, we can raise graduation rates significantly.

Children spend 80 percent of their waking hours out of school. Sixteen years ago, I founded Citizen Schools, a national nonprofit education organization, because I saw an opportunity to use those hours to get them excited about learning by connecting them with professionals in the community to explore new careers and learning experiences. We focused on middle school grades because it is especially important to give middle school students opportunities to explore the world around them, make connections between school and future success, and work on hands-on, engaging learning projects.

External studies have shown that Citizen Schools students have better attendance rates, higher grades and fewer behavior issues than their peers. Long-term, we’ve seen our students graduate from high school at significantly higher rates than their peers who did not participate in Citizen Schools. Efforts to provide middle school students with more relevant learning opportunities and more caring adults who can support their learning and growth are smart investments that will pay off in the long run.

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In the past five years, 55 very unique music education programs inspired by Venezuela’s El Sistema have sprung up in schools across the U. S.; all told, they serve about 6,000 children.

We learned about this national movement while producing a story about the Harmony Program in NYC. After the segment aired, in hopes of furthering the dialogue, we invited music educators from other programs to participate in an online conversation on Google Hangouts that we would host and record.

We hope you enjoy these lively discussions!

Part 1

Eric Booth of El Sistema USA and the leaders of five music programs in the U.S. discuss how they are making the Venezuelan model work in their schools and if this movement is just a fad.

All Participants:

Eric Booth, El Sistema USA
Dantes Rameau, Atlanta Music Project (GA)
Reynaldo Ramirez, Soundscapes (VA)
Kassie Lord, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (MD)
Stanford Thompson, Play On, Philly! (PA)
Louise Lanzilotti, El Sistema Hawai’i (HI)

Part 2

Author Tricia Tunstall and the leaders of six programs modeled on El Sistema discuss the challenges around starting and sustaining a music program. Participants talk about the sudden media attention around the movement and what needs to happen to continue its current success.

All Participants:

Tricia Tunstall, author of Changing Lives: Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema, and the Transformative Power of Music
Alvaro Rodas, Corona Youth Music Project (NY)
Samvel Chilingarian, Verdugo Young Musicians Association (CA)
Anne Fitzgibbon, Harmony Program (NY)
Sarah Hopkins, CityMusic (CT)
Reynaldo Ramirez, Soundscapes (VA)
Melina Garcia, Union City Music Project (NJ)

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Learning Matters producers John Tulenko and Mike Joseloff recently traveled to Shelbyville, Indiana for PBS NewsHour to produce a piece on dropout prevention strategies (in 2006, Shelbyville was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine under the headline “Dropout Nation.”)

While in Shelbyville, Tulenko interviewed Melissa Lakes, who runs the Student Achievement Center there. The Student Achievement Center is a selective program focused on meeting students where they are, as well as providing avenues for employment and service learning. You will learn more about the Center in the finished PBS piece; also consult this article.

Tulenko’s full interview with Ms. Lakes — a wide-ranging discussion on dropout prevention strategies, treating students like individuals, and much more — is available by clicking the audio play button above.

To learn when the completed PBS NewsHour piece will air, join our mailing list.

This is all part of The American Graduate project on PBS.

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New York, NY, March 15, 2012 –- Learning Matters is proud to announce that The Education Writers Association (EWA), the national professional association of education reporters and writers, has honored Learning Matters in the 2011 National Awards for Education Reporting, the prestigious national competition for education journalism.

Learning Matters’ production team — John Merrow, John Tulenko, Cat McGrath and David Wald — earned a special citation in the Beat Reporting category. This award honors a selection of reports produced in the 2010-2011 year, which concentrate on issues such as early education, school choice, teacher evaluation, literacy and more.

A playlist of all honored work is embedded above.

Learning Matters is an independent non-profit production company based in New York City founded by John Merrow in 1995. Learning Matters is supported by the The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Grade Level Reading Fund of The Tides Foundation, The Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki Foundation, The Wallace Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The award will be presented to Learning Matters on Saturday, May 19, during the Education Writers Association’s 65th National Seminar in Philadelphia, PA.

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John Merrow appeared on The Bob Edwards Show on March 5, 2012 for an insightful and far-reaching discussion about education, the situation in New Orleans, the notion of “trust but verify,” and much more. Click the audio player above to listen.

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Special thanks to Fundamusical Simón Bolívar archives for video footage of El Sistema and to Laurie Sude for additional footage of Anne Fitzgibbon.

The Harmony Program, an after-school program in New York City, is showing that music can make a big difference in children’s lives. The program provides 80 mostly low income students with free instruments and daily music lessons, but it’s not just about the music. Harmony is modeled after Venezuela’s hugely successful “El Sistema” program, which over the last 30 years has helped hundreds of thousands of the country’s neediest children learn not only how to play music, but also how to achieve success in school — and beyond. What works in Venezuela is proving equally effective in New York, where budget cuts have forced many schools to give up their music programs.

The Harmony Program is made possible through a partnership with The City University of New York.

Download transcript (PDF)

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John Merrow and Placido Domingo

You’ve seen the full piece (above). Want to hear more of John’s discussion with the maestro? It’s here. Listen and comment!

Explore El Sistema-inspired Programs

El Sistema’s model has inspired programs all over the world, from Los Angeles to Hartford to Scotland and back again. Want to see some of the work those groups are producing? Check out this aggregation of resources. Explore and comment!

Cat McGrath and Bob McGrath In Discussion

Cat McGrath produced this piece. Bob McGrath, her father, is a veteran of Sesame Street. Here, in a charming father-daughter convo, they talk — and sing! — about the evolution of music education. Check it out. Listen and comment!

What’s The Value Of Music Education?

We obviously live in a testing-focused world. So what’s the value of getting an education outside those core subjects? We had several experts discuss it. Read and comment!

Google Hangout No. 1

We wanted to experiment with Google Hangouts as a way to continue our coverage of a story, so we did that for this piece! Here is Google Hangout No. 1 on El Sistema initiatives; this edition is moderated by Eric Booth, a Senior Adviser to El Sistema USA. Watch and comment!

Google Hangout No. 2

Here is Google Hangout No. 2 on El Sistema initiatives; this edition is moderated by Tricia Turnstall, the author of a popular book on El Sistema. Watch and comment!

More of our videos | Our YouTube Channel | Our Podcasts | iTunes |

Donate | Join our e-mail list | Debate the issues | Facebook | Twitter | Google+

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More than 200,000 K-12 students are educated online in the United States today. Proponents of the system argue that it works for families — by providing flexible schedules, among other benefits — while also creating a student engagement that isn’t replicable in “the brick and mortar system.”

Detractors worry about how students are kept on-task. Are they really doing the work? How is that being enforced? Additionally, is removing students from the social atmosphere of K-12 education beneficial for their development?

And then, of course, there is the financial side of the issue. Every student who enrolls in a cyber school represents a financial hit to public education in that area, as you will learn in this piece. Some cyber school administrators are earning millions of dollars per year, but it’s not always clear where the extra money is going — is it going back into the school and the students (such as upgrading the technology), the broader community, or somewhere else?

John Tulenko traveled to Midland, PA — home of the PA Cyber Charter — to find out what’s going on in the world of K-12 online learning.

Download transcript (PDF)

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The Benefits Of Online Learning

You know the pros and cons of going to school online, so which side do you come down on? Read and comment!

Inside The Life Of A Cyber School Student

Meet Courtney Dunn and Nate Kusich. Dunn is a current cyber school student, and Kusich is a former one — now back in ‘traditional’ schooling. Their experiences are vastly different, and will paint a picture of the pros and cons of the model. Watch and comment!

Inside The Life Of A Cyber School Teacher

You are probably familiar with the traditional model of being a teacher — standing in front of students and imparting knowledge. But what happens when your pupils are online, and you can’t (for legal reasons) actually see what they’re doing? How do you create engagement and interaction, and foster discipline? Watch and comment!

More of our videos | Our YouTube Channel | Our Podcasts | iTunes |

Donate | Join our e-mail list | Debate the issues | Facebook | Twitter | Google+

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Sesame Street’s Bob McGrath has been making music with children for over 40 years. Here, Learning Matters producer Cat McGrath talks with her father about music education and his work with Sesame Street, Mitch Miller, and symphony orchestras across the country.

This father-daughter interview accompanies a PBS NewsHour segment about a free after-school music program in New York, the Harmony Program. The program provides music education to mostly low-income children and is modeled on similar efforts in Venezuela, known as El Sistema. You can watch that piece above.

Previously, we released a podcast featuring an interview between John Merrow — the correspondent on the PBS piece — and Placido Domingo. Listen to that here.

You can listen to the McGraths in conversation — and singing! — by clicking the play button above on the audio player.

Thanks for listening to this discussion about music education.

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Learning Matters produced a piece for PBS NewsHour about music education. Producer Cat McGrath and correspondent John Merrow worked with the Harmony Program, which offers free after-school music education to mostly low-income students. The program is modeled on similar efforts in Venezuela, known as El Sistema. You can watch it above.

World-renowned opera star Placido Domingo conducted a concert of NYC-area students — from P.S. 129 and P.S. 152 — as part of his work with the Harmony Program; that concert is featured in the video above.

Here, we present exclusive audio of John Merrow’s full interview with Placido Domingo. You can listen to the discussion by clicking the play button above on the audio player.

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Is online schooling beneficial for students, or just a fad within education? You can start thinking about the question by watching the video above, which is from the February 23, 2012 edition of PBS NewsHour and addresses the question in a televised report handled by our own John Tulenko.

We encourage you to get involved with the discussion as well. Please post comments below.

Ali Carr-Chellman, Penn State University

At what cost does innovation come?

Ali Carr-Chellman, Ph.D. is Head of the Learning and Performance Systems Department in the College of Education at Penn State University. She has been a school teacher, consultant, instructional designer, university professor, researcher, and is the mother of three young children. Her research interests include diffusion of innovations, systemic change, the impact of technology on school reform, e-learning, and cyber charters.

I have been teaching in an online environment for many years. But it wasn’t without great trepidation that I approached the enterprise of online learning in higher education. The research here is pretty clear: meta analyses of empirical research studies have shown that really there is “no significant difference” between online and face-to-face in traditional measures of achievement in most contexts. This is good news, it means that online learning is “working.”

While this may be true, there is a great deal of research on the other side suggesting that it will bring on the downfall of the university or school system. David Noble is among my favorite critics of online learning in terms of ways that this enterprise may serve to hasten some very nasty potential results, particularly for the “life of the mind” that has been the hallmark of university life. His text, Digital Diploma Mills, is brilliant, and should be required reading for anyone embarking on the online learning journey.

I believe that the research will show likewise — that K-12 online learning, when we carefully compare similar groups of children in terms of their achievement scores on standardized tests, will be very similar. We’ll find again that there is little or “no significant difference” between the online mode and the face-to-face mode of delivery. But the question, particularly for our public schools goes far beyond whether it “works.” Is it good for us as a society, as a community?

Online learning in K-12 settings is a significant boon for Olympic level skaters, severe asthmatics, and some ADHD children who really cannot exist within the confines of a traditional school setting for a variety of reasons. And for certain specific applications I can definitely understand the usefulness of this approach and medium. However, I’ve been exploring a number of concerns within cyber charters and am quite concerned by several important issues. Did you know some of the following?

• Cyber charter schools have no limitations on the amount of money they can spend to advertise and/or lobby politicians (and these expenditures allow them to remain non-profit)?
• Cyber charter populations tend to be bimodal rather than similar to the larger general schooling population with a large number of high achievement and special needs learners?
• Traditional public schools must pay cyber charters for every child who leaves their school for a cyber charter and in PA alone, this amount now approaches $1 billion (with a B) leaving underfunded traditional K-12 schools.
• There is no real regulation on the ability of parents to include religious education in the regular school day, or to link religious lessons throughout the curriculum of a cyber charter if they wish to. That is, the separation of church and state in these schools cannot realistically be policed?
• Cyber charter schools use a great deal of their money on expensive curricular materials, which are generally published by the same company that owns the “non-profit” cyber charter school?
• There is very little ability of cyber charter schools to monitor cheating.
• Exercising choice for individual achievement in the form of cyber charter schooling will likely leave our most vulnerable children behind in underfunded schools. Research on school choice indicates that parents with more education and better resources are the most likely to exercise choice in any form.
• The CEO of the largest provider of cyber charter curriculum, sold specifically to their own non-profit schools, made more than $28 million last year.

These facts make me very concerned. Is capitalism really the way we want a publicly funded school system to function? I do believe that schools where significant losses of students have led to innovations of their own represent an exciting possibility for the future of school change. But I worry at what cost that innovation comes. If the trade-off is capitalist schooling models that create huge profits, religious education in public schools, unfettered lobbying and enormous advertising budgets within the realm of public schools, I fear we are no longer seeing any service of the public good from public schools, and instead are only concerned about our highest aspirations as individuals and not our greatest successes as a society.

Wendy Zacuto, Pacific Point Academy

Speaking from personal experience

Wendy Zacuto is currently the Director of Pacific Point Academy in Santa Monica, an independent school serving students with mild to moderate learning challenges through an innovative, transdisciplinary design. Wendy’s career spans 25 years, as a preschool through high school teacher. She has spent 12 years in school administration in charter, public, and independent schools.

Online education took me by surprise. Already deeply entrenched in my chosen profession as a school principal, I was offered the opportunity to earn a Master’s Degree through some NCLB funding. As I surveyed options, I realized that the scope of my job would be best served by earning my degree online.

The experience opened doors for me professionally, both as a function of the degree and through the limitless networking enabled by online communication. Unlike a brick and mortar university, online university enabled class colleagues throughout the nation and worldwide. I am now engaged in earning an online Ed. D.

A firm proponent of constructivist learning (preschool and elementary), I saw the theory first-hand in my own online learning. Now the principal of a school for students with learning challenges and dedicated to differentiated learning, I see online learning as one effective tool to allow innovative educators to tailor instruction to meet student needs.

Quick discussion break: Here’s a YouTube-exclusive video we produced documenting the experience of students in cyber schools:

Scott McLeod, University of Kentucky

Online schooling is here to stay

Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Kentucky. He also is the Founding Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), the nation’s only academic center dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators, and was a co-creator of the wildly popular video series, Did You Know? (Shift Happens).

Online learning opportunities for K-12 students are growing by leaps and bounds. The most recent Keeping Pace report for the U.S. shows that over a million students already are taking at least some online classes. Last year the Florida Virtual School alone provided 260,000 online course enrollments. Harvard professor Clayton Christensen estimates that by 2019 about half of all high school courses will be delivered virtually. Online learning opportunities that formerly were reserved for working adults or college students have rapidly filtered all the way down to elementary children.

As online enrollments have rapidly expanded, so too have accompanying concerns. Educators and parents worry about losing the nurturing intimacy of teachers and students who are connected with each other in face-to-face classrooms. Pundits opine that our youth are losing their ability to interact with live humans instead of screens. Journalists report that online schooling providers are raking in tens of millions of dollars while providing substandard, perhaps even fraudulent, educational experiences. Superintendents gripe that other districts’ provision of online courses results in interdistrict ‘theft’ of students and state funding.

Perhaps all of this is just expected shakeout and pushback as we transition to more technology-mediated learning environments. Maybe these concerns are just temporary, necessary bumps as we learn how to create better instructional and quality assurance mechanisms for online education. Or maybe they’re deep-rooted problems inherent to virtual schooling.

Should we be concerned, as is the National Education Policy Center, about the rapid growth of online learning or is its very expansion tangible testimony to its power and possibility? Is it possible that online learning is okay for adults but not for younger students? Online learning is here to stay, however: the question now is how we approach it for our children.

Audie Rubin, Provost Academy Colorado

Three key benefits exist

Executive Director Audie Rubin leads Provost Academy Colorado not only with his years of experience in education as both an administrator and teacher, but also with his background of leadership and vision as a pioneer in the use of online education technology to open the classroom to the world and accelerate learning for Colorado students.

Online is a valuable education choice for many Colorado students and their families seeking an alternative to the traditional high school setting, whether because a need for more challenging classes, family circumstances or the need for flexibility. For many students, virtual high schools have meant the difference between giving up on school altogether and earning a high school diploma.

There are three primary benefits you should know about online learning:

Individualized learning plans tailored to students’ unique learning styles and levels: Every student learns differently. Some learn quickly while others learn more slowly. Some learn visually while others learn by reading textbooks. Online education can tailor a learning plan to meet the unique needs of each learner.

Flexible scheduling: High school students today have a lot going on in their lives. Many students work to support themselves and their families, while others engage in time-consuming extracurricular activities like competitive sports. Online education gives students a flexible option that allows them to do what they need to do and graduate from high school at the same time. Online education provides this option as it can be completed anytime and anywhere.

Real-time monitoring of student progress and success: Online education leverages a web-based curriculum that tracks progress and success using high touch methods, instantly illustrating what work you’ve done, what information you know as a result and what you still need to learn to graduate on time.

In a traditional school, time is fixed and learning is variable. The flexible, web-based curriculum offered through online education has flipped this dated approach, making learning fixed and time variable to meet the specific learning needs of each student.

Quick discussion break: Here’s another YouTube-exclusive video we produced, documenting the experiences of teachers in cyber schools:

Tom Carroll, NCTAF

It’s effective when used as a cornerstone of collaboration, building

Tom Carroll, President, oversees NCTAF’s research, policy, and implementation projects, develops and maintains strategic partnerships, and provides thought leadership about transforming schools from teaching organizations into learning organizations.

Debates over online learning effectiveness are fraught with confusion over purpose and mode. Online learning is least effective when the purpose is knowledge consumer and the learning mode is knowledge transfer and retrieval. When online learning emulates traditional schooling, where teachers download and distribute knowledge and information and when the learner’s primary purpose is to access knowledge and information, it is difficult to show significant effectiveness gains over traditional teaching and learning that is not mediated by digital technology.

Online learning becomes more effective when the purpose is knowledge collaboration and application in a wiki-like environment. In this mode, the learners are not just consumers of information, but collaborators who work together to develop a collectively built body of knowledge and information. This learning mode achieves significant gains over traditional knowledge transfer and distribution modes (as a wide spectrum of publishers from textbooks to newspapers are rapidly discovering).

Online learning becomes most effective when the purpose is to create new knowledge in a crowd-sourcing mode that gives the learners an opportunity to build off of each other’s concepts, strategies and responses as they develop new responses to complex learning challenges. When the learners become co-creators, they simultaneously deepen their personal knowledge and skill as they expand the universe of information and understanding that is available to others. It is regrettable that although this is the most powerful mode of online learning, it is least often used in traditional school settings. It’s time to transform schools into 21st century learning organizations, where we fully embrace all three learning purposes and modes.

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We live in a testing-centric world. What, then, is the role and value of music and arts education? We convened several experts to discuss that idea. You may also be interested in our report on this topic for PBS NewsHour, embedded above.

Doug Israel, The Center For Arts Education

Rigorous coursework must include the arts

Doug Israel is the Director of Research and Policy for the Center for Arts Education.

In his State of the Union address this year, the President shined a much-needed spotlight on the impact of the high school dropout rate on students and the economy.

While his proposal to require students to stay in school until they graduate or turn 18 can help address the dropout crisis, it is important to ensure that all students are engaged in their education. Research shows that the arts, and other elements of a well-rounded education, can play a key role in keeping students in school and on track to graduate.

Here in New York City, while we’ve seen some improvement in recent years, our public schools struggle with low graduation rates — about 65 percent by the latest measure. Rates for black and Hispanic students are even lower. One of the elements that the high schools with the highest graduation rates have in common is a well-developed arts education program.

A two-year study by The Center for Arts Education of over 200 public high schools in New York City found that those schools with the highest graduation rates had more arts teachers on staff, more dedicated arts spaces, more partnerships with cultural institutions, and more opportunities for students to go on a field trip to a museum or attend a performance.

These findings are consistent with national studies that attest to the success of strong arts programs as a means to prevent the disengagement that typically precedes dropping out. The opportunity for students to engage in the arts — through band and chorus, dance and theater productions, exhibitions of their art work, and publications of original literary pieces — has always been a strong motivator for students and can play a key role in tackling the dropout crisis.
As we seek to improve our education system, and ensure greater equity in the educational and economic opportunities afforded our students, we need to make sure we’re providing all students with rigorous coursework that includes the arts.

Rachel Sawyer, HS Choral Teacher

Music is the most honest expression of humankind

Rachel Sawyer is currently the director of the Robert L. Patton High School Choral Program in Morganton, North Carolina. Choirs and soloists under her direction have consistently earned Superior ratings at district and regional music performance adjudications.

I’m always intrigued when people ponder the value and necessity of music education. We teachers are constantly reminded that our ultimate goal as educators is to create lifelong learners in our classrooms, yet the present educational climate works in precisely the opposite manner. According to Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, creativity is the highest rung of the cognitive ladder. Despite our knowledge, the idea persists that the three core subjects — reading, writing, and arithmetic — far outweigh other educational disciplines in both merit and importance, thereby making music education expendable during an economic crisis. What’s worse, we assess student gains in these “primary” disciplines by providing the correct answer in the midst of three incorrect answers on a computer-based standardized test, thereby eliminating a student’s opportunity to create any original ideas during the assessment. This Henry Ford-esque educational assembly line, at best, may improve a student’s factual recall, but according to Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, recalling information is the bottom rung of the cognitive ladder.

Consider music’s impact upon student achievement. I speak from experience as both a musician and a music educator: Musicians form original thoughts, create original compositions, and share our knowledge of our own creativity on a daily basis. While music education incorporates reading, writing, and arithmetic daily, it does not exist to complement other disciplines. Anyone with personal experience in a quality music classroom knows better. As a musician, I know from experience that music is the most honest expression of humankind. As a public school educator, I understand that I am a member of the bureaucracy, charged with the task of generating productive citizens annually. I can confirm that I generate real human beings, equipped with the ability to feel compassion, to embrace different cultures, to think critically, and to create original compositions using standard notation or abstract symbolism. Assuming the goal of American education is to foster creative citizens who think critically, we cannot afford to eliminate even one music program from American public education.

April Estep, HS Music Teacher

Music can help all students excel

April Estep is a secondary music teacher in West Virginia. She is also a Teacher Consultant with the National Writing Project.

Students who participate in music have higher levels of achievement than their non-musical peers. Across the board, research supports this claim. I challenge anyone to find research to contradict this from a reputable source. Music, as well as the other arts, helps us find meaning in the world around us. Sadly, the arts are often the first subjects cut so more time and resources can be devoted to those classes that are assessed on state standardized tests.

When I think about what music education means to my students, higher math and reading scores don’t immediately come to mind. My mind goes to my students; these are students who are desperate to be heard even when they’re not sure what they’re trying to say. I think about my special education students who can barely read but play guitar like they were born with it in their hands. I think about the kids who use their iPods and ear buds to find an escape from parents who fight and scream. Music gives them a way to express themselves when they can’t find the right words that convey their emotions. With music, a student who struggles in more traditional classes can excel. Music gives them a voice, a means of expression and a chance to be successful — that they may not otherwise have.

It’s important that every student have access to quality music instruction. Every student must have the opportunity to create and perform. It is the responsibility of our schools to provide this access and opportunity. With music, we can help students understand the world around them as well as help them understand themselves.

I teach in a very rural area. School is the only place for them to learn to play an instrument or perform in front of an audience. The only discussion they have about why a certain piece of music affects them a particular way happens in my classroom. How can we not do our best to make sure that every child in every school has these opportunities?

Kristen Engebretsen, Americans for the Arts

One reason? How about 10?

Kristen Engebretsen joined the staff at Americans for the Arts in 2011 as the arts education program coordinator. In this role, she works with the Arts Education Network and its elected council to ensure the advancement of arts education throughout the country. Prior to her arrival in DC, she worked at several arts organizations in Los Angeles, including the LA County Arts Commission and the Music Center: Performing Arts Center of LA County.

Oftentimes, when people ask me for resources to help make the case for arts education, I direct them to reports like the one the President’s Committee for the Arts and the Humanities, “Reinvesting in Arts Education.” It compiles all of the classic arguments in favor of arts education: it boosts student achievement, it increases student engagement, and it helps to close the achievement gap.

However, when I think back on my own experience in the arts, I remember that I didn’t participate in them (or still now continue to work in the arts) because they boosted my SAT score. I danced and played music because of the intrinsic benefits of the arts.

So for me, when I make the case for the importance of arts education, I almost always turn to this piece by Elliot Eisner, about ten lessons the arts teach:

1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem-solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5. The arts make vivid the fact that words do not, in their literal form or number, exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.

6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10. The arts’ position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.

Debra Lindsay, Music Educator

Joy, solace, and learning

Ms. Lindsay is an elementary general music educator, and published author, composer and arranger. She is the past president of the Virginia Elementary Music Educators Association, the current Virginia chair of Music in Our Schools Month and is a National Board Certified Teacher in early and middle childhood music and teaches a class for beginning music educators through the Great Beginnings program with Fairfax County Public Schools.

Music touches every human from infancy through adulthood. The power of musical sound is a vehicle for expression, creativity and human emotion. Music is joy. Music is solace. Music has the ability to invigorate and calm us and influence our moods. Music is the poetry of our hearts. Music is our universal language and can bridge our international community; and music is a thread through which we elementary general music teachers can reach our students. It is only natural then, that music, language arts, science, social studies and math are so connected.

Teaching music enables my music colleagues and me to hold a torch for our students’ entry into understanding culture and beauty. A good musical foundation is the life-long gift well-trained and experienced elementary general music teachers can give our students.

We, who see our children in a classroom setting that includes each student — not just those who do not take instrumental lessons during the school day — further all our students’ foundational learning experiences by providing rich and meaningful lessons that include singing, playing instruments, dancing and performing songs from different time periods and genres and cultures. We enable our students to explore sound and science. We teach lessons that enable students to experience the relationship between music and math. The learning activities mentioned here only begin to address the benefits of having music classes be all-inclusive in that they, in addition to teaching music for music’s sake, are often one of the best ways in which to pull the big picture into focus. (Let’s not forget the more fortunate students get to take private lessons which so much enhance their classroom experiences.)

It is in through working with my classroom teachers I see results of my students’ extrapolation of what they have learned. With all the studies professing the wonders of classroom teachers and specialists working together in Professional Learning Committees and Communities, this is the opportune time for all educators to work together for the common good of our students.

I am proud of my thirty-seven years of teaching elementary music. I am hopeful that all our state and jurisdictional superintendents and school boards will continue to support the funding for, and encourage our administrators to schedule, two weekly elementary general music classes, a 60 minute chorus period during the school day and the opportunity to be in band and orchestra.

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Dave Makings is a professor of Education Technology at the College of Southern Idaho. Since 1981, he’s been working with aspiring teachers on how best to use cutting-edge technology in their classrooms. It all began for Makings and his class with Bank Street Writer, an early word processing model. Thirty years later, he teaches students about Adobe Connect, a web-conferencing software; ThinkFinity, a math and science lesson plan database; and Blackboard, a curriculum delivery system — among many other technologies they can incorporate to become better teachers.

Interestingly, Makings grew up on a farm and initially studied zoology, but found himself working for decades in the education technology arena. How did that life path unfold? The answer, within this interview, is very interesting.

The state of Idaho is doing some forward-thinking things with education right now, too: mandating online learning and allowing teacher evaluations to have parent input. Makings addresses both of those topics, as well.

We hope you enjoy this discussion with Professor Makings. Next week, our guest will be Alan Blankstein, the President of the HOPE Foundation, who will be talking about his transition from “high-risk” youth to a collaborator with multiple districts to make sure their schools get it right.

Visit our archives and/or subscribe to the podcast via iTunes!

For more examples of how teachers can incorporate technology into their classrooms, we encourage you to check out our report from 2011 about Mooresville, NC:

Thanks for listening, and we hope you keep coming back!

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School choice is a major issue in education as more and more states move to a charter model. We convened several experts to discuss the topic; we also covered this issue for PBS NewsHour, which you can watch above.

Andrew Coulson, Cato Institute

Listen to Mark Twain, among others, for advice

Andrew Coulson directs the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute. Before studying education policy he was a systems software engineer for Microsoft.

Is school choice a good thing or a threat to public education? The answer depends on how we define those terms. “School choice” can mean anything from open-enrollment, to charters, to vouchers, to moving house in search of a different school. That’s too broad a term to be useful, so I’m going to dispense with it and talk about specific policies instead.

“Public education” can simply refer to our current district-based, state-run school system; or it can refer to our shared educational ideals: universal access to a quality education that prepares children for both success in private life and participation in public life. I use “public education” in the latter sense.

As someone who is firmly committed to public education, I think it’s best to pursue it by the most effective means possible. So I spent four years in the mid-1990s studying historical school systems to discover which had done a good job of advancing our shared educational ideals, which hadn’t, and why. Subsequently, I collected and reviewed the modern scientific literature comparing different kinds of school systems all over the world, for a 2009 paper in the Journal of School Choice. And most recently, I’ve studied aspects of charter schools, vouchers, and education tax credits using statistical methods — trying to answer questions raised by my earlier investigations.

What I’ve learned is that one approach to organizing and funding schools consistently does a better job than any other: a free educational marketplace driven by the choices of families, in which parents pay directly for their children’s education to the greatest extent possible, and in which educators are free to teach what and how they deem best.

How to ensure universal access to such an education marketplace? To help middle-income families, cutting their taxes has proven the best mechanism, since it preserves their freedom of choice. Such programs, called direct education tax credits, already exist in Iowa and Illinois on a small scale.

To help lower-income families who owe little or nothing in taxes (and so don’t benefit from direct credits), scholarship tax credit programs are the best solution. These programs, operating in half a dozen states, provide dollar-for-dollar tax cuts to those who donate to non-profit K-12 scholarship organizations. The scholarship organizations use the donated money to help low income families afford independent school tuition.

So, to paraphrase the apocryphal Mark Twain quote: we can’t let our current approach to public schooling get in the way of public education.

Richard Kahlenberg, The Century Foundation

Look to public magnet schools as an option

Richard D. Kahlenberg is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and author of All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice and Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race and Democracy.

Advocates of choice are absolutely right when they suggest that poor kids stuck in failing high poverty schools deserve a chance to choose a better school. School quality shouldn’t depend upon what sort of neighborhood your parents can afford to live in, and students don’t have time to wait and hope that the latest education reform will turn around their local failing school.

But the type of choice afforded to low-income students matters enormously, and those most in vogue today — charter schools and private school vouchers — have on the whole been disappointing.

Private school vouchers, the brainchild of conservative economist Milton Friedman, have consistently produced results that are no better than the regular public schools. Vouchers raise serious questions about public accountability and the separation of church and state. And fundamentally, they undermine the ideal of the “common school,” in which children of all different backgrounds come together to learn what it means to be an American.
Charter schools, largely freed of teacher union influence, are supposed to provide a superior alternative to unionized public schools. But despite the fact that 88% of charters are nonunion, the most comprehensive study of charter schools found that they outperform regular public schools only 17% of the time. Charters could in theory be more economically and racially integrated than regular public schools — and some are — but most are actually more segregated.

Public magnet schools, by contrast, produce far better results on the whole. These schools are designed to avoid what a long line of research suggests is harmful to education: concentrations of school poverty. By attracting a healthy economic mix of students, many magnets create an environment where classmates encourage achievement, parents are actively involved in school affairs, and excellent teachers educate students to high expectations.
Low-income students can achieve when given the right kind of educational environment. Economically disadvantaged students given the chance to attend more affluent schools are two years ahead of similar students stuck in high poverty schools on the 4th grade math portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Magnet schools recognize that school choice can be used to attack the real enemy of equal opportunity, which is not the existence of unions that give teachers voice but the reality of pervasive economic segregation in American schools.

Mike McShane, University of Arkansas

Any school can be a “public” school

Michael Q. McShane is a Distinguished Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. Prior to that, he was an inner city high school teacher in Montgomery, Alabama.

When I tell people that I do research on school choice, I tend to get a common response. It usually goes something like this: “Oh, so I guess you don’t like public education.”

Commence slamming head into desk. I (and most school choice proponents) have absolutely no problem with public schools. I just define “public” differently.

As longtime civil rights leader (and school choice supporter) Howard Fuller likes to say, public education is an idea. It is the idea that we have an obligation to provide for the education of the children of our society. Too often we confuse the idea with the mechanism we have chosen to deliver it, that is, traditional public schools. But we don’t have to keep doing that.

In my opinion, any school that serves to educate students in the knowledge and skills that they need to succeed in life can be a public school. If in addition to knowledge and skills they want to teach religion or pretty much anything else, that doesn’t really bother me, provided that parents are free to choose to send their children there. Remember, no one is forced to use a voucher or tax credit scholarship or is forced to attend a school that teaches an ideology with which they disagree.

They are, however, currently forced to send their children to schools that fail to teach their children basic literacy and numeracy if they lack the financial means to move to a better neighborhood or pay private school tuition. And what’s worse, individuals who oppose school choice actively work to keep children trapped in these schools, even when they know that the children will not learn there.

Who doesn’t like public education now?

Cassandra Hart, UC-Davis

What’s the value of vouchers?

Cassandra Hart is an assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis. She studies education policy, with a recent focus on means-tested voucher programs.

Particularly contentious are voucher programs, which channel public resources to private schools. Skeptics of these programs charge that they aim to strip public schools of much-needed resources and attract the most capable students away from public schools, leaving public schools with the hardest-to-educate students. While some (likely small) share of voucher advocates may hold such aims, the structure and enrollment patterns of these programs suggest that they may pose less of a threat than their opponents fear.

Because universal vouchers are politically contentious, most programs have been structured to target specific populations who may otherwise face genuine difficulties obtaining high-quality education through neighborhood schools. For instance, many states target vouchers to low-income students, because while wealthier families can afford houses in good school districts, housing zoned to high-quality schools may not be affordable for poorer families. However, voucher opponents may be justified in concerns that programs will become less targeted over time; Milwaukee recently lifted income restrictions to allow participation with family incomes up to 300% of the federal poverty line (~$67,000 for a family of four).

Moreover, voucher programs have historically produced less “cream skimming” than opponents fear. Research indicates that students who participate in voucher programs are relatively disadvantaged, even among the pool of income-eligible applicants. They also tend to be lower-achieving compared to both income-eligible public school students generally and compared to other eligible students within their original public school who opt not to use vouchers. These facts suggest that fears of cream-skimming may be overblown.

While voucher programs are not as threatening as opponents fear, however, neither does research suggest that they are a silver bullet that will fix all ills of the public school system. The value of vouchers remains open for debate.

James Boutin, Public School Teacher

Are we washing our hands of impoverished communities?

James Boutin is a public school teacher in SeaTac, WA. He is a member of the Teacher Leaders Network and previously taught in public schools in New York City and Washington, DC. He blogs at An Urban Teacher’s Education.

The argument over school choice is merely another argument over which should hold primacy: the group or the individual. Is public education about providing a quality education to all students, or only to those students whose families have the means and motivation to seek it out?

Underprivileged schools contain a diverse group of students. There exist both apathetic students with staggeringly low skills and students on and above grade-level who fight desperately to learn, and, of course, so many in between. School choice in the form of vouchers and charter schools serves only one section of any given underprivileged school when it works well (i.e. when charters and vouchers actually provide a more quality education than the traditional public school). Families who are displeased with the services being provided by their local public school choose higher performing charter or private schools and leave the often poorer, lower skilled student behind. Because the quality of a given school is largely determined by the students who attend, the traditional public school often then ends up with less money to accomplish a more difficult task. This is why Richard Kahlenberg argues so effectively in favor of magnet schools.

Arguments in favor of school choice often rely on the false notion of the rational market. Douglas Harris is right to point out that it is very difficult to know what a good school is. Few parents are provided the necessary tools to make a sound judgement, particularly when the market for schools has created obscene marketing techniques in cities across the country. Charter school networks like Harlem Success Academy have been accused of targeting the easiest students to educate - i.e. screening out those with disabilities or English language learners - and counseling out those with behavioral problems. When students who come from families with means and motivation are separated from those without, a new era of school segregation has begun, one just as pernicious as pre-1954.

Now we can see clearly that public education’s underlying tension is the same as at its inception: individual determination versus the advancement of the interests of our democracy as a whole. Because studies show that negative rates of obesity, teenage pregnancy, imprisonment, crime, and social mobility are all associated with countries that maintain relatively high rates of economic inequality; and it is clear that economic inequality is strongly associated with educational advancement; I think we’d be right to worry that our current version of choice may not be in our collective best interest.

If the purpose of choice is to improve the educational outcomes of as many students as possible, then choice will have to be refashioned so that it doesn’t allow for the negative effects on public schools and public school space we’re currently seeing from Los Angeles to New York to Miami.

If, on the other hand, the purpose of providing choice is merely to wash our hands of the problems of impoverished communities by saying, “Look, we gave you a choice,” I’m afraid we’ll all be paying for that choice for a long time to come.

Doug Harris, University of Wisconsin

What is the basis for parental choice?

Douglas N. Harris is an economist and Associate Professor of Educational Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Education has a problem. No, not the usual ones we hear about in hyperbolic news media and political debates. The one I have in mind goes to the nature of education and the potential of reforms like school choice.

The problem is that it’s difficult to know, at present, whether any given school is good or not. Even when people agree on what “good” means, the people we typically consider to be the key educational stakeholders — parents and taxpayers — don’t actually see what happens in the classroom.

This is a big problem for school choice. Whether in the form of charter schools, vouchers, or tuition tax credits, the argument for school choice is that it lets free markets reign, allowing parents and students in failing schools to search for better options, and that schools will be freed from the shackles of bureaucratic school districts. But if parents are making decisions based on limited or bad information, what ends up driving parents’ choices and school administrators’ practices? Unfortunately, not always the kinds of things we would hope for. Parents focus on student demographics, class size, and safety — and, increasingly, school themes like “science and technology” — none of which say much about school performance.

Student test scores are gaining interest, but these omit critical information about school climate and college entry and completion. Also, just reporting the raw end-of-year results tells us nothing about what schools contribute to student learning, which is what school performance is all about. As I argue in my book on the topic, we need to fix this by accounting for the level of learning students start when they enter the school. Schools should not be punished for serving students who start off far behind. Instead, they should be rewarded when they help these students grow and develop.

More than just a market issue, administrators need good performance information to drive internal organizational improvement. If neither administrators nor parents have good performance information, are schools likely to improve their practices? Perhaps a little, in the long run, but this just reinforces the fact that markets in these circumstances do not operate at anything like full tilt. Perhaps this is one reason why the evidence points to mixed results for charter schools and vouchers.

While school choice programs expand, we stand waiting for the tools to make them work.

Greg Forster, Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice

Put the parents back in charge

Greg Forster is a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. He is co-author of Education Myths and co-editor of Freedom and School Choice in American Education.

School choice is the best-proven way to improve public schools and private schools alike. Nationwide, almost 200,000 students are taking advantage of school vouchers and similar policies to attend private schools. Nine out of the ten empirical studies conducted using random assignment — the gold standard of social science — have found that school choice participants achieve better academic outcomes. Nineteen out of the twenty studies examining how choice impacts public schools (using a variety of methods) found that academic outcomes in public schools were improved as a result of the programs. In both cases, no studies have ever found a negative impact. The research also consistently shows school choice improves school safety and discipline, services to disabled students, the teaching of civic values, and racial integration; it also saves taxpayer money by removing inefficiencies like administrative bloat.

But the most important reasons to support school choice go far beyond these numbers. School choice improves education because it takes power away from the politicized bureaucracies that currently run the public school system, putting it back in the hands of parents and schools. There are lots of teachers in the public school system who want to do a better job of serving their students, but they’re limited by a system that’s designed to serve the bureaucrats, not the kids. By putting parents back in charge of education, school choice forces the political and bureaucratic system to get out of the way, empowering teachers who care about delivering a good education. Right now, education is a government monopoly; that’s why our schools are mediocre, and that’s why education is the only sector of American society where we still do things pretty much the same way we did them a hundred years ago. Only school choice can create space for educational innovators to invent the 21st century school.

Jane Hannaway, American Institutes for Research

A key tie is between accountability and consistency

Jane Hannaway is a Vice President at the American Institutes for Research and the Director of CALDER (National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.

School choice, in one form or another, has been part of education in the United States since the early days of the country. Publicly supported choice programs, however, are more recent and the form they take is continually evolving. Among other possibilities, they include charter schools, voucher programs, magnet schools, tuition tax credit programs, dual enrollment plans, and homeschooling.

From a public policy perspective the question is — with what effect? The arguments for and against choice programs are clear; but the consequences, especially from a public interest point of view, are less so. Are students who attend choice schools better off than similar students attending traditional schools? Do they learn more? Do the offerings or the school philosophy of choice schools better match the needs or objectives of their students? What are the societal and community consequences of choice schools that would merit public support? Are choice schools more efficient — presumably because they face market pressure? Does competition from choice schools spur traditional school to higher performance? On the downside, do choice schools foster economic or social segregation? Do they cream skim students, making them look more effective than they are, while simultaneously depriving traditional schools of the better students and, perhaps, the most quality-conscious parents. What information do parents use, and how well do they use it, when making choices about school alternatives?

Early research on choice schools, notably the work of James Coleman in the early 1980s, focused on comparing Catholic schools with public schools. More recently, research has focused on charter schools, no doubt because charter schools are increasingly promoted as a strategy for reforming sluggish public schools, especially in urban areas. Charter schools in the U.S., doubling to over 5000 in the last decade, now serve nearly 1.5 million students. In the District of Columbia nearly 40 percent of students attend a charter school, and over 60 percent in New Orleans. The federal government is promoting greater charter school development through its Race to the Top (RttT) initiative as a way to increase student achievement.

The research results on charter schools are mixed. Some charter schools outperform traditional public schools while others do not. The reasons for the differences are not entirely clear. Charter schools face two forms of accountability. They operate in a consumer choice system so presumably must be responsive to client preferences. However, there are good reasons to expect quality control through parental choice not to be particularly effective since there are costs to children changing schools which makes parents reluctant to do so. Charter schools also operate in a regulatory system — they receive their charter to operate from a public authority that can revoke the charter if they do not conform to the terms of the charter and perform up to par.

Revoking or not renewing charters and closing schools, however, has not been common. So, in general, external accountability has been weak, resulting in some schools doing well and others not. But things may be changing. New York City recently refused to renew a charter simply because its performance was mediocre, a pattern we might see emerging across the country. Under these conditions — where charter schools are really held to some performance standards — higher levels of charter school performance may more consistently emerge.

Clint Bolick, Goldwater Institute

Schools are not immune from the laws of economics

Clint Bolick is a Vice President at the Goldwater Institute.

One of the disappointing features of modern political discourse is to propensity to question the motives of one’s opponents, rather than to engage their arguments. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the fight over school choice, in which opponents seek to characterize proponents as part of a nefarious conspiracy to de-fund public schools. I suppose such a tactic is necessary because school choice opponents lack substantive arguments to support their position.

In 1999, Matthew Miller conducted an interesting experiment that he wrote about in The Atlantic. He asked proponents and opponents of school vouchers whether they would support a combination of school vouchers paired with large increases in public school funding. School choice proponents (myself included) by and large said yes, while school choice opponents largely said no. That suggests that some self-styled public school advocates would trade the increased public school funding they so cherish in order to preserve a status quo in which they have outsized influence.

One’s position on school choice depends on whether one views public schools as a means to an end or as an end in themselves. Those who take the first position support strong and effective public schools, but also favor alternatives when public schools fail. Those who take the opposite view support public schools — and greater funding for public schools — even when they fail in their core mission.

The fact is that for millions of schoolchildren, especially those who most desperately need a good education, the public schools are failing. One-size-fits-all rarely works for anything, and especially not for education. We have the technological capacity to deliver a high-quality, highly individualized educational experience for every child. But the current system is more focused on the interests of providers than the intended beneficiaries. We should provide the greatest possible array of educational options, from open public school enrollment to magnet schools to charter schools to vouchers to distance learning to education savings accounts where families can choose from a cafeteria-style menu of educational options tailored to their children’s unique needs. We should be far less concerned about where children are educated and more focused on whether children are learning.

Schools are not immune from the laws of economics. Competition and accountability strengthen institutions. Public schools that are fulfilling their mission will flourish with greater educational choices. True advocates of public education support education choice.

Sean Corcoran, NYU

The risks deserve more scrutiny

Sean P. Corcoran is an economist and associate professor of education economics at New York University. His research focuses on three areas: human capital in the teaching profession, education finance, and school choice.

School choice comes in many flavors, from vouchers, charters, and magnet schools to open choice, inter-district transfers, and cyber schools. These policies differ in form, but share the same goals. First, they break the link between residential location and school assignment. When families are dissatisfied with the quality, safety, or services offered in their local school, they are empowered to pursue other options. Second, choice facilitates better matches between students and schools. With a wide variety of options, families can choose the school with the theme, size, curriculum, or philosophy best matches their needs or interests. Third, choice aims to be the “tide that lifts all boats,” creating a marketplace in which good schools thrive and bad schools improve or close.

Economists (like me) tend to be cautiously optimistic about the potential for school choice to improve educational outcomes. With respect to most goods and services, the marketplace does a fine job of fueling innovation, rewarding quality, and getting consumers what they like, want, and need (the recent financial crisis notwithstanding). Policymakers and parents wish the same for their schools, and few would disagree that families deserve a voice in where their children go to school.

But economists also understand that markets do not guarantee good outcomes for all. On the contrary, market competition systematically produces winners and losers: thriving firms and dazzling failures, highly-paid CEOs and the working poor, satisfied customers and the fleeced. Though tides may rise in the long run, many boats sink along the way. For most goods and services, this is a risk we are willing to take. But in education — our single most important pathway to personal and social prosperity — the risks associated with unfettered choice deserve closer scrutiny.

For example, education reformers embrace the idea of providing families information for choosing schools, encouraging new schools to enter, and “letting the market work.” But choosing a school can be a serious and complex task. In New York City, for example, incoming freshmen choose from nearly 700 high school programs on 360 sites. New schools open every year while others close their doors, creating a constantly shifting landscape. Students are encouraged to seek out quality schools, but school “quality” is hard enough for professionals to measure, let alone kids. As in any market, families with the knowledge, energy, and resources necessary to identify good schools will fare well, while those who do not will fall behind.

On the supply side, the entry of new players into the market will likely promote innovation and increase average quality in the long run. As in any market, however, quality may vary greatly, with a few stand-out performers and many failures. The empirical evidence on charter school effectiveness has already shown such a pattern. With children’s education on the line, the downside risk of failure is incredibly high.

If education is to benefit from the virtues of markets, policymakers must be prepared for the likely negative effects of market competition. Inequality in educational outcomes may rise, not fall, under expanded school choice. As niche markets form and students seek out schools tailored to their needs and interests, segregation by ability, race, gender, socioeconomic status, and aspirations may rise. Given what we know about how markets work, these effects are predictable. We should begin now.

Final note from Learning Matters: If interested in learning more about the charter school experiment in New Orleans, we invite you to watch this trailer for an upcoming project of ours:

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As 2011 concludes, we wanted to offer up some of the work we’ve produced about American education this year. Most of the time, this work appears on PBS NewsHour, one of our primary content partners. Where noted, it was an original web piece for Learning Matters.

We did relaunch the Learning Matters podcast series this year, and John does continue to blog at Taking Note, but this page specifically is dedicated to our television work.

You can always keep up with us via The Latest or our Twitter account. We regularly post on Facebook and YouTube, as well.

If you are interested in the work below and would like to see it continue at this level of quality in 2012, please consider donating to Learning Matters — and helping us with a ‘challenge grant’ in the process.

Happy New Year, all!

Closing The Vocabulary Gap In Chicago Preschools

Children raised in poverty typically enter kindergarten less prepared than their middle class peers and often never catch up. For these children — who struggle year after year — school can feel like a losing battle. More than one million students drop out every year. We visited Chicago this winter to see what educators are doing to stop the battle before it begins.

This aired on April 5 on PBS:

The Mooresville Tech Revolution

The town of Mooresville, North Carolina has a grand plan for its school district: three years ago, they began providing laptops to every student and teacher in grades 4-12 (over 5000 laptops in all). While computers have been around in schools for over two decades at this point, Mooresville is one of the only entirely digital districts in the United States.

The district superintendent, Mark Edwards notes that this plan is a successful financial model, and one teacher, Bethany Smith, who claims she was “a dictator” before this tech revolution, now feels that her relationship with her student has more flexibility. Still, though, there are issues: will students remain on-task? Since the program must limit certain types of sites and information, is that a disservice to students? Can a school “divorcing” itself from textbooks actually thrive?

This aired on April 8 on PBS:

Last In, First Out In Hartford, CT

“I don’t care how long someone has been in the classroom. I want results.”

That’s the view of one principal in Hartford, CT, where Learning Matters producers John Tulenko and Audrey Baker traveled recently to investigate the many sides of ‘last in, first out’ (LIFO), a method of teacher retention in many states. The issue is heated, requires its own vocabulary (do you know what ‘bumping’ is?), and has very serious financial implications — Hartford, for example, is trying to cut $17 million from the budget.

Hartford elementary school principal Gerald Martin hired a fifth-grade teacher last year after a quickly arranged Friday afternoon interview. She impressed him, got the job, and has delivered: her class posted the highest number of increased test scores in the first quarter among all classes in grades 3-5. But eventually, Martin realized he had to fire two teachers — and his new star would be one of them.

“Finally I’ve got someone who’s working out really well,” he says. “It breaks my professional heart.”

This aired on May 9 on PBS:

The Eco Fashion Show

At the High School for Health Professions in New York City, the ECO Club recently put on a fashion show — with a twist (tie), though. All the materials were things you can find at home. So, as the participants learned about bigger issues — such as sustainability and how their generation can give back — they were also wearing newspaper miniskirts and garbage bag blouses.

This debuted on May 23 on Learning Matters’ website:

Good School, Bad School

How do you judge if a school is good or bad? A strong leader, great teachers, a diverse curriculum and happy children can all be indicators that a school is good — but when state and federal policymakers evaluate schools, they typically consider just one piece of evidence: test scores.

But are test scores a reliable measure of success? We went to the South Bronx to find out.

This aired on June 6 on PBS:

Empathy 101: A Refugee Curriculum In The South Bronx

For many high school students, the struggles of others are often distant problems. In urban inner-city schools, where students have tough home situations and little exposure to the outside world, this is particularly the case. But at Banana Kelly High School in the South Bronx, high school teacher Lauren Fardig aims to change that.

Producer John Tulenko went to Banana Kelly — situated in the poorest Congressional district in America — to film a piece on a remarkable curriculum developed by the Morningside Center. These ninth grade students went through several phases of activities related to refugees, discovering important life lessons in the process.

This aired on June 20 on PBS:

The Effects Of Cheating In Atlanta

The cheating scandal in Atlanta schools has been a black mark on American education — but when we speak about it, we often focus on administrators, principals, and teachers. What about the students whose scores were falsified, and their families? How do they feel? And with the chances that cheating is more widespread than we think, where is the system headed next?

This aired on August 8 on PBS:

Budget Cuts In Central PA

Mifflin County, PA, like small rural districts across the nation, faced big budget cuts this year. A 12% cut in state funding, combined with a declining enrollment, drove the district to close 5 of its 13 schools, lay off 11% of its staff, and reduce course offerings across the district. Classes have increased by 7-10 students, teachers say they’re overwhelmed, and students are feeling underprepared. Is this small rural district in central PA the tip of the iceberg?

This aired on October 11 on PBS:

Shopping For Schools In Indiana

As consumers, we’re used to choices — Mac or PC? Toyota Prius or Ford Fusion? Nike or Adidas? Competition is said to produce better products and services. Traditionally, public schools have enjoyed a monopoly — you have no other choice — unless you happen to live in a place like Indiana. The Hoosier state has done more than any other to give parents alternatives to their neighborhood school, including private religious schools, online schools, and charters. And like businesses, these schools must attract students and their state dollars or they will close.

This aired on November 9 on PBS:

The American Teacher Quiz

Teachers are widely recognized as the backbone of education, but how much do you really know about the people who are in the classroom with our children everyday? Sharpen your No. 2 pencils and get ready to find out how much you know about one of the largest professions in the U.S.

This debuted on November 30 on the Learning Matters website:

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Angela Maiers could probably best be defined as an education consultant, but she can speak to so much more. As the ‘About’ section of her website will tell you, her path has always been about teaching and communication. Small example: her website has 12 ways for someone to get in contact with her.

In this edition of the Learning Matters podcast, Angela speaks to Rachael Wettenstein about evolving notions of education, how technology has changed the game, and what exactly a ’21st-century classroom’ should look like.

We hope you enjoy the discussion — and if so, follow Angela on Twitter and subscribe to her channel on YouTube.

This podcast is also available on YouTube:

Happy holidays to all! We’ll be taking two weeks off from the podcast, but we’ll return around January 4th with Vanderbilt professor Gilman Whiting.

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Horton’s Kids is an organization dedicated to educating and empowering students (and their families) in Ward 8 of Washington, D.C. For their efforts, they were the winner of The Washington Post’s 2011 Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Management.

In late 2011, Learning Matters web producer Ted Bauer talked with three members of the Horton’s Kids team — Executive Director Brenda Chamberlain, Development Director Lisa Peri, and Program Director Kristen Woodiwiss — about the organization’s focus and plans for the upcoming year.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking the play button above; you can get more information on Horton’s Kids by visiting their website.

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icouldbe.org is an award-winning online mentoring program connecting high school students from diverse communities with mentors from across the country — in the process cultivating meaningful relationships between students and e-mentors, and helping the students to explore their interests and dreams for the future. Since 2000, icouldbe.org has used their research-backed curriculum to help 20,000 students discover their passions and take action to realize their career and educational goals.

Kate Schrauth is the Executive Director of icouldbe.org; she’s been working with at-risk students since 1990, when she founded the Artists for Humanity program in Boston. E-mentoring has significantly emerged in recent years, and in her visit to the Learning Matters podcast, Kate discusses the model for the program, the importance of mentoring, the organization’s fundraising model, and much more.

You can also check out a YouTube version of this podcast right here:

Next week on the podcast: education consultant Angela Maiers.

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Bob Wise served as Governor of West Virginia from 2001 to 2005; currently, he’s the President of the Alliance for Excellent Education. In late 2011, he joined Learning Matters web producer Ted Bauer for a discussion on how a state sets an education agenda, the challenges of being a Governor as relate to education policy, and some of the new initiatives — especially regarding digital literacy — that the Alliance is undertaking.

You can listen to the conversation above.

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John and AFT President Randi Weingarten appeared in conversation on December 14, 2011 at the JCC in Manhattan; it was part of the ongoing Learning Matters conversation series.

Above, you can listen to the full audio from the event (roughly 1 hour and 14 minutes long); please bear in mind that periodically, there is explicit language on the clip.

The next JCC event is February 15th, 2012 — and the guest is former NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. Click here for tickets.

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David Griffith is the Director of Public Policy for ASCD. In that role, he oversees their legislative agenda — as well as working broadly to affect educational change at all levels.

Griffith spoke to Learning Matters web producer Ted Bauer in late 2011 about a variety of issues, including Common Core, the notions of ’silver bullets’ in education, and whether traditional assessment models may die out.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking the play button above.

And hey — don’t forget about ASCD’s 2012 Annual Conference in Philadelphia.

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The Shared Poetry Project — inspired by this John Merrow blog entry — invites public school students to film community members reciting lines of poetry, then edit the readings into a video for the Learning Matters YouTube channel. This exciting project provides students the opportunity to develop or strengthen real-world skills of teamwork, quality control, and production. It also can introduce the 80% of Americans who do not have school-aged children to the remarkable abilities of our youth.

We’ve produced several examples so far. They are available on one link here, and one example is embedded above.

For more information, you can access this Google Document. If interested in doing this project with your class, please e-mail us.

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Aleta Margolis is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Inspired Teaching. In this discussion, she talks about guiding new teachers, the pros and cons of Common Core, fostering inquiry in classrooms, and much more.

If you’re a teacher or education advocate, it’s a great discussion. You can listen to it by clicking on the play button above.

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Robert Hall is the principal of Arts and Media Prep in New York City. The school has partnered with iZone360, a program within the New York City Department of Education, to incorporate technology into classroom instruction and administrative effectiveness in unique, innovative ways. Mr. Hall has focused on transparency within grading, using Google Documents as a method of editing and communicating, providing all students with e-mail addresses and reflective blogs, and using the New Tech Network’s Echo program to develop the project management skills of his students.

Hall joins Ted Bauer, the Learning Matters web producer, for a far-ranging discussion on the ‘real-time’ nature of education, guiding students towards being self-directed, the true role of technology in the classroom, and how to connect project-based learning to a testing world. It’s an interesting discussion, and we hope you enjoy it.

For more on schools embracing technology as a method of instruction and administration, watch our piece from 2011:

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Common Core Standards have caused a dividing line among several voices in education; our own John Merrow has weighed in on the topic as well. We convened several experts to discuss Common Core below. Feel free to post your own comments below, as well. If interested in more of these online discussions, please visit our collection page for the series.

Editor’s Note: We regret an error in editing Susan Ohanian’s initially submitted comments. They have been restored to their original state.

Karen Rambo, Colorado State University

Assessments will be the key here

Karen Rambo is an assistant professor at Colorado State University in the School of Education and School of Teacher Education and Principal Preparation. Her research interests include assessment, academic growth, and mathematics education. She is a ten year veteran mathematics teacher.

The assessments for the Common Core will provide two key components: 1) allowing comparisons of how well individual states are educating their students, and 2) providing critical frequent feedback to teachers on how their students are performing. The former is of interest to policy makers and the media, but it is the latter that gets me excited about the potential of the Common Core. If the creators of the assessments can design tools that allow for frequent specific feedback of student performance, teachers will have the potential to be quite nimble in adjusting their instruction to meet the need of their students.

When I was a classroom teacher, I (like other mathematics teachers) used assessments frequently to try to find what my students knew and tailor my instruction to their needs. I now know that those assessments (often created by me) — while well-intentioned — were often insufficient. I knew my content area well, but I was only informally trained in the art and science of student assessment.

Having just completed my graduate work, I have a new appreciation for the technical savvy and expertise that goes into making a quality assessment. When I was a classroom teacher, I would have loved access to frequent relevant student information derived from high quality assessments — as long as the feedback about my instruction and student performance was constructive and not punitive.

The goals of the assessments for the Common Core are quite extensive but admirable. If the assessments of the Common Core can accomplish their stated goals, then I am optimistic about the success of the Common Core in ensuring all students are career and/or college ready.

Robert Rothman, Alliance for Excellent Education

There are three elements in the Standards’ favor

Robert Rothman, a veteran education writer, is a senior fellow at the Alliance for Excellent Education and the author of Something in Common: The Common Core Standards and the Next Chapter in American Education (Harvard Education Press, 2011).

The Common Core Standards represent a significant step forward in American education. Long before other nations, the U.S. established a basic education as a right for every child. Two decades ago, states began setting standards to define the knowledge and skills that should comprise that education. Now, with the Common Core Standards, nearly all states have defined a basic education as what all students should know and be able to do to be prepared for college and careers. And, significantly, the expectations are the same, no matter where a student lives.

A lot has to happen in order to realize this vision, and the record of twenty years of standards-based reform is decidedly mixed. But three factors are in the Standards’ favor. First, they are clear and spell out a logical progression over time. That makes sense to teachers. Second, the assessments that are currently being developed are designed explicitly to measure the full range of the Standards. Of course, there could be some slippage, but that is the intent, and because of the influence of tests on instruction, this is a powerful lever for change. Third, the fact that forty-six states have adopted the Standards means that other institutions that paid little mind to standards in the past — such as higher education, teacher education, and textbook publishers — are paying close attention to these Standards.

There have been fierce debates over education policy in recent years, but none of the issues that have become such flashpoints are likely to produce anywhere near the impact on student learning that the Common Core could produce. That’s because they don’t address what Dick Elmore calls the “instructional core” — the interactions between students and teachers that are the heart of learning. The Common Core goes straight to the instructional core. Done right, they can affect nearly every classroom in America — and for the better.

Susan Ohanian, Teacher/Author

We’re being steamrolled into one-size-fits-all

Susan Ohanian is a longtime teacher and author of 25 books on education policy and practice. One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards was provoked by the last time corporate bullies tried to push curriculum mandates into the schools. Her website in opposition to NCLB, Race to the Top, and the Common Core was awarded the George Orwell Award for Honesty and Clarity in Public Language.

We’d do well to heed 19th-century abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher warning to gardeners against being “made wild by pompous catalogue.” These days, Common Core State Standards (CCSS) hucksters pitch a pomposity more noxious than giant hogweed. We should name the CCSS for what it is “a dangerous distraction from the real needs of children. No matter how many hundreds of millions the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pours into developing, promoting, and enforcing the CCSS, no matter how many desperate governors sign on to collect blood money from Arne Duncan’s flimflam supporting Gates’ obsession, no matter how many curriculum border patrol agents police school hallways to make sure all 15-year-olds are reading Death in August on schedule, the poverty rate of children attending most urban and many rural schools exceeds.

Here’s a central problem: despite all the money and policing that goes into this, the poverty rate of children attending most urban and many rural schools exceeds 50 percent — and that remains the elephant in the room. The fact that so many of our children live in poverty, not teacher incompetence or a dearth of rigorous texts, is what should concern us. If the Standardistos weren’t so intent on downgrading the very idea that fiction teaches important lessons, they might heed Alice Walker’s observation: The most important question in the world is, “Why is the child crying?”

Back during a different education crisis, I received an emergency credential to teach English in a New York City high school larger than my hometown. When one of my students refused to read the assigned text, I panicked and ran to my department chair. He gave me the best pedagogical advice I ever received: “Then find a book he will read.”

Later, when I taught 8th grade, 15-year-old Keith was astounded to read his first book ever. “I read it, Miz O. I really read it. Honest. Listen, I’ll read it again.” Keith’s reading of Hop on Pop is one of the triumphs of my career. Funny thing: My principal hadn’t understood my determination to subscribe to the Dr. Seuss book club. And today’s CCSS fundamentalists would term Keith’s experience as my failure to supply the “substantial supports and accommodations” to give him “access to rigorous academic content” such as Little Women, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” and Travels with Charley.

As ever dutiful teachers across the country provide scaffolding to force feed rigorous books chosen by committees outsourced from Achieve, Inc., millions of children will never want to read another book. Look up the definition of rigor.

Billed as the CCSS architect, David Coleman delivered a teaching guide to the pompous and sterile pedagogy underlying CCSS when he spoke at the New York State Department of Education in April 2011, proclaiming, “[A]s you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a sh*t about what you feel or what you think.” Certainly, nobody writing the CCSS gave a fig about what teachers thought, and now the model lessons designed to turn English classrooms into boot camps for the global economy are spreading faster than ragweed. Coleman heralds the CCSS emphasis on nonfiction, insisting that readers gain “world knowledge” through nonfiction, which he calls “informational text,” as though fiction doesn’t provide readers with plenty of critical information. Skeptics might doubt that replacing Brown Bear, Brown Bear with a Wikipedia entry on Ursus arctos will fix our balance of trade — but the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Web site is listed as a CCSS exemplary text.

Although I find it easy to mock the CCSS exemplary texts, don’t misunderstand: If the CCSS listed all my favorite books, I’d still denounce it. Different readers need different books, and teachers discover children’s needs through close encounters, not by committee fiat. Education policy makers should read Arnold Lobel’s lovely little fable “Crocodile in the Bedroom.” A crocodile who loved the neat and tidy rows of the flowers on the bedroom wallpaper was coaxed outside into the garden by his wife. The crocodile couldn’t stand the “terrible tangle” and retreated to his bed, admiring the neat and tidy wallpaper. There, “he turned a very pale and sickly shade of green.” With David Coleman as their spokesman out on the stump, the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and the U. S. Department of Education –acting in concert with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, — prescribe a very pale, sickly shade of green future for our deliciously messy classrooms. Certainly, Lobel’s moral — without a doubt, there is such a thing as too much order — is critical here. Letting corporate school reformers steamroll our schools into a neat and tidy standardized one-size-fits-all product puts our children in great peril.

John Cronin, NWEA

What’s important is the quality of the response to adversity

John Cronin is the Director of the Kingsbury Center at Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA).

For ten years now, thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), teachers have focused their efforts on increasing the rate of student proficiency on state assessments. Our organization’s research has found that proficiency standards on these assessments are generally very low. And because NCLB’s accountability formula is focused on increasing proficiency rates, most schools devote their energy to moving relatively small numbers of kids performing near the proficiency bar -“bubble kids” in educator lingo - above it.

The Common Core standards represent a major departure from current state standards in three respects:

1. The standards are substantively different. A May 2011 University of Pennsylvania study found only low to moderate alignment between current state standards and the Common Core. This suggests that teachers will be expected to deliver significantly different curriculum as we make the transition to the new standards.

2. The expectations are higher. The Common Core standards are grounded in the concept that students should leave school ready to enter college without requiring remedial courses. If the tests associated with the standard truly reflect this, then meeting this standard requires much higher performance by kids than is currently demanded by state assessments.

3. The standards affect everyone. The accountability expectations associated with the Common Core focus on evaluating schools and teachers by the growth they produce for all students rather than the number of kids who achieve proficiency. Teachers can’t meet these expectations by focusing on a few bubble kids; they will have to deliver instruction that is aimed at moving all students forward, regardless of their current performance.

All of this is a good thing, but it’s a huge change. Schools have spent the last decade calibrating their practices to a system that was focused on moving a few more kids each year over a low, fixed, achievement bar. Now we’re asking educators to teach to a much higher bar and adapt practices that move every kid forward. Let’s not be surprised when initial results on assessments of the Common Core seem disappointing, and let’s judge schools instead on the quality of their response to these challenges.

B. Jason Brooks, Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability

It could be great — or it could be an exercise in futility

B. Jason Brooks is the Director of Research at the Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability.

The new Common Core learning standards in English language arts and math are a firm step in the right direction. As a nation, we are saying what students should know and what they should be able to do at each grade level. Yet, as significant as this development is, reformers need to tread cautiously to put this effort, and its potential results, into proper perspective.

Simply changing learning standards won’t result in improved student outcomes. Other things – big things – need to change as well.

Academic content that gets tested is more likely get taught, especially if there is a teacher-evaluation system in place that takes student achievement on assessments into consideration. Recognizing this, the federal government awarded nearly $400 million to state consortiums to fund the development of new rigorous assessments based on the Common Core learning standards. The hope is that these exams will allow states to evaluate how well students are meeting learning expectations.

It remains to be seen if state leaders will have the courage to implement assessments that are as comprehensive and rigorous as they need to be. Results of the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam, commonly referred to as the “gold standard” of assessments, reveal that a whopping 63 percent of the nation’s 8th graders failed to demonstrate grade-level proficiency in reading and 57 percent failed in math. Are these numbers the type that state education leaders are willing to admit? In the past, states have watered-down their exams and lowered the scores needed to pass, and thus artificially inflating pass rates, rather than telling families that most students aren’t being adequately prepared for college or a career. States must avoid similar temptations for the new Common Core is to be a success.

While national standards movement shows promise, the devil will be in the details of its implementation. Without proper rigor in both the content of these standards and the assessments designed to measure what our children have learned, this latest Common Core standards effort will rightly be little more than an expensive, time-wasting, over-hyped national exercise.

Joe Aguerrebere, Former President/CEO of NBPTS

A true turning point in our education policy history

Joe Aguerrebere is a former President and CEO of NBPTS (2003-2011), as well as a Deputy Director of the Ford Foundation from 1994 to 2003.

Common Core has the potential to provide consistency, focus, and coherence regarding what all students in this country should learn where there is now wide variation in student learning and performance. However, standards are only the beginning. The standards move us toward some agreement on the first pillar of a quality education program, which is a consensus on what students should learn, often referred to as a curriculum. A second pillar addresses what and how we actually teach inside the classroom, or instruction. A third pillar involves what and how we assess learning so that we know what is working and what needs adjustment.

Moving ahead, there are many concerns to address. The first is that the standards are currently limited to English/Language Arts and mathematics. A well-rounded education demands more than a focus on two subjects. In addition, the groups that develop the standards for any subject should contain more generalists who can provide a counterbalance to the content heavy influence of subject matter specialists. A bottom line question for the inclusion of any set of standards should be “why does learning this stuff really matter in life?”

Secondly, standards should never be seen as final, but rather dynamic with periodic updating to maintain their currency. Therefore, the governance structure for oversight must be performed by a body that is inclusive, transparent, and independent. The current oversight is performed by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association. Unfortunately the membership of these organizations tends to change rapidly due to the volatility of electoral politics. This leads to a risk that the standards can be affected by shifts of political ideology and consequently lose their credibility. Therefore, a governance structure must maintain an arms-length relationship with any policy-making organizations.

Lastly, we know that student learning and performance will vary with some students reaching the standards and others not. What happens to students who have not mastered the standards? Unless standards are used to set targets and develop action plans to help all students achieve, we run the risk of standards being used as new barriers to keep students from charting a road to college and careers.

What we do now will determine whether standards become another barrier or a constructive tool to support all students.

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Natalie B. Milman, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Educational Technology and Coordinator of the Educational Technology Leadership Program in the Department of Educational Leadership at The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development. She earned her doctorate in Instructional Technology from the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education with a graduate specialization designed to prepare technology leaders. She has taught at the elementary school level as a second grade, a science specialist, mentor, and technology teacher in Los Angeles County, California. Her current research interests include one-to-one laptop and tablets initiatives, student engagement and learning through distance education, strategies and models for the effective integration of technology into the curriculum at all academic levels, and the use of digital portfolios for professional development. She has published numerous articles and presented at many conferences. She has co-authored two books about digital portfolios. She is the co-editor of the Current Practices Section of the journal, Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, and is an officer in two AERA SIGs: 1) Technology as an Agent of Change in Teaching and Learning (past Chair, Program Co-Chair, Secretary/Treasurer) and 2) Portfolios and Reflection in Teaching and Teacher Education (past Chair, Secretary/Treasurer, and Program Chair; current Webmaster).

In this edition of the Learning Matters podcast, Milman speaks to LM production assistant Rachael Wettenstein about the three roles of teachers, her observations of the 1-to-1 laptop and iPad programs in middle/elementary schools, innovative uses of Skype in the classroom, the growing digitial divide, and the pros and cons of online learning (Milman has been teaching online for over a decade). At the end of the podcast, Wettenstein and Milman speak about today’s learners: are they inherently different than learners of previous generations?

If you’d like to learn more about Dr. Milman’s work, consult her search results on Google Scholar.

This podcast is also available on YouTube:

Next week on the podcast (Dec. 14): Kate Schrauth, Executive Director of icouldbe.org.

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Maria Paredes is a Senior Program Associate at WestEd. She specializes in family engagement models, notably working in the Phoenix area on APTTs (Academic Parent-Teacher Teams). It’s all part of the Comprehensive School Assistance Program.

In this conversation with Learning Matters web producer Ted Bauer from late 2011, Paredes talks about engaging a community in a school, how parents can extend learning at home, and offers a remarkable percentage breakdown statistic about just how much knowledge a student is getting from only looking at the school day.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking the play button above.

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Teachers are widely recognized as the backbone of education, but how much do you really know about the people who are in the classroom with our children everyday?

For example, what percentage are women?

How much money do they make?

How are they trained and evaluated?

What percentage leave the profession in their first 5 years?

Sharpen your No. 2 pencils and get ready to find out how much you know about one of the largest professions in the U.S.

Featured experts in this piece include Barnett Berry, the President of the Center for Teaching Quality and David Steiner, the Dean of the School of Education at Hunter College in New York.

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Welcome to the third edition of the relaunched Learning Matters podcast. In this episode, Learning Matters web producer Ted Bauer speaks with UPenn vice dean and professor Doug Lynch about various issues in education, including his business plan competition. Lynch draws pointed contrasts between corporate education and public education, and is candid about the notion of success and failure within the field. Enjoy the conversation.

This podcast is also on YouTube:

Next week (Dec. 7) we’ll feature an interview with George Washington University professor Natalie Milman, so be on the lookout for that.

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Christian Dallavis is the Director of Notre Dame ACE Academies. What’s an ACE Academy? Quoting their website: “The Notre Dame ACE Academies are Catholic schools that provide an excellent Catholic education to the children in the communities they serve. NDAA schools strive to remove the cost barrier for families whenever possible.”

In this discussion with Learning Matters web producer Ted Bauer, Dallavis discusses the three parish schools on the south side of Tucson, Arizona that are serving as the pilot program for ACE Academies. He also talks about faith-based education, the one trait shared by all successful schools, and successfully serving the educational needs of an immigrant community. For more information on the tax credit program mentioned in the interview, check out this link.

You can listen to the discussion with Dallavis by clicking the play button above.

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El Sistema is a program in Venezuela that has provided music education to hundreds of thousands of the country’s neediest children. Gustavo Dudamel, the Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is among its most prominent graduates.

El Sistema-inspired organizations also exist all over the United States and the world. Below are just a few samples of some of the programs — and the work they’re doing.

If you have a program modeled after El Sistema and would like us to spotlight you, please e-mail us.

Helpful Note: If you click on the name of any organization, you will be taken to their official site.

Feel free to discuss this post on Twitter, and/or ask us questions about El Sistema and similar programs, by using the hash-tag #LMHarmony.

Before we go program-by-program, here’s an invaluable resource: a TED Talk by Jose Abreu, a director of El Sistema. This talk recently won a TED Prize:

Atlanta Music Project

AMP believes the pursuit of musical excellence leads to the development of confidence, creativity and ambition, thus sparking positive social change in the individuals and the communities they serve.

Here they are performing at TEDxPeachtree in November 2011:

Here they are performing We Shall Overcome in February of 2012:

And finally, here are some photos of Atlanta Music Project participants in action:

CityMusic

The Hartford Symphony Orchestra is in the midst of the pilot year of CityMusic, its after-school music program at the Latino Studies Academy at Burns, a public K-8 school in the Frog Hollow neighborhood of Hartford. Created in collaboration with Hartford Public Schools and the Connecticut Center for Nonviolence, CityMusic engages students through the transformative power of music, helping them to build a new school culture based on achievement and teamwork and teaching them to become ambassadors of social change in their community.

HSO Music Director Carolyn Kuan says, “When I came on as music director of the HSO this season, I knew that I wanted to start an El Sistema program in Hartford. I have seen what programs like CityMusic have done for children across the US; music gives them a sense of purpose, achievement, and responsibility. I have visited the Latino Studies Academy at Burns several times now and have seen the look on the students’ faces when we play and talk about music with them — this is going to be something special.”

Here’s a picture of the CityMusic kids at work:

Conservatory Lab Charter School

Conservatory Lab is an Expeditionary Learning school with a music focus. Music is infused into our student’s learning in three ways: first, music is integrated across the academic curriculum in Learning through Music expeditions; second, all students participate in El Sistema’s youth development, choral and orchestral program with direct music instruction and third, our weekly Listening Project ensures that all students study seven different genre of music ranging from folk songs to opera.

Here’s their Winter Concert from 2010:

Here are the kids playing “Are you my instrument?”

Corona Youth Music Project

The Corona Youth Music Project (or Núcleo Corona) is the first El Sistema-inspired program in the diverse area of Queens, NY.

The project includes an after-school programs and intensive seminars and camps. This “núcleo” will support at least one children’s symphony orchestra and one choir, along with instrumental and musicianship training. It serves the neighborhood by providing a safe, fun place for children to develop discipline, persistence, and self-esteem through music, and become productive valued members of society.

Here’s one project from Núcleo Corona:

For more info about the Corona Program and their work, check out this video:

Kalikolehua (El Sistema Hawaii)

The mission of Kalikolehua - El Sistema Hawai‘i is to give all underserved children in Hawaii the opportunity to change their lives and to develop passion and discipline through experience in orchestras and choirs in a loving community of excellence.

Kalikolehua works in cooperation with the Hawaii DOE and other community partners, offering orchestra and choir programs to children statewide. Rehearsals are held during and after school and on weekends at neighborhood sites. The first nucleo opened at Ka‘a‘awa Elementary School in January 2012. Students learn music through choir, orchestra and other programs. Orchestras will be developed at each site under the direction of adult conductors. Primary instrumental teachers are professional musicians. These teachers will train young volunteers who are advanced musicians to work with the students one-on-one between lessons. All children in the orchestra program are given free instruments when they are ready. The program will expand one nucleo at a time throughout the state of Hawai‘i.

Kalikolehua is a member of the US Network of El Sistema Nucleos, whose mission is to support free music education within a social context and for underserved youth in the United States by building a national network of shared resources, values, aspirations, and advocacy to identify and unify the growing number of geographically and organizationally diverse music programs inspired by El Sistema in Venezuela. Through this we seek to redirect lives, inspiring youth and their communities toward a more promising future.

Here are some recent pictures from Kalikolehua:

Longy School of Music

Longy School of Music has a collaboration with New York’s Bard College and the Los Angeles Philharmonic called “Take A Stand.”

Here’s a collage of images from Longy’s collaborative program:

New Brunswick Youth Orchestra

The Goals of Sistema NB are to inspire children to achieve their full potential through music, to build values like discipline, teamwork and respect and to foster qualities like joy, confidence and hope. Founded in 2009, Sistema NB currently engages 220 children, in two orchestra centres and operates 5 days/week, 3 hours/day. By 2014, Sistema NB will open two additional orchestra centres and serve 500-600 children daily.

Here is a short documentary for more information:

ORCHkids

ORCHkids, a program of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, believes passionately that music has the power to change lives, and the BSO should lead the movement. By providing a strong foundation and developing the whole individual, they can position these students for lifelong success — success not limited to music, but in all areas of their lives.

Here’s a video summarizing the first year of the program:

Here’s two pictures of the ORCHkids crew in action:

Play On, Philly!

Play On, Philly! is an out-of-school music education program which seeks to use music a vehicle for social innovation. They engage children for at least three hours each weekday, providing them an opportunity to master a standard orchestral instrument; they consider themselves fortunate to have key partnerships with outstanding social, educational, and artistic organizations throughout Philadelphia that understand the needs of children and families. Prevention is key, and early intervention will make it possible for children to master complex executive functioning skills as they grow to improve academic motivation and classroom success.

Here’s video of Stanford Thompson, the creator and director of the program, conducting his crew:

Here’s Play On, Philly! doing Brahms Hungarian Dance:

San Diego Youth Symphony

Since 1945, San Diego Youth Symphony (SDYS) has given thousands of musicians the opportunity to study and perform classical repertoire at a highly advanced level. It is the sixth oldest continuously operating youth orchestra in the United States and the resident youth orchestra in the City of San Diego’s historic Balboa Park. SDYS’ program has grown during the thirteen-year tenure of Artistic Director Jeff Edmons from one orchestra to three advanced symphony orchestras and five large ensembles for students at the intermediate and introductory levels. In addition, the organization now trains over fifty students of all levels in chamber music, including string quartets and octet, wind and brass ensembles, advanced percussion, and jazz.

Here’s video from their Community Opus project, which is directly inspired by El Sistema:

Here’s a portrait of the families involved in the Community Opus project:

Here’s a collage photo of SDYS at work and at play:

Sistema Australia

Influenced by the tremendous success of El Sistema, a group of Australian musicians, music educators and interested others have decided to create an Australian version – to provide a joyous music education programme for Australian children – focusing primarily on those less fortunate communities in Australia but eventually extending to all Australian children who want to learn and play music.

Here’s some of the kids in the program:

Here’s a great video summarizing their work:

Sistema Scotland

Sistema Scotland is a charity set up in the belief that children can gain huge social benefits by playing in a symphony orchestra. They use music-making to foster confidence, teamwork, pride and aspiration in the children taking part — and across their wider community.

Here are highlights from their third anniversary celebration, held this past summer:

Here’s a short film about Sistema Scotland. Enjoy the accents

Soundscapes

Soundscapes is a non-profit, El Sistema-inspired, educational development organization teaching transformational life-skills to socio-economically disadvantaged youth in Virginia, using music study and ensemble performance.

Here’s a video of some Soundscapes participants doing the Chromatic Scale:

Here’s a profile of Soundscapes from their local PBS affiliate:

And here’s a picture from their “exploratory recorder” class:

Tune Up Philly

The mission of Philadelphia Youth Orchestra’s Tune Up Philly program is to nurture urban children in challenging social and economic conditions by keeping them engaged in success through weekday out-of-school hours music instruction. Through its Tune Up Philly program, Philadelphia Youth Orchestra organization believes that music education is a powerful vehicle for children to master skills that will enable them to acquire valuable tools for cooperative learning, teamwork, academic success and self-esteem. Tune Up Philly currently works with 70 students at the People for People Charter School in North Philadelphia.

Here’s video of them in action:

Here’s a quick photo montage of the crew in action:

Union City Music Project

The UCMP will go beyond just learning music scales; it will promote fundamental life skills such as self-esteem, self-expression, cooperative learning, discipline, and creativity by teaching music in an orchestral setting. UCMP participants will receive free musical instruction and instruments, and will have the opportunity to attend a full range of cultural, social, and enrichment experiences.

The UCMP will use the power of music to cultivate tomorrow’s workforce and leaders, create a source of pride for the community, and provide economic opportunities for Union City, NJ.

Designed after El Sistema, the world-renowned Venezuelan Music Education program that has changed the lives of millions of people around the world, the UCMP’s ultimate goal is to establish the Union City Youth Orchestra.

Here’s a video of that crew in action:

Verdugo Young Musicians Association

In September 2009, the Verdugo Young Musicians Association (VYMA; it’s pronounced ‘veema’) launched the VYMA Music Project at Longfellow Elementary, a Title I school in Pasadena with 79 percent of the students on free or reduced lunch . Now in its third year, the program serves over 100 students from K-5, a fifth of the school. Instruments are provided and instruction is free. The curriculum is impressive: seven hours per week of classes from different levels of musicianship, (K, I & II) to string fundamentals, beginning string orchestra, orchestra & choir. These children are real musicians — only younger!

Here’s a clip from the 2012 Southern California Seminario, an all-day gathering of musicians and parents from three different schools:

Here’s a picture from the beginning of the event documented in that video:

Youth Orchestra LA (YOLA)

Through Gustavo Dudamel’s Youth Orchestra LA (YOLA) program – inspired by Venezuela’s revolutionary El Sistema – the LA Phil and its community partners provide free instruments, intensive music training, and academic support to students from underserved neighborhoods, enabling every child to contribute using their full potential.

The YOLA program at EXPO Center, part of Exposition Park in South L.A., has grown to include three orchestras, a preschool program, mentorship, group lessons, chamber music and parent ensembles. The program serves hundreds of students who attend four days each week. In addition, students perform annually at Walt Disney Concert Hall and have appeared multiple times on the iconic stage of the Hollywood Bowl.

Located in the Rampart District, YOLA at HOLA (Heart of Los Angeles) serves hundreds of students with intensive after-school orchestral instruction five days a week. Classes include music creativity, singing and solfège, ensemble rehearsals, and an hour of academic tutoring daily. This holistic approach fosters a sense of community and provides the students with the opportunity to take advantage of HOLA’s exceptional programs and resources.

The YOLA Neighborhood Project (YNP) aims to build healthy communities through universal access to music. In South L.A. and the Rampart District, school-day residencies inspire local students to join YOLA; local parent ensembles provide families with the opportunity to learn music; and LA Phil neighborhood concerts allow the community at large to experience one of the world’s greatest orchestras in their own backyard. Each year, YNP culminates in a joint performance of over 1,000 children from partner schools and YOLA – demonstrating the immense power and joy of musical collaboration.

Here’s a picture of some YOLA students at work and play:

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In this, the second episode of the relaunched Learning Matters podcast, web producer Ted Bauer speaks with Allan Collins, a Professor Emeritus of Learning Sciences at Northwestern and a fellow at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, among other notable titles. (For a fuller look at his research and publications, consult his Google Scholar search results.) Collins co-authored a book (with Richard Halverson of the University of Wisconsin), Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, and in this podcast, he discusses his career arc, the role of technology in schools, how we need to view the current problem, and what exactly the role of a school in America should be in 2011.

Enjoy this informative discussion — and stay tuned for next week’s episode (coming on November 30), with UPenn professor Doug Lynch.

This podcast is also on YouTube:

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What should we be thankful for in education? We convened several individuals to discuss the topic. You may also be interested in our piece on the state of the American teacher, embedded above.

Joe Nathan, Macalester College

Six main categories of strength this fall

Joe Nathan is the Director of the Center for School Change at Macalester College. He is a former inner city teacher and administrator, PTA president and the author of four books.

I am thankful for students who overcame huge difficulties and succeeded — in helping others, or in helping themselves to graduate, enter some form of higher education, and return to help young people in their communities.

Educators in some district and charter public schools who refuse to make demographics destiny. Through their creativity, persistence, passion and skill, they help young people accomplish far more than the young people thought possible. Often, an important part of their work is to blend academic and artistic work. These adults eliminate gaps between students of different races and income levels.

The immense power of artistic expression. At its best, art, music and other forms of the arts help give us insight, courage and hope.

Foundations and other community groups willing to identify and work with educators who are making a difference, to help them make even more of a difference.

State and national legislators who are seeking — and finding — ways to encourage and assist the most effective educators.

Journalists who seek out the successes, as well as the shortcomings. The best of them help readers/listeners understand what is, and is not working.

And that’s just a short list.

Anne Wescott Dodd, Bates College/College of New Jersey

Just look how far we’ve come in a relatively short time

Anne Wescott Dodd, Senior Lecturer in Education Emerita, Bates College, is the author of several books and numerous articles about education, teaching, and learning. She continues to teach online for The College of New Jersey’s global program in education.

When I first considered responding to this question, my mind went blank.

After all, who could be thankful for No Child Left Behind? The obsession with proving students have learned by stressing their performance on standardized tests to the exclusion of teaching them to think critically and develop a lifelong passion for learning? The fact that too many believe public schools and overworked teachers can even begin to solve complex societal problems when so little is done by anyone else to alleviate poverty, to mitigate the effects of adult substance abuse and domestic violence on children, or to make our streets and homes safe and nurturing for all children?

Then I recalled schools decades ago, and I can see how far we have come.

I remembered Donald, a classmate in 8th grade, who always sat in the back of the room by himself. He was bigger than all the other kids and rather clumsy. The teacher never asked him to read aloud when we all read a paragraph from the social studies book. Then we all moved on to high school — Donald didn’t come with us. As many students did back then, he dropped out of school at the end of 8th grade along with many of the Franco-American kids who lived in “Frenchtown” and went to work in the mill with their fathers.

I can’t forget teaching my first-period English class in a large California junior high school. My class, the so-called low achievers, was labeled “Basic,” and small by California’s standards — 30 students. My class list included IQ scores for every student. While several students were classified as “slow learners,” a few boys, bigger and older from being held back, had juvenile records. The kids from Cuba spoke Spanish, not English. A shy girl, newly arrived from Indonesia, knew only Dutch. I struggled all year, trying to teach something to such a diverse group with only a state-adopted textbook they could not read.

Today, because of special education and ELL programs, these students would have opportunities to learn and grow. They would not be left behind. That is a lot to be thankful for.

Robert Enlow, Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice

The conversations are shifting, and for the better

Robert C. Enlow is the President and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. He has worked at the Friedman Foundation since it started in 1996.

First, there has been a significant shift in the dialogue about education. The focus is now on students not systems, on what students need to succeed and not on what systems need to have to continue existing in the current form. This shift has been brought on by a number of factors, including the increasing international competition, the continuing quality issues in American schools, the state budget fiscal crises, changes in the political context and, most importantly, growing parental demand for quality options. The status quo is simply no longer acceptable and solutions are being sought from every possible angle, including those from outside the traditional public school system.

Second, I am thankful for the dramatic increase in parental school choice. In 1996, there were only five programs operating in five states that allowed parents to access private schools using public funds. Today, there 27 school voucher and tax credit scholarship programs that operate in 18 states. These programs allow a wide variety of families, including low-and-middle income families and those with special needs children, to select a private school option using public funds. Moreover, charter schools have grown dramatically and now around three percent of all children in America attend a charter school of choice.

This demand for more options, particularly from lower income families, should give us greater hope the future of American education. As the conversation shifts from school systems and school type to school choice and school quality, the hope is that American children will graduate with a bucketful of human capital that they can use to ensure our country remains an economic powerhouse.

Joyce L. Epstein, Johns Hopkins University

Successful partnerships are being implemented

Joyce L. Epstein is director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships and National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University.

My colleagues and I are especially thankful for the educators, parents, and other partners who use our research and the resulting training, tools, and materials to strengthen their programs of family and community involvement. Hundreds of preschools, elementary, middle, and high schools, and scores of districts, states, and organizations in highly diverse communities across the country and in Canada are members of our National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) at Johns Hopkins University. They are showing that they can apply research-based structures and processes to plan, implement, evaluate, and continually improve their policies and practices to engage more and different families in their children’s education.

When research is ready for use in practice, implementation is everything. Without good partners in education, research remains — literally — on the shelf. So, it is very gratifying to see that educators, parents, and others in the community can work together — creatively and purposely — to ensure a welcoming school climate and conduct activities to improve students’ attendance, behavior, and college and career readiness; increase student achievement in reading, math, and help students meet other goals for success in school.

Our research shows that what schools do to implement good partnerships is the best predictor of whether and which families and community members become involved in their children’s schools and education. The schools and districts in NNPS are confirming this research result by taking action to engage their own students’ families in productive ways, regardless of their racial, ethnic, linguistic, educational, or socio-economic backgrounds. Their dedicated work is worthy of many thanks.

If you want to meet some of those who are taking new directions in developing their partnership programs, visit our site and read about their very promising partnership practices in the section Success Stories. You will see why I am thankful for and inspired by their work in November and all year ’round. You, reader, may be inspired to join them on the path to partnerships.

John M. Holland, Emergent Learner

Teachers are now part of the public discussion

John M. Holland has dedicated his career to serving the neediest and youngest school children as an NBCT preschool teacher of 3- and 4-year-olds from Richmond, Virginia’s toughest neighborhoods. Currently he writes about Pre-K issues on his blog Emergent Learner.

I am most thankful for increased focus on accomplished teaching in our public schools. Over the past several years the rhetoric about teaching has been mostly focused on the mediocre and failing teachers in our public schools. A crescendo of teacher bashing — which began in 2010 with the L.A. Times use of value-added measures to publicly “out” good and bad teachers — reached fevered pitch in February 2011 when Gov. Scott Walker stripped collective bargaining rights from teachers. This now seems to have abated. The likes of Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and Chester Finn have changed their tone in the popular media these days. It may be due to several thousand teachers standing up for themselves in July at the Save Our Schools march or it may be due to the increased number of young and seasoned teachers speaking out about education.

One might call me foolish. I don’t spend much time reading local newspapers online so I am not so exposed to the everyday comment venom spat by Joe the Plumber types across our nation. I have spent some time listening to the bigger pundits and it seems that many of those that felt safe bashing teachers less than six months ago have taken a step back from trying to push us off that particular cliff.

Yet, in September I attended the New York Times Schools for Tomorrow technology and innovation conference and was pleasantly surprised by David Brooks. All of the panelists, including Klein and Finn, seemed to show a little more understanding of the learning process than they previously seemed capable. In the opening session David Brooks said:

“… people learn from people they love, they don’t learn from computers they love, and anything that gets in the way between the relationship between the teacher and the student is something I’m likely to be skeptical of.”

This step back from the edge of blaming teachers and increased focus on the relationships great teachers have with their students is new. The fact that the Times would back track even a little bit to include teachers means that teachers will no longer be left out of the public discussion about what happens in our classrooms.

Darren Beck, Harmony Educational Services

Think about Julie Andrews (just follow along for a second)

Darren Beck, the new Director of Strategic Development for Harmony Educational Services (turnaround and hybrid specialists), has taught at and been the administrator in elementary and secondary schools in California and Utah since the 1990s. He previously served as the VP (1 year) and President (2.5 years) of the Utah Association of Public Charter Schools.

Have to admit that when the opportunity arose to express what I am thankful for in education, Julie Andrews immediately came to mind. You know that moment when the thunder and lightning hit around the Von Trapp mansion and our favorite unorthodox novice, Maria, huddles with the children and sings arguably one of the best educational songs ever, “My Favorite Things.”

Why that song, you ask? Maria taps into prior knowledge and acknowledges she has a multiage group with varying levels of ability to deal with and does so expertly with that trademark sweetness we have come to expect. She addresses the sorts of things kids are grateful for in their increasingly mixed up lives. She doesn’t shy away from identifying and especially validating the kids on those matters that are or will soon come to be deeply disliked, things that will cause stress and fear to be ever-present. But she doesn’t overdo it, instead opting to fill her charges with hope. (And I’m not talking about some fruitless dream that ignores there is a real world to deal with, but hope that is anchored to real need, high expectations, and just enough idealism to get these children over their challenges.)

I’m thankful for so many folks out there throughout education who aren’t willing to give up or quit. No matter how many “dogs bite” or “bees sting” or sadness hits on a given day, they get up in the morning (if, in fact, they slept) with the idea that they’re going to impact kids. All sorts of people trying to do what they think, what they feel, what they believe to the core of their being to be the best things to raise hope, lift hearts, and create a vision for what can be.

When I think of these people (and express gratitude for them), then I don’t feel so bad.

Amy Wilkins, The Education Trust

Many are believing it can be done

Amy Wilkins is vice president for government affairs and communications at The Education Trust. An experienced political and community organizer, Amy previously worked for the Children’s Defense Fund, the Democratic National Committee, the Peace Corps and the White House Office of Media Affairs.

I’m most thankful for all of the educators across the country who — undeterred by myths about what some kids can’t do — are doing the hard work necessary to close the achievement gap.

Take the educators at George Hall Elementary School in Mobile, Ala. Their students — almost all African American and poor — achieve at levels that far surpass those of many schools serving only wealthy, white kids. Teachers at George Hall ensure that their lessons are rich, effective and broaden student horizons. Instead of saying that their kids are too poor to learn at high levels, they use field trips and other outside materials to build background knowledge and provide the kinds of experiences that more affluent children get as a matter of course.

Similarly, Elmont Memorial Junior-Senior High School in New York is a large, comprehensive middle and high school that serves nearly all students of color, has a 96 percent graduation rate and aims all of its students not just at entering college, but at completing college. The strongest teachers at Elmont are assigned to the students who are furthest behind, and every student has access to college-prep AP classes. Indeed, Elmont’s principal dismisses excuses about any student’s abilities: “Because a child is poor doesn’t mean he can’t learn. Because a child lives in the projects doesn’t mean he can’t learn. If there are gaps, we must fill those gaps.”

The educators at George Hall and Elmont are just some among thousands who are proving that no one should give up on a child because of circumstances in his life that are beyond the school’s control. Instead, as George Hall’s principal puts it, “First, we have to believe it can be done.”

Some may say that you can’t fix education until you fix poverty and racism. But I’m grateful for the educators who show us every day that the opposite is true.

Eva Baker, UCLA

Our imagination shall guide the way

Eva L. Baker is a Distinguished Professor, Director of the UCLA Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). She works in educational assessment, reform, and new technologies. She has held national offices in professional and academic organizations, and conducts most research in schools or designed for military training.

I am thankful our education system is struggling to get it right for all levels of students, but especially for the youngest, and our least well prepared. Our nation is built on immigration and opportunity. I believe we can find ways to re-energize our approaches by focusing on individual students, and individual teachers in a supportive rather than punitive way. A great source of optimism for me is how some countries have been able to put aside their extreme political differences to forge highly effective educational (and economic) systems.

Why is the US not in partnership with societies that have solved some (but not all of our problems)? Think of South Korea and Japan as examples. Look around at the best: fewer not more tests, tasks involving 21st century skills, preparing students for the certainty of uncertain futures. Softening in accountability and admissions testing.

An inveterate techie, I’m ready to discount those without much imagination about that part of our future. I am thankful for foundations and innovative government agencies still willing to take a chance on an unusual solution, one that might make the lives of teachers, students, and parents better, in social, emotional, and intellectual roles. I believe our imagination, transformed to reality, will lead us to satisfying new careers, not just jobs, and improve the lot of us all. Most, I am thankful for the spiritual ethos that comes with American optimism, not limited to formal religion, but focused on our responsibility to others.

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Editor’s Note: Since the taping of this podcast, Kraus has actually accepted a job leading a different education technology initiative. But … the core of the discussion still stands!

Mary Kraus is a Program Manager of Technology Services in the Lemon Grove School District; in the last half-decade, Lemon Grove has embraced interactive classroom technologies powered by Promethean.

In this interview, Kraus — who has decades of experience as an educator — talks about those approaches, their effects on student achievement, and some broader issues in education, including the pros and cons of the current public education model in America.

You can listen to this interview by clicking the play button above.

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The Learning Matters podcast has been relaunched! In this episode, Rachael Wettenstein speaks to Stacie Harrison, Dennis Cummings and Mary Lord, three of the key voices behind eGFI (Engineering, Go For It!), the nonprofit American Society for Engineering Education’s K-12 outreach program. eGFI is a multi-platform endeavor (magazine, website, newsletters) designed to inspire more students, especially women and minorities, to become engineers. There is also a website for K-12 teachers with free engineering related lesson plans and class activities. The eGFI website is entirely free.

The printed eGFI magazine, engineering flash cards that explain the top engineering disciplines, engineering posters, and new kids’ book “If I Were an Engineer” can be purchased in the eGFI online store.

In this interview, you can hear common misconceptions about the profession, why the U.S. is falling behind in science and how that can be addressed, and much more. Enjoy listening!

If you consider yourself a more visual person, this is also available on YouTube:

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Stephan Turnipseed is the North American President of LEGO Education; in that role, he’s responsible for incorporating the LEGO brand with classrooms and STEM education efforts world-wide. In addition, Turnipseed worked for over a decade in the oil industry — but now deals primarily with educators while still in a corporate role, so here, he draws contrasts between different management styles — and how that may be affecting the world of education.

This conversation was with Learning Matters producer Ted Bauer, and taped in late 2011. You can listen to it by clicking the play button above.

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As consumers, we’re used to choices — Mac or PC, Toyota Prius or Ford Fusion, Nike or Adidas? Competition is said to produce better products and services.

Could schools use a dose of that too? Traditionally, the public school you are zoned for has enjoyed a monopoly — you have no other choice — unless you happen to live in a place like Indiana.

The Hoosier state has done more than any other to give parents alternatives to their neighborhood school, including private religious schools, online schools, and charters. And like businesses, these schools must attract students and their state dollars or they will close.

Does any of this improve education? Reporter John Tulenko traveled to Indiana — home of some of the most sweeping school choice legislation in the country, circa April 2011 — to find out.

Download transcript (PDF)

RELATED DISCUSSION

Is School Choice Good Or Bad?

So … is school choice a good thing for American education? We convened a few experts to discuss the matter. Check it out — and then weigh in yourself. Read and comment!

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POTUS has a great deal to do with the educational climate in the United States during any given four-to-eight-year stretch. So, which President was the best when viewed through the prism of education? We convened several experts to discuss.

Kenneth Wong, Brown University

A Democrat from Texas and a Republican from California

Kenneth Wong is the Education Chair at Brown University and the Director of the Urban Education Policy Program there, as well.

Presidential leadership is most widely recognized in the areas of national security, foreign policy, territorial expansion, nation building, economic prosperity, and democratization. Among examples of presidential impact include Abraham Lincoln, who kept the union and abolished slavery, and Thomas Jefferson, who inspired a young nation with his belief in the fundamental rights of individuals and entrusted the responsibilities of state government to meet the needs of its citizenry.

Understandably, education is rarely mentioned as an arena of presidential impact. Given our federal system, education is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but is specified as a state responsibility in every state constitution. In the early 1970s, demand for federal involvement in funding equalization was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, and subsequently, school funding reform has been determined state-by-state. Education standards, educator certification, and student assessment remain the responsibility of states. In other words, the scope of presidential engagement in education is structurally limited.

Our decentralized system of education, however, does not preclude federal influence on key challenges. The Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance in 1785 that legitimized the use of land for public schools and enacted the G. I Bills in the 1940s to support millions of WWII veterans to complete post-secondary education and successfully join the civilian work force. The Supreme Court ignited the nation’s conscience on racial desegregation in public schools with its 1954 decision Brown v Board of Education.

For Presidents, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan have each mobilized the nation behind its education vision. As a former teacher that saw poverty in public schools in Texas, Lyndon Johnson passionately promoted federal involvement in equal educational opportunity. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 not only launched the system of federal grants-in-aid in low-income schools, it was also a central part of the president’s War on Poverty. Johnson’s vision was to address poverty with greater access to schooling opportunities, thereby enabling all students to become participants in the work force and full citizen in our democracy. The 1965 ESEA continues to shape its contemporary configurations, including Improving America’s Schools Act in 1983 and No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Ronald Reagan entered the White House with the intention of abolishing the U.S. Department of Education, introducing school prayer, and tuition tax credits. None of these became reality. Instead, Reagan was remembered as the advocate of the recommendations of his commission that issued the widely cited report, A Nation At Risk. At a time when the federal role in education was largely measured in terms of funding support, Reagan elevated the importance of school performance. Because of Reagan’s support for the NAR’s recommendations, federal education policy has expanded to incorporate both fiscal inputs and outcome-based accountability, including NCLB and the current debate on its reauthorization.

In short, President Johnson crafted a purposeful agenda for federal engagement in education that remains relevant today as poverty continues to hinder our society’s progress. President Reagan further pushed that federal agenda to accommodate to global competition. I would consider Johnson and Reagan as number one and two most important education presidents.

Steven Mintz, Columbia University

We like Ike (and LBJ)

Steven Mintz is the Director of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Teaching Center at Columbia University.

Who was the real ‘education President?’

Jimmy Carter, who signed into law the bill establishing the U.S. Department of Education?

Bill Clinton, who devoted millions of dollars to shutting down or redesigning failing schools and expanding public school choice?

George W. Bush, with “No Child Left Behind?”

In fact, the presidents who established a vital federal role in education were Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson.

The first cabinet level office devoted to education — the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare - was established in 1952, shortly after Eisenhower’s election to office. It was during his terms in office that the federal government began to promote increased educational opportunities for students with disabilities and to provide aid for training special education teachers. The launching of the first earth-orbiting satellite Sputnik by the Soviet Union led Congress to pass the National Defense Education Act, to fund programs in science, math, engineering, and foreign languages.

Johnson shifted the focus of federal education efforts to assisting economically disadvantaged children. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 provided aid to schools to fund compensatory education programs designed to equalize educational opportunity. In 1968, the Johnson administration began to provide aid for bilingual programs to assist non-English speaking students.

Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson, more than any other presidents, established the principle that education was not just a local or state obligation, but a federal responsibility, too.

Christopher Cross, Cross & Joftus, LLC

An unlikely pair emerges

Christopher T. Cross is chairman of Cross & Joftus, LLC, an education policy consulting firm.

I begin with the belief that there is a legitimate federal role in education; a belief not shared today by many of my fellow Republicans. That belief is based upon the fact that we are “United States” and that a key to that unity is a population that need not respect state lines and where an educated population is essential to making us both free and prosperous.

It is only in the modern era, since after WWII, where we have seen any significant attention to education as a national issue. While Lydon Johnson made the most significant break-though by actually getting significant legislation (ESEA) passed in 1965, he did so as a War on Poverty issue, expecting that more dollars would equal better results and, therefore, without any attention to results nor a theory of action that went beyond the need to address poverty.

Moving forward in time, the unlikely duo of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton were the driving forces to put education on the national map in a significant way. Bush did it by convening the Charlottesville Summit in September of 1989, Clinton by securing passage of the Improving American’s Schools Act as an amendment to ESEA and the Goals 2000 Educate America Act, both within a few months of each other in 1994. What Bush had begun, with Clinton’s support as then-governor of Arkansas, Clinton saw to fruition.

The significance of these actions is that they did cast the die for accountability in the use of federal funds, made an atttempt at national assessments in math and reading, and did create national goals for education. While many may cite Ronald Reagan for “A Nation at Risk,” he had nothing to do with the report or even naming the commission that wrote it. He did recognize the importance of the report and its rhetoric and did capitalize on that in his 1984 reelection campaign, but never translated that message into action. While Jimmy Carter might be credited with creation of a cabinet-level agency, he accepted only the most anemic of versions and then lost his own reelection six months after the department came into existence, so he never used that vehicle to accomplish anything substantive. George W. Bush in NCLB did push the envelope farther than ever, but it was a combination of the first Bush president and Clinton that made that push possible. In the final analysis, and given my biases, the Bush/Clinton pair would be my pick for best educations president(s) of all time.

Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, Bard College

Has there been one yet?

Ellen Condliffe Lagemann is a Levy Institute Research Professor at Bard College and a Distinquished Fellow at the Bard Prison Initiative.

We have had presidents who would like to be considered great “education president,” but I do not think we have yet had one who deserves the title.

From Truman to Obama, presidents have worked hard to open greater access to education, promote equity, and raise student achievement. But none has mobilized a national conversation about all that is necessary to ensure academic achievement for all American youth.

Children who are homeless, hungry, or anxious about problems at home are not likely to learn well, even in good schools. Young people who cannot visualize where high school and college might lead will not be likely to stay in school. Acknowledging that the social situations in which people come of age have a major impact on academic success should not detract from efforts to improve schools. But to be effective educational reform must be combined with efforts to address poverty and family stress. In addition, it is important to recognize the people who do not learn well in school, sometimes flourish and learn outside. Effective educational reform must create options for learning before, after, and outside of school.

A great education president would use the bully pulpit to call us to re-imagine what will be required to ensure high levels of competence and character in all our young. He or she will help us think our way beyond tinkering with repeated cycles of school reform to ask what changes in American society are necessary to make equal educational opportunity a reality. John Dewey once argued that in a utopia there would not be schools. Might he have been right? We need a president who is not afraid to ask that and many other questions.

Jim Guthrie, George W. Bush Institute

Three candidates stand out

Jim Guthrie is Senior Fellow and Director of Education Policy Studies at the George W. Bush Institute.

There have been twelve modern, post-FDR, Chief Executives. Three — LBJ, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush — qualify as legitimate education presidents.

We are a year away from the 2012 elections. If one holds hope of being known as an “Education President,” there are significant lessons from history.

It is a terrific aspiration. Other than fixing the economy, America has no greater need than to render schools more effective. Be aware, however, that the challenge of education improvement as a lasting legacy is large.

There is some good news from the past. In this era of fiscal austerity, you need not obligate a lot of federal money to gain the sobriquet. LBJ and George W. Bush did, but Reagan did not. Nor need you pander unduly to education interest groups.

The principal criterion for fame in the education field is that you shift the paradigm. You change the public and policy perception of and conversation about schools in a significant and lasting manner. You can accomplish this goal through multiple means. You can sponsor and orchestrate enactment of a bill, make speeches, support a movement, start a bandwagon, use the bully pulpit, spotlight a problem, or provide incentives or impose penalties that alter how the public sees schools, how policymakers perceive improvement opportunities, and how professional educators pursue their practice.

LBJ is one of three legitimate education Presidents; the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) redefined and vastly expanded the federal government’s education role. This act made clear that poverty no longer need preclude an individual’s education success.

A Nation at Risk was issued during Ronald Reagan’s first term. It continues today as one of the nations most significant education documents. It triggered a school reform movement that lasted three decades and still has momentum. It is still cited. Ironically, it was Terrell Bell, Reagan’s Education Secretary, that initiated A Nation at Risk. Reagan came belatedly to use his bully pulpit to promote it, only after he saw the enormous acceptance it had with the public.

George Herbert Walker Bush and William Jefferson Clinton are notable for reasons other than education: resisting foreign dictators, promoting free trade, and gaining enactment of welfare reform.

President George H. W. Bush gets credit for convening governors in a rare national summit. This meeting resulted in our nation’s first set of national education goals. This was a bold move, but does not qualify, by itself, to make him an education president. President Clinton deserves credit for welfare reform and international trade, but not education.

It is too early to judge President Obama and Race to the Top, but he already gets credit for sustaining education as a major national issue.

Brandon Rottinghaus, University of Houston

Think about who the Department of Ed DC headquarters is named for

Brandon Rottinghaus is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston.

Several presidents could claim the mantle of being an “education” president. Thomas Jefferson and Millard Fillmore both founded state universities. Jimmy Carter signed the final legislation establishing an independent Department of Education. Yet, one chief executive stands out as the most significant and influential in history. A teacher himself, from a little town in south Texas, President Lyndon B. Johnson made education a national priority more than any other president. Historian and LBJ biographer Robert Dallek noted that he had an “almost mystical faith in the capacity of education to transform people’s lives and improve their standard of living.”

President Johnson’s education agenda was connected to his concerns about poverty and inequality. He created the Head Start program as part of his Great Society initiatives, facilitating early learning for children from low-income families. He signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, which allocated funds for language training and remedial reading, audio-visual equipment and specialists to work with preschoolers or those at risk to drop out of high school. The Higher Education Act of 1965, pushed by the President in Congress, increased federal funds given to universities and established a National Teacher Corps, not unlike what Teach for America does today. As part of the President’s agenda stemming from the Higher Education Act of 1965, he signed into law the Pell Grants program, named for Senator Claiborne Pell, which extended federal aid to students from low-income families.

President Johnson carried the lessons he learned about education from the dusty, little schoolroom in which he taught in Cotulla, Texas to the White House. Returning to San Marcos, Texas (where a young LBJ attended Southwest Texas State Teachers’ College) to sign the Higher Education Act of 1965 into law, President Johnson said, “I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.” Education was his ticket out of poverty and he would make sure it would be for others as well.

By his estimation in his presidential memoir Vantage Point, President Johnson passed sixty education bills. Perhaps it is little wonder that the Department of Education’s headquarters in Washington, DC is named in his honor.

Thomas Alsbury, Seattle Pacific University

Consider ‘most influential,’ not ‘best,’ and you’ll find a candidate

Thomas Alsbury is a professor of Educational Administration and Supervision at Seattle Pacific University and Director of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) Center for Research on the Superintendency and District Governance.

The question of identifying the ‘best’ education president is rife with subjectivity and conjecture. One dilemma is the political reality that one person’s hero can be another person’s villain.

Given these complications, I would (a) prefer to identify the most “influential” president in terms of education as opposed to the “best” and (b) choose presidents who can be more singularly and directly linked to creating an influential educational initiative. For these reasons, I choose a president from the modern era that, I believe, is also the most influential of all time: Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961). Eisenhower laid the foundation for federal involvement in education as we know it today. He created the cabinet-level Department of Health, Education and Welfare from whence came the Department of Education. In addition, he infused a tremendous amount of resources into education, creating the National Defense Education Act of 1958 that added significant funds for science and mathematics education after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. The Act provided additional funding for all levels of education and guaranteed that each state would continue to manage its own educational system. President Eisenhower also enforced the desegregation of schools following the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, sending troops to escort black students into their all-white schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Let me explain my issue noted in item (b) above. Few federally-developed programs can authentically be created with singular and direct causality from the executive office to inception. One example is the historical development of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The initial Summit Meetings on Educational Standards with the National Governor’s Association was initiated by Pres. George H. Bush in 1986 on the heel of a shellacking of education by The 1983 Nation At Risk report. The outcome of that discussion led to Goals 2000, characterized by some as the birth of the standards movement in education; Pres. Clinton signed that program. Eventually, Goals 2000 morphed into NCLB, signed by George W. Bush. The question is — who gets credit? Do we assign credit or blame for NCLB to the president who arguably started the conversation, the one who finished and signed the voluntary precursor program, or the one who made it a required and strict accountability measure? One can see from this example how it is difficult to place the entire praise or blame on any one single president for programs that develop over time.

Anne L. Bryant, NBSA

Two contenders, but don’t discount Obama

Anne L. Bryant is the Executive Director of the National School Boards Association (NSBA).

Almost 150 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation that paved the way for generations of Americans to further their education at colleges and universities. The Morrill Act of 1862 was a land-grant bill that funded the creation of colleges across this nation. At first, the primary focus of these institutions was military tactics, agriculture, and engineering. But once the war ended, these universities and colleges re-imagined their purpose, opening their doors to working-class men and women. For this, Lincoln should be saluted for understanding that the road to building a stronger democracy lay in the education of its citizens.

Who is the best “education President” of the modern era?

There are two presidents’ whose actions changed the course of American education forever.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s decision to send units of the U.S. Army to Little Rock, Ark., to protect the nine African-American students attending the all-white Central High School in 1957, sent a strong message to the entire nation that school desegregation was the law of the land. “The Little Rock Nine,” who were previously denied entry to the school by Arkansas’s governor and the state’s National Guard, attended classes guarded by Army soldiers. Eisenhower once wrote: “There must be no second-class citizens in this country.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act made segregation illegal in public schools, libraries, and businesses including restaurants and hotels. Johnson followed that landmark legislation with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act, both signed in 1965. Together those three pieces of legislation have ensured that all of America’s children — regardless of their racial, ethnic, or economic background — have equal access to a quality education.

And I also believe that we will look back at this time in history and hail President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, for saving the jobs of teachers and building schools as the financial crisis took its toll on the nation’s economy. The economic stimulus package included almost a $54 billion investment in public schools securing the education future of America’s children.

Larry Cuban, School Reformer

Four key facts lead to an answer

Larry Cuban is a former high school history teacher, superintendent, and professor. He blogs twice weekly at his site.

Four facts convinced me to vote for Lyndon Baines Johnson as the “best” education President.

FACT 1: Under President Lyndon B. Johnson, the federal role in schooling had expanded dramatically since 1965 with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), particularly Title I. No Child Left Behind (2002) is the latest of the federal reauthorizations of ESEA.

FACT 2: ESEA focused national attention and took action for the first time on the connection between poverty and low academic achievement. Education was a key component of LBJ’s “War on Poverty.” His Administration initiated Head Start, Upward Bound, the Job Corps and dozens of other efforts in the late-1960s.

FACT 3: Presidents Ronald Reagan, H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama have converted the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of the Great Society from a poverty-based federal “entitlement”program (mainly through Title 1) into a standards-based accountability program that expanded testing and established rules for acceptable academic performance touching every one of the 14,000 school districts that received federal dollars. No longer a poverty-reduction effort, ESEA is now a testing and regulatory machine that identifies and punishes failing schools.

FACT 4: As a federal regulatory machine to raise academic achievement and end the gap in test scores between poor and non-poor children, it has failed. That failure is because the expanded federal role had to rely on a state and local infrastructure that was unable to reverse the persistent failure of schools to reduce either poverty or inequality in distribution of wealth. State and local districts lacked a coherent curriculum, a technical capability for assessment, and well-trained teachers. Moreover, the federal government contributed less than a dime out of every dollar spent on schools and states perpetuated a funding scheme that gave fewer resources to the most needy students.

None of the most obvious candidates for “best” education president — H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama — had made any substantial effort to directly attack the societal problem of poverty through political and legislative action to alter socioeconomic structures that manufacture poverty and maintain maldistribution of wealth in the U.S (e.g., progressive income tax policies, raise minimum wage, expand earned income tax credit and child credit, increase housing vouchers). Instead, they indirectly dealt with poverty through helping the next generation of children. That includes LBJ.

But at least Lyndon Johnson made the connection that schools can reduce poverty, albeit indirectly, by helping individual children acquire educational credentials and the social capital that would have personal payoff in the job market. No President before him did so and every President since he served built on the linkage he made. That connection between education and poverty is (and was) crucial since doing very little to directly alter socioeconomic and political structures leaves U.S. schools still largely reproducing socioeconomic inequalities, except for that small fraction of individuals who succeed in school.

Kay Ann Taylor, Kansas State University

In many ways, we’re still waiting

Kay Ann Taylor is Associate Professor, Foundations of Education (College of Education) & American Ethnic Studies (College of Arts & Sciences), Kansas State University.

“One best” education president of any era conjures up a vacuum. Some might argue Thomas Jefferson was “best”. His vision is unrealized and was elitist in a racist and sexist era that continues into the present. Those who were not white property holding males had no opportunities — not all that dissimilar from today. Kennedy and Johnson rise momentarily with the educational Title Acts granting access and attempting equity to many excluded previously. Reagan’s devastating 1983 Nation At Risk Report set the tone for education since that time. Bush, Jr. cemented it with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) to annihilate and end public education completely through privatization.

Obama brought brief hope when observing his daughters attended the Dewey School at the University of Chicago. Although he seems to attempt to undo some of the NCLB damage, he has not. Candidates for 2012 offer no promise. We remain mired in a draconian and outdated factory, assembly-line model of education although some public schools and teachers provide a creative and outstanding education for their students. For the most part, public education does not mirror the democratic ideal. (If schools mirror society, democracy becomes more elusive every day.) Public education continues to perpetuate social control, social reproduction, social efficiency, and produces more duty-bound than engaged citizens. Local control has eroded, as has the Land Grant mission to offer affordable access to the many (i.e., a new road to debt).

Politicians, philanthropists, and corporations know little of what a true education is other than they went to school, yet they continue to dictate its fate. Too many kids are turned off as evidenced by soaring dropout rates, unless they have affluent parents who provide an outrageously priced private education (where the “true future leaders” are groomed). The marginalized become more so. Critical thinking, creativity, and innovation are memories with the testing frenzy, which pads testing companies’ coffers and produces students who ask, “What do you want me to do?” “What’s the “right” way/answer?” Mechanistic standardization undermines learning. Instead of blaming teachers, any President should listen not only to them, but to the students when it comes to what constitutes a safe, caring, respectful, engaging environment where true learning can and will happen. Children are human and our greatest resource for our future. I continue to wait for the “best education President.”

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How should school funding work, ideally? We convened several experts to discuss. You may also be interested in our report for PBS NewsHour on budget cuts in central PA, which is embedded above.

Steve Peha, Teaching That Makes Sense

It’s not about money; it’s about how we spend it

Steve Peha is the President of Teaching That Makes Sense, an education consultancy in Carrboro, NC specializing in literacy, assessment, and school leadership. Since 1995, he has taught in thousands of classrooms and hundreds of schools across the United States and Canada.

In a contracting economic universe, the best solution to improving productivity is to lower cost, increase efficiency, or both. In education, lowering costs is probably a non-starter. True, research shows that we could fire a few more teachers and raise class sizes a little higher without lowering student achievement. But it’s important to remember that we have set ourselves the task of improving achievement dramatically in the coming years.

So that leaves improving efficiency. Specifically, we need to answer this question, “How do we assure that more kids learn more things in less time?” The answer, surprisingly, is pretty simple: change the way we teach. Right now in the US, we use many of the least efficient teaching methods possible for basic skills like phonics, spelling, early math, and writing instruction. By sharing across classrooms, schools, and homes, a small repertoire of proven, re-usable, cross-grade, content-neutral, “learning patterns”, we could improve the efficiency of teaching and learning even with more kids in each class, fewer para-educators, and the current and much-derided, too-short “agricultural” school schedule.

It’s not about money; it’s about how we spend it. It costs nothing more to teach well than it does to teach poorly. With small changes in the instruction of critical curriculum, and materials delivered free over the Internet, we could make extraordinary gains even with severely limited financial resources.

Noelle Ellerson, AASA

Remain focused on formula, flexible funding

Noelle Ellerson is the Assistant Director, Policy Analysis & Advocacy at the American Association of School Administrators.

Writing from a federal advocacy point of view, one of the most effective things that the federal government could do to support the tough, crucial decisions that state and local education agencies have to make about education funding is to remain committed to providing formula, flexible funding. Flexibility in funding can be as good as new money, and we all know there won’t be a whole lot of new money from the federal level. And what new money there is will likely come through competitive grant programs. While there is a place for competition in education, it puts small, rural and poorer schools at a disadvantage — as they often lack the capacity/man power required to put a grant together. AASA strongly believes the federal government needs to meet its commitment to properly funding Title I and IDEA — programs designed to level the playing field for disadvantaged students — before defaulting to a federal funding policy reliant on competition, which creates a system of winners and losers.

Formula, flexible dollars drive the limited federal dollars to states and locals in a manner that provides funding to as many schools as possible, without asking the schools to jump through hoops or divert resources that would otherwise go toward instruction to compiling a grant application, instead. What does this look like at the local level? Increased flexibility means schools would be able to move funding within and between programs, leveraging what might be several small pots of funding as one. It would free locals from heavily prescriptive federal spending restrictions, and allow schools to put the funds toward the projects, investments and curricular improvements the district actually needs.

Renee Moore, Teacher

There is no justification for inequality

Renee Moore has taught English and journalism for 20 years in the Mississippi Delta region at both high school and community college levels. She is National Board Certified, a former state Teacher of the Year, and a co-author of TEACHING 2030: What We Must Do for Our Students and Our Public Schools… Now and in the Future.

In her blog, Robin Lambert of Rural School and Community Trust reveals important information from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES):

Eighty-seven percent (87%) of African American and 79% of American Indian/Native Alaskan students attend a moderate to high poverty remote rural school, compared to 78% and 62%, respectively, in cities. In fact, more than three-quarters of African American students and nearly half of American Indian/Native Alaskan students attend remote rural schools where more than 75% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

I have spent my entire teaching career in rural, predominantly African-American schools, where 90-100% of students qualified for free or reduced lunch. These schools are in districts that have little or no industry and few retail businesses; in some, the school district itself is the largest employer. Most of the school districts here in the Mississippi Delta get less than 20% (most less than 15%) of their operating funds from local revenues, and more than 25% from federal funds. Were it not for the state and federal funds these schools receive, the children in such districts could receive no public education at all.

But what is the quality of that education?

In our book TEACHING 2030, members of the Teacher Leaders Network address this problem squarely:

Without adequate teaching, supports, and resources, students taught in high-poverty schools have lower achievement. Why are we surprised to learn that many of these schools have become ‘dropout factories’? They are stark evidence of our society’s frequent failure to do what it takes for every child to succeed. And while many choose to blame students or families for the problems in these schools, we now have research documenting that even non-poor students who attend high-poverty schools have lower achievement than their counterparts in low-poverty settings. Plainly put, these are the schools that affluent America has been willing to ignore.

Did you catch that? It’s the poverty of the school, not just of the students, that’s keeping too many of our students from achieving at their highest potential. What possible moral, or even economic, justification can we offer for allowing such inequality?

Jason Kniss, Teacher

Think about SES lines and purchasing decisions

Jason Kniss is a secondary math & special education teacher at a Title I Charter School in St Paul, MN predominantly serving the Somali community of the Twin Cities. He is continuing his studies in Cognitive Science & Instruction.

While there are many components to educational funding, I choose to spend my time and energy focusing on those decisions either within my direct control or within my sphere of influence as a teacher. Looking back at my own K-12 experience, I am grateful for an effective education despite my family’s lower working class status. This was made possible by the school district’s zoning of schools to include all Socioeconomic Status’ (SES) within individual school boundaries so there weren’t “poor schools” and “rich schools.” While these boundaries meant more money allocated for transportation, the impact was positive both in ensuring effective education for all and for directly and indirectly having students interface with issues of difference and privilege. School Boards, teachers and parents must advocate for equal representation across SES lines within individual school boundaries wherever possible. Many times this involves having a direct conversation about privilege and bias but this is a conversation we must engage in.

In addition to zoning, one other area that I see need for improvement is in-school purchasing decisions. Many times these decisions are reactive to publisher advertisements or conference presentations and usually begin with the justification of “it would be great if we had…” verses having student need be the core motivation. In my experience, there is little questioning if specific curriculum, technology, etc. actually has a positive effect on student achievement or development. In addition to not using funds effectively, I feel this adds to a culture of removing ourselves from any responsibility of positively impacting student achievement. It is easy to blame a curriculum and purchase a different one rather than taking a critical look at our planning and instruction. Note that these two focus areas don’t require a major shift in how we allocate our money but rather a major shift in how we think about our schools as the center of communities and our roles as educators.

Mark Fermanich, Oregon State University

We must make our dollars work harder

Mark Fermanich is an assistant professor for education policy at Oregon State University. He specializes in education finance with a focus on building capacity for using education resources effectively.

Clearly, real growth (adjusted for inflation) in per student funding for schools is slowing to a trickle. Between 1920 and 2000 per student revenues grew by an average of more than 5% annually. Since 2000 annual growth has slowed to less than 2%, and much further since the “Great Recession” began in 2008. With rising health care costs and concerns over public deficits and debt, the prospects for an influx of new money for education are likely slim to none.

Yet, expectations for improving outcomes for students remain high, even with the expected repeal of NCLB’s 2014 goal of 100% proficiency. What are school leaders to do when faced with continuing expectations for reform and improvement while the resources they have to work with are stagnant or declining?

The answer is to increase productivity, a.k.a. get more bang for the education buck. Research increasingly highlights instructional approaches that show promise for increasing achievement. These range from how instructional time and staff are organized, to how students are grouped for instruction, to more powerful forms of professional development and teacher collaboration, to using data to guide and evaluate instruction. Federal, state and local education policymakers should strive to keep funding to districts and schools as flexible as possible — in this way, the rules and regulations that so often accompany funding streams do not tie the hands of educators to experiment with new approaches and make necessary adjustments. Of course, this increased freedom must be accompanied by accountability, with appropriate support and interventions available for those districts and schools that fail to make progress.

Mary Perry, Former Deputy Director of EdSource

Look to the successful models

Mary Perry served as Deputy Director of EdSource for 18 years and is widely known in California for her work in school finance, including as lead author of a 2006 study of school district financial management.

In this time of reduced funding for education, making wise choices about how to spend scarce resources must begin with the end in mind. Are we as a nation serious when we claim that we want to get “all students ready for college, career and citizenship”? If we are, then we must be clear about how that might even be possible. Only then can we decide how best to allocate resources at the federal, state, district and school levels.

First, let’s all acknowledge what skilled educators already know. The goal is extremely ambitious and the work complex, particularly in this country where so many children arrive at the schoolhouse doors unprepared for academic success. Further, many schools and educators in this country aren’t prepared to meet this goal. It’s rarely a question of motivation. It’s much more a question of capacity.

Second, let’s think about what differentiates the schools that are making the most progress. Those schools have developed their organizational capacity around the goal of helping each student succeed. They are staffed by professionals dedicated to that work and to constantly improving their own practice. They tend to be stable in terms of their personnel and constantly innovating in terms of their programs. They benefit from leadership that is competent, committed, and sets high standards. They are empowered to try new strategies and constantly look for new instructional tools to help students succeed. They know that it takes a village and so proactively seek the involvement of parents and the larger community. If we’re to meet our goals for students, we ought to be using our funding systems to support local schools’ and districts’ ability to do these things.

Finally, let’s all concede that money matters. How much is available and how it is used are both really important. No, money alone does not make it happen but having enough to maintain stability — plus attract and retain talented professionals — is crucial. And having a bit of extra, targeted funding can provide the incentive schools need to decide to invest in their own capacity.

Randall Reback, Barnard

Consider roving teachers; don’t consider cutting counseling services

Randall Reback is an Associate Professor of Economics at Barnard College, a Faculty Fellow at Columbia University’s Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, and a Faculty Member of Columbia’s Population Research Center. He is a former 5th grade teacher. His research examines various topics related to school finance, school accountability, and students’ mental health and behavior.

As school districts face tougher fiscal times, they should very carefully consider where to cut resources. Strong empirical evidence reveals that student achievement declines after states adopt tax limits that decrease school revenues. The items eliminated when schools are forced to make cuts are often more valuable than the items added when schools’ budgets expand — partly due to political pressure to avoid cutting highly visible resources.

Districts must be especially cautious now, because their current financial constraints follow a period of costly reductions in class sizes and school sizes. While smaller classes may be beneficial, they put enormous strain on school systems to find more classroom space and teachers. Similarly, smaller schools, such as the many schools-within-school buildings in New York City, often concentrate resources that could be shared across multiple schools. There are low-cost solutions to this problem, such as designating a coordinator or committee to determine areas where there are gains from trade across the schools.

As school districts are forced to lay off teachers and hire fewer new teachers, they may wish to experiment with roving teachers and teachers’ aides as the second adults in elementary or middle school classrooms. Some innovative schools currently have larger class sizes but rotate teachers and aides through these classrooms to ensure that students still receive individualized attention. When implemented well, this policy has the added benefit of encouraging teacher collaboration and specialization.

One area that should be protected from budget cuts is schools’ mental health and counseling services. These services are critical for maximizing the amount of time that students are “ready to learn” and not disrupting their peers. During economic downturns, these resources tend to be cut at the very time when students need them the most. The cuts are often subtle, such as a principal forcing a mental health professional to coordinate the administration of standardized tests — a task better suited for a teacher’s aide or administrative assistant. The careful school district, however, will continue to employ a wide range of staff — some at much lower cost than others — so that employees can focus on what they do best.

Daniel Thatcher, NCSL

Focus on formulas, teacher comp and data systems

Daniel Thatcher is a Policy Specialist with the National Conference of State Legislators and is based in Denver, Colorado.

State school finance systems are sedimentary. Like layers of rock in the Grand Canyon, school finance is the result of years of legislation layered upon each other, year after year, until they have melded into one, inextricable whole — impossible to disentangle. Unless an earthquake hits.

States can take the Great Recession as a veritable earthquake — an opportunity to more effectively allocate their resources to be cost effective and improve student achievement. State legislators may shake things up in these areas:

1. Funding formulas: Most states distribute funding for schools and teachers through complex formulas that bind districts and schools to rigid student-to-teacher ratios, Carnegie units, staffing positions and categorical programs. Less restrictive funding formulas — coupled with strict accountability measures — can allow districts and schools to think more creatively with their dollars, funding positions and programs designed with student achievement as their objective.

2. Teacher compensation and pensions: Sixty-eight percent of education funding goes toward student instruction. Of that, most goes toward teacher salaries and benefits. Some have argued that any serious savings on education spending will only occur after states reform how — not necessarily how much — they pay teachers and fund their pensions.

3. Data systems: States know surprisingly little about which dollars fund which programs for which students, nor do they know whether those dollars actually improve student performance. Quality data tracking systems can follow dollars with performance outcomes down to the classroom level, in turn increasing the efficacy of the education dollar. Some states have already begun to utilize technology to track successes in the classroom.

However legislators ultimately reform their funding systems, state legislators are certainly rethinking a basic premise on how states fund schools: from an input-based system to an output-based system.

Karen Hawley Mills, Education Resource Strategies

For leading districts, there are three initial strategies

Karen Hawley Miles is the president and executive director of Education Resource Strategies, Inc. (ERS), a non-profit organization dedicated to helping urban school systems organize talent, time, and money to create great schools at scale.

Can we use this moment of budget crisis as an opportunity to transform districts into sustainable systems that effectively educate every child? It might seem like a tall order, but we’ve seen districts make progress by strategically deepening the inevitable cuts they’re facing to free up resources to invest in long overdue changes. Where do leading districts start?

1. Make the toughest cuts now: Almost every district has big, politically difficult cost issues they need to address. Why not tackle them now — when the urgency exists and choices are stark? Refuse to compromise investments that build to the future by taking on antiquated or misaligned spending. For instance, consider closing under-enrolled schools and taking the savings to improve under-resourced schools. Think about restructuring employee benefits plans and redirecting dollars to higher compensation for principals and teacher leaders. Consider opportunities for more cost-effective provision of operational or non-core instruction by outsourcing or partnering with community providers and take the savings to maintain or lower class sizes in core subjects.

2. Invest in changes that will make a big difference: Leading districts are implementing now systemic changes that have significant upfront cost. Don’t wait to get started. Critical long-term investments include a rigorous teacher evaluation system and professional development for school leaders to use it; collaboration time for teachers; good assessments for student learning and data systems that report progress in a timely, useful way.

3. Leverage the resources you have: If you have no more money, you still have time and talent. Most schools and districts don’t leverage either as effectively as they could. Take a hard look at how the skills and experience of individual teachers and how they could be paired together, distributed differently across grades or work in teams that insure the neediest student learn and the weakest teachers are supported. Most schools use rigid antiquated schedules that may over-invest in electives and don’t vary to give students time to catch up on material they missed.

Districts need to carefully examine their current resource decisions and adjust so that every resource at their disposal is being applied in a way that will more likely lead to every child learning. And while many of these changes demand initial investments, in the end they will create sustainable systems that do more with less.

Lisa Snell, Reason Foundation

We need to fund students, not schools

Lisa Snell is the director of education and child welfare at Reason Foundation.

In 2011, there are now 26 school voucher and tax credit programs in 15 states with close to $1 billion in school funding following students to schools. There are more than 2 million students enrolled in charter schools with more than 100 cities with 10 percent or more charter-school market share. In New Orleans, for example, 80 percent of students are enrolled in charter schools with money attached to the student and following the student to the school of choice.

Taking this even one step further, with the growth of digital learning and the need to customize education at all levels, we are beginning to see examples where not only will school funding follow students to the school, but to multiple education-service providers. In Utah, for example, the Statewide Online Education Program allows high school students to select courses from multiple high-quality course options and multiple course providers, while still being enrolled in their public high school. The money follows the kids to the course selection. In April 2011, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law Arizona Empowerment Accounts. Empowerment Accounts allow parents — in this case, parents of special-needs children — to remove their children from the public-school system and receive the money the state would have spent on them in an education savings account. Every quarter, the state deposits up to 90 percent of the base support level of state funding into a parent-controlled ESA. Parents can then use that money to pay for a variety of educational options including private-school tuition, private tutoring, special education services, homeschooling expenses, textbooks, and virtual education, enabling them to customize an education for their child’s unique needs.

Traditional public school funding systems at the state and local level are also adapting to a “school funding portability” framework where state and local funding is attached to the students and given directly to the institution in which the child enrolls. More than 30 “school funding portability” funding systems are funding student through a student-based budgeting mechanism in cities like New York, Baltimore, Denver, Hartford and Cincinnati. In 2011, Rochester, Newark and Boston have moved to full weighted student formula systems where the money follows the child. Los Angeles Unified is moving from 100 pilot schools being funded based on per-pupil basis to all 800 schools funded based on where the student enrolls. In Louisiana, 7 school districts are piloting a student-based budgeting system, including the largest school district in the state, Jefferson Parish, with 50,000 students. New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Indiana have all recently changed their statewide school funding systems to a state formula where the money is attached to the child.

As Indiana’s Tribune Star reported “Of all the sweeping legislative changes coming to K-12 education, from private-school vouchers to performance-based pay for teachers, the one that may have the most impact is tucked inside the 270-page budget bill. It changes the way schools are funded, following a new formula to divvy up nearly $13 billion in K-12 education dollars. The new formula follows the mantra that “money follows the child.” As Representative Ed Clere, who sits on the House Education Committee explained “The new formula is a “sea change” from the past. We’re no longer funding schools. We’re funding students.”

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We spent years covering Paul Vallas in New Orleans, and now we’re dedicating an entire documentary to New Orleans schools, post-Katrina.

We recently produced a trailer for the documentary:

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Should we be offering extrinsic rewards — such as payment — to students for academic success? We convened several experts to discuss. You may also be interested in our report for PBS NewsHour on this topic, which is embedded above.

Beth Hennessey, Wellesley College

The intrinsically-motivated may suffer

Beth Hennessey is a psychology professor at Wellesley College; she specializes in the role played by motivation in the creative process — and in how the environment (especially classroom environments) can impact motivational orientation.

Motivation is an especially complex and ephemeral entity — none of us are motivated to do good work 100% of the time. Motivation is not simply a question of personality or temperament. Our environment plays a strong role in determining our motivational orientation.

Before attending graduate school, I taught in a mixed classroom of 5, 6 and 7-year-olds. I had the privilege of spending three years with each of my students, and over time I found that many kids who started out as enthusiastic and inquisitive kindergarteners eventually transformed into jaded and burnt out second graders. I had all sorts of rewards built into my classroom routine. I thought I was doing my students a favor. But were I to go back to that elementary school today, I would do things differently. I would no longer include incentive systems as part of my classroom routine.

Psychologists distinguish between two types of motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the motivation to do something out of sheer interest in an activity itself. When students are intrinsically motivated, they find their studies more enjoyable. Their learning is deeper and longer lasting. And when confronted with an open-ended task, they are more likely to come up with a creative idea or a creative solution. Conversely, when students approach a school assignment with extrinsic motivation, they are engaging in that activity for some goal outside of the task — a promised reward, an impending evaluation, etc. Although extrinsic motivation can ensure that work gets done and that it gets done on time, it is especially detrimental to creativity.

Social psychologists have long argued about the use of rewards and other incentives in classroom situations. What experts on both sides of the fence need to realize is that paying students to attend school or to earn high grades is neither inherently good nor inherently bad.

If a child or adolescent has lost absolutely all interest, all willingness to go to school, we should not worry about stifling their creativity or dampening their enjoyment of their studies. Our goal must be to get that student back into the classroom. Only then can we work to help them slowly regain their intrinsic motivation and excitement about learning. It is the students who already approach their assignments with intrinsic interest who are most likely to suffer from promises of $5 for every “A” or a new computer for a semester without any school absences. Hundreds — maybe thousands — of research investigations show that for this group, the expectation of a reward is bound to kill both their creativity and their excitement about learning.

Thomas Dee, University of Virginia

Beware unintended consequences here

Thomas S. Dee is Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

A large part of what already distinguishes highly effective teachers and schools is their capacity to motivate and engage students towards fulfilling their intellectual potential. Can student-facing financial incentives provide an effective, complementary way to institutionalize and scale up these types of important teacher and school practices?

In general, the recent empirical evidence — much of it from carefully-designed experimental studies conducted in real-world settings — is
encouraging. Field-based trials from both developing and developed countries suggest that incentives can generate meaningful improvements in important student outcomes and appear to do so in diverse settings (e.g., elementary, secondary, and post-secondary environments). However, as with many sorts of policy initiatives, the devil’s in the details. For student incentives to work well, they appear to need a number of common-sense design features. For example, incentives are likely to work best when they are simple enough to be clearly understood by students. What outcomes get targeted is another key design feature. Incentives will work best when they focus on outcomes over which students clearly feel they have control. So, for example,
targeting school attendance may be more attractive than targeting possibly unrealistic or poorly understood test-score goals.

Future pilots of incentive schemes should be informed by these design considerations. And they should be coupled with rigorous assessment so that they can be improved and that genuinely effective practices can proliferate. A legitimate, ongoing concern with student-based financial incentives involves whether providing such extrinsic motivation degrades students’ intrinsic motivation to achieve academically. For example, will students who have become accustomed to explicit rewards do as well in times and settings where those rewards do not exist? The recent field-based evidence suggests that this concern may be overdrawn. However, the possibility of such “unintended consequences” should also feature prominently in future assessments of incentive policies.

Brett Jones, Virginia Tech

The first focus should be teaching methods and curricula

Brett D. Jones is a professor at Virginia Tech in the Educational Psychology program, researching student motivation.

Researchers have documented that when individuals enjoy an activity, paying them can make the activity less enjoyable. Therefore, it would be foolish to pay students who already enjoy school because doing so might actually decrease their motivation to engage in school work — and the problem with paying students who don’t enjoy school is that these students will not continue to work hard in school unless they continue to get paid. Basic psychological research indicates that when the payment stops, so does students’ motivation. An exception to these findings would be a student (who initially did not like school and was not working hard) who started working hard when she got paid because she enjoyed the success she was achieving and/or she became interested in the content material. This way of motivating students would have to be monitored very closely to ensure that money was only given to these types of students in these circumstances. Implementing this type of system correctly would be a logistical impossibility for most teachers and administrators. Therefore, I do not advocate paying students to attend or engage in school activities.

My research focuses on instructional methods that motivate students to engage in school, and I would like to see policymakers and educators address why some students are not motivated to engage — as opposed to simply bribing students to engage. Researchers have found that teachers’ instructional methods can have a major impact on students’ motivation. Yet, teachers are limited in their ability to motivate any one student because of many factors outside of school that impact a student’s motivation. Different students and communities have different needs, but in most cases I would recommend trying to motivate students by improving teaching methods and curricula, and addressing larger societal problems (such as poverty and access to resources).

Sam Abrams, Teachers College, Columbia University

Achieving excellence in school is a complex endeavor

Samuel E. Abrams is a visiting scholar at Teachers College, Columbia University writing a book on school reform; he was previously a high school history teacher for 18 years.

Roland Fryer’s recent experiment of conferring cash bonuses to students for academic gains in 203 underprivileged public schools across Chicago, Dallas, and New York sheds much light on the learning process.

Many economists and policymakers have seen such cash bonuses as the answer to motivating poor students. Fryer’s two-year experiment, after all, cost $9.4 million in bonuses and involved 27,000 students. And yet the only statistically significant outcome was for second-graders in Dallas whose primary language is English. After getting paid $2 per book for up to 20 books per semester, this cohort posted statistically significant better results on year-end state reading tests than peers in a control group. However, this didn’t hold for ninth-graders in Chicago — paid for high grades every five weeks—or fourth- and seventh-graders in New York — paid for high scores on ten interim assessments.

While the National Math and Science Initiative claims that its cash bonuses over the last three years of $100 to students earning a 3 or better on Advanced Placement exams (along with matching bonuses to teachers) have significantly boosted participation and results at underprivileged schools, the impact is far from clear. NMSI in addition provides extra lab equipment to participating schools, intensive professional development to teachers, and afternoon tutoring and Saturday sessions to students.

Rewards clearly work for specific tasks. M&M’s have helped countless parents toilet-train their children. Youngsters avidly mow lawns, rake leaves, and shovel snow for spending money. Students may likewise do what’s necessary to achieve good grades if paid. But achieving excellence in school, much as on a basketball court or in an orchestra, is a far more complex endeavor, requiring passion and thoughtful instruction to nurture and guide it. This is understood in Winnetka, Highland Park, and Scarsdale. It should be understood in Chicago, Dallas, and New York.

Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia, Duke University

A quick fix sends the wrong message

Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia is an assistant professor of psychology and education at Duke University.

Paying students represents a form of extrinsic motivation. Several research syntheses of more than 100 empirical studies indicate that extrinsic rewards that are tangible (such as money), expected (students know that they will receive the rewards prior to engaging in the behavior), and contingent (such as paying students to show up to school) are especially detrimental because these rewards are overly controlling and undermine feelings of autonomy. Thus, payment for test scores, grades, or school attendance will significantly undermine intrinsic motivation for school. By paying students, one runs the real risk of undermining any existing motivation in students and failing to sufficiently motivate those students who are not engaged.

While enhancing student motivation is not an easy task, we would be better served by enacting broader reforms to our education system. For instance, shifting the focus away from constant testing and ranking of students and schools made prominent through No Child Left Behind and moving toward a focus on developing student competence and providing an in-depth, challenging curriculum that helps students to see connections between school subjects and real-world topics would be a good start. Providing students with challenging tasks that can be successfully accomplished with effort and the use of effective learning strategies is also key for supporting motivation. A quick fix, such as adding financial incentives for students, sends the wrong message about the purpose of schooling and is ineffective for promoting lasting motivation.

Jim Appleton, Gwinnett County Public Schools

Shift the discussion towards achieving balance

Dr. James Appleton is Coordinator of Research and Evaluation for the Gwinnett County Public Schools in Suwanee, GA; he presents nationally on data-driven decision-making and student engagement.

Paying students for attendance or performance is sometimes seen as focusing on the symptoms rather than the underlying causes of student behaviors. Motivation theorists might suggest that pay could undermine students’ intrinsic motivation to learn — the rub is that we are preparing students for a world where people are paid to engage in tasks for which they have varying levels of intrinsic enjoyment. Also, some might argue that grades themselves are extrinsic motivators and educators shape student behaviors with these quite frequently.

The debate should shift from whether to extrinsically reinforce students with rewards such as pay to how to do so in a manner that continues to motivate them to master content and maintain a desire to learn throughout their lives. There is value in both extrinsic and intrinsic reinforcement when done well. Recent research suggests that extrinsic rewards work well for discrete tasks which students understand clearly — for example, reading a certain number of books — rather than tasks for which specific behaviors are not as clearly related to outcomes — e.g., improving performance on state tests. There are also times where the capacity to intervene with students is limited by the ability to get them within the school walls. In these instances, extrinsic reinforcement for attending may be a necessary first step to improving motivation to learn and outcomes for these students.

A good approach would seem to be a balance between a focus on student intrinsic motivation and a thoughtful, pragmatic use of extrinsic reinforcement.

Bob Stimolo, School Market Research Institute

With NCLB, one size does not fit all

Bob Stimolo is the president of the School Market Research Institute.

For a very long time, the prevailing concept about how children should be taught centered on the classroom teacher. It was the classroom teacher that was in the best position to know how to teach and what materials were best — and it was the classroom teacher who knew best how to evaluate student progress. Then, along came No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and everything changed.

NCLB declared that there was a universal approach to education and that all students could be equally proficient. NCLB stated that standards could be set, met and measured through common assessments. Educators began teaching to the test. Eventually controversy grew over this approach to education and NCLB detractors focused on the validity of measuring success through assessments and testing. Now NCLB is under attack from every sector, including the Department of Education, as being unworkable. At the heart of the issue is the inability to find a reliable methodology for measuring outcomes.

The National Research Council of the National Academies recently released a report entitled Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education. The report concludes “tests used in education fall short of providing a complete measure of educational outcomes in many ways”. If test results are not a true measure of either the quality of teaching or learning, how can we draw conclusions as to what techniques are effective?

If NCLB has taught us anything, it should be that one size does not fit all. Merit pay for students? Why not? It won’t work for all students, but certainly should work for some. It’s another tool we can make available to educators to help them succeed.

Hedy Chang, Attendance Works

Simple rewards can go a long way in motivation

Hedy Chang is the director of Attendance Works.

Research and common sense tell us that school attendance is critically important to student achievement. As early as kindergarten, too many absences can translate into academic troubles in later years, especially for children living in poverty. By 6th grade, poor attendance is a proven warning sign that a student, rich or poor, will drop out of high school. By 9th grade, excessive absences can predict dropout rates with more accuracy than 8th grade test scores.

But how far should we go to motivate students to come to school? Does it pay to pay students just to show up?

Some schools, of course, have tried that approach with some success. These include the esteemed Harlem Children’s Zone and its Promise Academy Charter Schools, where high school students can earn as much as $120 a month for attending school and doing well.

“People say, ‘Well Geoff, look, don’t you want kids to do it for the intrinsic value?’” founder Geoffrey Canada said in an interview. “Sure, I’d love them to do it for the intrinsic value. And until then, I’d love them to do it for money. I just want them to do it.”

But not every school wants to, or can afford to, offer money. A Grand Rapids, Mich. school rewards kids with ice cream socials and their pictures on the school television after one month of perfect attendance. A Georgia high school gives 10 points on each final exam to every students who miss two or fewer days in a semester. One California elementary school awards 15 extra minutes of recess to the class with the best attendance at the end of the week. The principal takes the class, giving the teacher an extra-long lunch break and an incentive to encourage good attendance.

Our Attendance Works handout on incentives (PDF) provides these simple guidelines:

• Incentives are most effective when part of a comprehensive approach that includes outreach to families with more significant challenges to attendance.
• Simple rewards can go a long way toward motivating students.
• Student can often tell us what they consider a meaningful incentive.
• Interclass competition is a powerful motivator.
• Avoid recognizing only perfect attendance. Students should be rewarded for improved attendance, as well.
• Reward timeliness not just showing up to school.

Julian Betts, UCSD

Three objections, analyzed

Julian Betts is a professor of economics at the University of California-San Diego, as well as Executive Director of the San Diego Education Research Alliance (SanDERA).

The idea that we could boost student achievement by paying students for performing well has been gaining in currency.

Economists are (in)famous for eschewing technocratic solutions to problems in favor of looking at people’s incentives and asking how one might redirect people’s behavior in societally-useful ways. (Why spend a billion dollars to build a new bridge beside an existing but overburdened bridge, argues the economist, when charging a toll at rush hour on the existing bridge will encourage people to alter the timing of their trips or to find an alternative route?)

So it should come as no surprise that an economist, Dr. Roland Fryer, has engaged in a series of experiments to find out if paying students to work harder at school is a magic bullet for increasing student achievement. So far, his results seem to suggest that paying students for better test scores or grades is not very effective, but paying students to undertake specific actions, such as reading more books, can lead to meaningful gains in student skills.
I see several obvious objections to the notion that we should begin paying students for effort, but only one, which has more to do with psychology than economics, deeply troubles me.

The first objection is that it is sickening to contemplate spending tax dollars on paying students at a time when school districts nationwide are being forced to savage their budgets. While I do feel queasy about this, it is not a fundamental objection so much as a question of timing. When the Great Recession at last finishes, why not spend something on student effort? This is especially true given the fairly dismal results researchers have found from investing in professional development for teachers, or the small gains to students from one of the most expensive reforms, reducing class size.

A second objection to paying students is that this is somehow un-American. Isn’t this a bribe? My goodness, next employers will begin paying end-of-year bonuses to their most productive workers. Oh, well, I guess employers already do that, but that is a game for adults. Bad example. OK, bringing this idea to a younger group, wouldn’t it be crazy to pay college students for good exam results? But scholarships, which can be retracted if a student does not perform well, do exactly this.

The third objection, and the one that really bothers me, is the question about whether extrinsic rewards can ever create in students intrinsic motivation to succeed. Maybe paying elementary school students to read more books engenders a lifelong love of reading in children, which would be all to the good. But will students be so conditioned to receiving money that they will just give up once the carrot is taken away? If so, students could gain temporarily, while the payments are in place, only to suffer later in school or college when teachers instead begin to rely solely on students’ intrinsic motivation, which may be non-existent by that point. We will have to follow participants in these experiments for many years to learn the answers to these questions. I worry about what the answer may be.

For now, some well-timed kind words from a teacher to a student who is making a real effort may be a much cheaper and more reliable way to increase students’ motivation to excel. But I wouldn’t mind at all if somebody proves me wrong.

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Mifflin County, PA — like small rural districts across the nation — faced big budget cuts this year. A 12 percent cut in state funding, combined with a declining enrollment, drove the district to close 5 of its 13 schools, lay off 11 percent of its staff, and reduce course offerings across the district. Classes have increased by 7-10 students, teachers say they’re overwhelmed, and students are feeling under-prepared. Is this small rural district in central PA the tip of the iceberg?

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How can we best train and retain teachers? We convened several experts to discuss. You may also be interested in our report on the current state of the American teacher, which is embedded above.

Patrick McGuinn, Drew University

The current situation is simply untenable

Patrick McGuinn is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Drew University; he also authored a book, No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005.

Race to the Top initiated a long-overdue debate over how to improve teacher quality in the United States and highlighted a number of dysfunctional state practices around teacher training, placement, evaluation, tenure, and dismissal. Three widespread practices in particular are in need of major revision: teacher evaluation and tenure systems that do not distinguish effective teachers from ineffective ones; forced placement, where teachers are assigned to schools based on seniority rather than the match of teacher skills to school preferences and needs; and LIFO (last in first out), by which teacher lay-offs are based entirely on seniority rather than teacher effectiveness. In most states today, teachers are given tenure automatically after three years in the classroom, with little meaningful evaluation of their teaching effectiveness, and are extremely unlikely to be fired during their career no matter how ineffective they are. And because our least effective teachers are concentrated in our poorest schools, the cost of leaving them in the classroom is borne disproportionately by our most disadvantaged students.

This situation is simply untenable. States may reasonably differ in how they define and measure teaching effectiveness; in particular, they may place different emphasis on the importance of student scores on standardized achievement tests — but states must act to improve their teacher evaluation and tenure processes as part of a broader push to improve teacher quality and classroom instruction. Such improvements, while necessary, are not sufficient, as a broader reassessment of the way states recruit, train, mentor, compensate, and distribute teachers must be undertaken as well. Removing ineffective teachers without developing an expanded pool of effective teachers to replace them is unlikely to deliver desired improvements in education, particularly in high poverty schools which already face staffing challenges.

Julie Kowal and Sharon Kebschull Barrett, Public Impact

We could close the achievement gap in five years

Julie Kowal is a senior consultant and Sharon Kebschull Barrett is a research consultant with Public Impact.

American children deserve the one ingredient we know creates stellar learning results: excellent teachers — the 20 to 25 percent who produce about a year and a half of learning growth, on average. With them, the U.S. can close most of its achievement gaps in five years and catch up internationally. Without them — and even with good teachers who produce a full year of progress — children who start behind stay behind, and few students get ahead of their beginnings. This is the antithesis of the American Dream.

How can we get an excellent teacher for every student? Fortunately, we already have about 800,000 excellent teachers in classrooms. With policymakers’ help, schools can enable them to reach more students — now, within budget. In 3X for All, Public Impact proposes extending excellent teachers’ reach by rethinking job designs and technology, and paying excellent teachers more from existing per-pupil funding. See this Center for American Progress report (PDF) for examples. In our Seizing Opportunity at the Top: Policy Brief, we show what policymakers must do:

• speedily improve the identification of excellent teachers;
• clear the policy barriers that keep them from reaching more students; and
• catalyze the will for schools to put excellent teachers in charge of every student’s learning.

These efforts, combined with better recruiting, retention, and dismissal policies, could put a top teacher in charge of nearly every classroom, reaching all students, not just a lucky few.

Barnett Berry, Center for Teaching Quality

Six ways to improve teacher prep programs

Barnett Berry is the founder and president of the Center for Teaching Quality.

Recently, I collaborated with twelve expert teachers to write TEACHING 2030: What We Must Do For Our Students and Our Public Schools … Now and in the Future. We argue that universities’ teacher education programs — and highly-touted alternative certification programs like Teach for America — perpetuate out-of-date models of teaching and learning.

Teacher recruits need a very different kind of preparation to teach the diverse, tech-savvy learners of today and to ready those learners for the 21st-century global marketplace. To make this happen, we must move far beyond reform rhetoric — and we must do so quickly. Here are six big strategies that can help teacher preparation programs break the mold:

1. Ensure that recruits are being prepared for the roles that are most needed in area schools: School districts should develop “labor market” reports, allowing universities to carefully consider how many recruits should be prepared and for what.

2. Jettison traditional three-hour course credits in favor of performance-based pedagogical modules and assessments: This nimble, practical approach will help recruits to develop specific teaching skills and will better identify who is ready to teach, when, and under what conditions.

3. Split the time: Work with school districts to create hybrid roles for the most effective teachers to spend half their time teaching and half their time as lead teacher educators.

4. Understand the community: Require recruits to complete a substantial internship in a community-based organization, developing deep knowledge of how and where students and their families live.

5. Embrace online: Engage recruits in a virtual network of teachers, preparing them to teach effectively online and to collaborate virtually with teaching colleagues.

6. Emergent Tech: Work with school districts to expose recruits to live and digitally recorded “lesson studies,” in which teams of candidates learn to critique teaching and assess student learning using emerging technologies.

Jamie Davies O’Leary, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

“Know it when you see it?” Hardly.

Jamie Davies O’Leary is a senior Ohio policy analyst and associate editor for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

We can’t improve the quality of our nation’s educators or teacher training programs without a serious dialogue around what good teaching looks like, especially for the most at-risk students for whom excellent teaching is most vital. Further, policies must be structured in ways that tease out the attributes and skills of excellent educators and identify and develop these in less effective teachers.

In Ohio, we frequently hear that it’s just not possible to do this fairly. But experiences from other states and districts prove otherwise. We interviewed teachers evaluated under the District of Columbia’s IMPACT system — which measures hallmarks of strong instruction like checking for understanding, engaging students, and delivering content clearly. Overwhelmingly DC teachers believed that it correctly identified high and low performers as well as identified tangible ways they could improve.

We heard a similar theme when we interviewed Mike Miles, superintendent of Colorado’s Harrison School District 2. HSD2 measures teacher quality according to curricular alignment, classroom management, student engagement, and student growth, among many indicators. The district has seen more teachers achieving advanced levels of proficiency under this system, proving that instructional improvement is possible once we begin defining and measuring excellence.

The truism that good teaching can’t be quantified — that you “just know it when you see it” — is anything but true. These new systems may not be perfect, but they are worlds better than what we had previously. And they are a starting point if we want to finally get serious about improving teacher quality.

Allan Odden, University of Wisconsin

Before new decisions, we need new measures

Allan Odden is the Director, Strategic Management of Human Capital (SMHC) and the Co-Director of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) at the University of Wisconsin.

All new efforts to produce teacher effectiveness indicators, of which I am aware, include both measures of a teacher’s instructional practice and direct evidence of the teacher impact on student achievement. The instructional practice measures include multiple elements, such as descriptions of pedagogical content knowledge for the concepts being taught, lesson plans, observations or videos of actual classroom teaching, testing instruments, and teacher reflections. The student performance measures include a combination of gain measures on state accountability tests, in most cases over a 3-4 year time period, as well as other test data, which can include short cycle assessments. When combined, the multiple measures give a solid indication of how good — effective — a teacher is at teaching.

Most new evaluation systems ultimately will produce a summative score that the teacher is performing at a 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 level of practice. Some states plan to link these effectiveness levels to important decisions, such as requiring a level 2 performance to earn the professional license and requiring a higher level 3 performance to earn tenure. Districts also can use these effectiveness indicators to recognize outstanding teachers, to promote the most effective teachers into career categories, to focus intensive help for teachers in the lower effectiveness levels, and — if performance doesn’t improve — for dismissal. The measures also could be the foundation of new teacher salary schedules that would provide the largest pay hikes when a teacher’s effectiveness level improved.

As my recent book on Strategic Management of Human Capital in Education (Routledge, 2011) argued, when these effectiveness indicators come online, the education system can begin to really engage in strategic management of the most important individuals in the education system — teachers. Without such new measures, important decisions about teachers have little substantive basis, as this past decade’s futile search to identify highly qualified teachers showed.

Eugene Hickok, Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education

We demand something from teachers that we can’t define

Eugene Hickok is a former U.S. Undersecretary of Education and Deputy Secretary of Education.

Teacher quality matters. Some argue it matters more than anything else when it comes to student and school performance. If that is the case, then America has done a pretty poor job of making sure America’s teachers are up to the job.

Teacher quality — whatever that means — became something of a national priority under President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind initiative. But that law tied teacher quality to teacher licensure and argued that with appropriate licensure requirements teacher quality could be ensured. More recently, under President Obama, the issue has been teacher competence more than quality: Are teachers getting the job done? This makes some sense. Qualifications don’t matter much if students aren’t learning. But establishing valid indicators of teacher competence has proven to be controversial. The most prevalent formulation has been to tie competence to student test scores. It is an understandable but misguided idea. So many things go into student learning that it is simplistic to think that there is some kind of direct and calculable ratio between teaching and learning as measured by how well a student scores on a test.

Should student achievement matter? Absolutely! But student achievement is as robust and complex an idea as teacher quality. It can’t be reduced to a test score. Tests matter, surely. But many tests matter more. And many kinds of tests matter even more.

Teaching and learning is a product of the chemistry of the classroom — and it is a chemistry that varies with each teacher with each student in every classroom. It is folly to seek to reduce it some formula that might be replicated through public policy. We are left this difficult dilemma: We must demand from our teachers what we cannot define and what we cannot do without.

Jon Schnur, New Leaders for New Schools

Our greatest resource is our experience

Jon Schnur is the co-founder and Chairman of the Board of New Leaders for New Schools.

What can we do to realize America’s great potential for ever-higher levels of educator and student excellence?

First, we can energize our students and educators to make big improvements toward rigorous, clear expectations and goals. This includes adopting and effectively implementing student standards and assessments to measure — and help educators, students and their families truly understand the specific elements and importance of — the knowledge and skills our students need to be on track for success in college and careers. It includes helping educators understand, observe, and get actionable feedback to improve performance toward rigorous standards for professional practice and ambitious goals for a healthy blend of student outcomes.

Second, we can ensure meaningful support and needed resources to help our students, educators, and schools succeed. This includes useful tools, professional development, extra time for student and educator learning, and sharing of promising practices. It also includes protecting funding for our schools, concentrating additional funding on effective efforts to improve education for our students in greatest need, and ending the requirements, mandates, and checklists that hamper productivity in our schools.

Third, we can define and enforce serious and fair consequences for success and failure against clearly defined expectations and criteria. That includes retaining successful educators with additional paid opportunities and responsibilities to help others succeed while continuing to serve their own students. It means setting high standards and longer time frames for teacher tenure — and providing tenure only to teachers who achieve those standards. And it means making it easier and faster to remove those teachers at any point in their career who are not serving students effectively.

Finally, the greatest resource in our American education system is the experience, insight and voice of our educators who have delivered strong results for our students and communities. We should honor them not only by thanking them, but also by including them at every level of policy discussion from the principal’s office to the school board, to the halls of legislatures to the Oval Office, from the publishing houses to the governors’ mansions.

Tricia Miller, National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality

Development and accountability can complement each other

Tricia Miller is the Deputy Director of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality.

Federal and national attention has shifted from concern about whether a teacher is highly qualified — based on inputs such as certification and content knowledge — to concern about whether a teacher is effective, which is based on outcomes, such as teacher and student performance. Fueled by the Race to the Top competition and pushed by legislation specifying deadlines and requirements, states and districts are struggling to design and implement comprehensive teacher evaluation systems that are based on outcomes. This change is nothing short of a culture shift.

It is also an opportunity, however, to focus on creating evaluation systems designed to support and develop our teachers rather that just holding them accountable. Development and accountability do not have to be contradictory goals; they can complement one another.

A quality evaluation system can provide data for accountability. It can also provide data that can be used to identify areas of weakness for a teacher and target support and development to address those areas. The challenge is to ensure that the systems being created and implemented remain true to the ideal of support and development rather than devolving into a compliance orientation, wherein teacher evaluation is a task to be completed and checked off.

To best serve our students, we need to support and develop excellence in our teachers. Quality evaluation systems offer an opportunity to furnish this support. If we are to stay true to the American ideal of providing a quality education to all students, we must take full advantage of this opportunity.

Joe Aguerrebere, Former President/CEO of NBPTS

A first step is agreeing on a set of standards

Joe Aguerrebere is a former President and CEO of NBPTS (2003-2011), as well as a Deputy Director of the Ford Foundation from 1994 to 2003.

Ongoing national debates about how to get better teachers will never be resolved until there is professional and public consensus on a set of “common” standards for the practice of teaching. In today’s politicized educational world, the federal government, as well as every state and locality establishes their own regulatory framework influenced more by the politics of the day than by evidence of what works. As a result, the background and training of teachers across the country remains uneven leading to very uneven results for students.

Practitioners — and more importantly than government — need to step up and take responsibility for the preparation, development and assessment of teaching in the same way that other respected professions have done. This means coming together to arrive at a professional consensus about high quality teaching and the conditions that support effective learning outcomes for all students. As in other professions, professional national bodies can serve as vehicles for this consensus building. National accreditation can drive teacher training institutions toward a higher set of standards. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards can drive individual teachers toward the development of good teaching practice across subjects and grade levels.

Once there is agreement on a set of “standards of teaching practice,” then teacher preparation institutions will have a consistent way of preparing and developing teachers. School systems will then have a better framework for the evaluation and professional support of teachers, leading to better outcomes for children.

Celine Coggins, Teach Plus

We need to think about how we’re building the profession

Celine Coggins is the CEO of Teach Plus and the author of A Decade of Urban School Reform.

More than a decade of research has confirmed what every parent knows: there are differences among teachers and they have huge consequences for student learning. Policymakers at the federal, state and local levels have addressed this problem by focusing on teacher recruitment and preparation. Attract the “best and brightest” to teaching and every kid will get a great education, so the logic goes. This strategy is too limited. Consider the following:

• Almost half of new teachers leave urban schools within their first three years;
• Virtually all teachers improve in their early years on the job, most reaching their peak effectiveness between years 3 and 5;
• Students in schools serving a low-income population are more than 2.5 times more likely to have a novice teacher than their more affluent peers.

We have just reached a demographic tipping point among American teachers. For more than 40 years, Baby Boomers have constituted the majority of teachers. Today, 53% of teachers have fewer than 10 years experience. For this incoming group, staying or leaving is often a year-by-year decision. To ensure the strongest among them continue working with students for more than just a couple of years, we need career pathways that allow them to grow and be recognized for their success promoting student achievement. Improving teacher quality requires more than getting smart people to consider teaching: it requires building a profession that retains high performers and allows them to take on leadership roles while continuing to work with students.

Michelle Exstrom, NCSL

The time is right, and the context is set

Michelle Exstrom is the Education Program Principal for Teaching Quality and Effectiveness at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

State legislators are facing the most difficult state fiscal conditions of our time and are looking for strategies to wisely allocate — or reallocate — state resources to policies and programs that work. Over the past decade, strengthening teaching quality has been a priority for state legislators because they understand that great teachers and school leaders must be the centerpiece of a successful 21st century education system.

This priority continues even through current budget challenges, and state legislators are once again leading their states to reforms that were not likely just a few years ago. In just the past 18 months, legislators in at least 26 states have enacted legislation overhauling teacher evaluation systems, tying teacher evaluations — and ultimately their jobs — in large part to student achievement. They are revamping compensation and using state data systems to evaluate preparation programs. They have also removed tenure provisions, making it easier to remove ineffective teachers. And they have provided additional targeted training for those teachers identified as needing improvement.

They are eager to lead because they understand what’s at stake. They want to set rigorous expectations for preparation and performance and lead their state and the nation toward a high-quality education workforce that will put our nation’s student achievement back on top. The time is right and the context is set for states to move forward to enact meaningful policies — and remove barriers where needed — to achieve the vision of not just effective, but excellent teachers and principals for every student.

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The Atlanta cheating scandal was a black mark on education — and then, similar scandals emerged in other major cities. How do we prevent this in the future? We convened several experts to discuss. You may also be interested in our report for PBS NewsHour on the topic, embedded above.

Andy Porter, UPenn

Set targets and be accountable

Andy Porter is the dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

In K-12 education, we’ve been moving to hold educators accountable for their students’ performance on state-administered standardized tests. The accountability movement’s goal is better instruction for all students, but accountability tempts some people to cheat.

People are tempted when they see (a) a benefit to cheating and (b) an opportunity to cheat.

Some would solve the cheating problem by eliminating accountability — that is, by eliminating the incentive to cheat. To me, that would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Education needs accountability to help us improve schools and, if we have to, weed out the incompetent.

I have a simple formula for doing K-12 accountability right. First, we must set a good target by testing exactly what we want our students to know and be able to do. Second, we must hold students as well as educators accountable on the same tests; we want both to have incentives to do their best. Third, accountability must be fair. Students must be given adequate opportunity to learn what is tested, and teachers must get the resources to be effective. Fairness also requires that we anticipate cheating, and that we put in place measures to prevent it and to detect it when it occurs. Much is known about how to do both.

Brian Backstrom, Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability

A basic four-step process

Brian Backstrom is Vice President of the Albany-based Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability, a state education policy research organization that focuses on the areas of educational innovation, accountability, and choice.

Thanks to the federal Race to the Top grant program, more states than ever are considering student outcomes on state assessments when evaluating individual teachers and principals. Given the increasingly heavy weight these assessment results are playing, states should be reexamining the integrity of the administration and scoring of their assessment systems.

As an example, New York took the long overdue step of banning the practice of teachers re-scoring exams to find an extra point or two to help borderline students pass. While this may seem like a no-brainer, it took until this year for the ban to become policy.

Additional common-sense ideas that states should consider (if they aren’t already policy) include:

• Prohibiting teachers from scoring their own students’ exams, a practice currently allowed in New York.
• Computerize the process for scoring extended response questions, sending them electronically to a centralized location that is staffed by trained, more objective and consistent scorers.
• Prohibit teachers from proctoring exams for their own students and subject areas.
• Strengthen whistle-blower protections for reporting cheating and criminal punishments for test-scoring cheaters.

Systems of accountability and evaluation are only as strong as their weakest links. Like New York, no doubt many states’ assessment administration and scoring processes should be overhauled from top to bottom to eliminate the opportunities for cheating.

Joan Arbisi Little, Center for School Change

Is it as simple as praise?

Joan Arbisi Little is the Associate Director of the Center for School Change at Macalester College in Minnesota.

When I think about kids and cheating I think about motivation: what is motivating them to cheat?

I asked my teen-aged daughters what they thought about cheating and here are a few of their comments:

“Desperation to please people — or a feeling that there is no way out. They would rather do it quickly, and get it done. People tell kids they aren’t good enough all the time. It’s not a good morality to cheat, but I don’t see why people don’t just say that it is wrong and move on. I don’t think they should be severely punished. Smart kids do it all the time.”

“It’s not a question of how smart you are, it’s a question of how far are you willing to go to get that praise from adults.”

“It’s contradictory because you just wanted to get praise, and it feels weird when they severely punish for it. They should punish for violence and bullying because it hurts someone. Cheating is just wrong.”

Praise. It never occurred to me that a student would be looking for praise.

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Is the charter school model working for education, or just hurting public schools? We convened several experts to discuss the topic. You may also be interested in reporting we did for PBS NewsHour on the role of charter schools in helping turn around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; that piece is embedded above.

In This Discussion

It’s deja vu all over again, argument-wise

John Ayers is a vice president at the Carnegie Foundation; for 10 years earlier in his career, he was the executive director of Leadership for Quality Education.

When I was building support for charter school creation in Chicago in the late 1990s, I worked for an effective and relatively reasonable business group in that city. My bosses argued publicly that charters succeed for one simple reason: there were no unions in place in charter schools.

I disagreed and politely maintained this causation was unproven — it was just too easy to say unions made the difference. Dynamic new schools have many virtues and virtually no one working in schools or in educational research agreed that this factor topped the list. I argued there are no magic bullets in public education reform. My guys simply laughed me off. “Don’t complicate things. It’s just so obvious: charters can be managed efficiently, and district schools cannot.”

A simple-minded consensus seems to have been reached, reflecting this business thinking: it’s just wrong. I watch in dismay as the Administration argues “bad teachers” are our problem, while promoting incentives for districts to close low-performing schools and advance charters. Recently elected Republican governors unleash an unprecedented attack on labor in the public sector, while praising every charter that comes down the pike, as if they are by definition good schools. They are the answer that fixes all.

It’s an appalling déjà vu for me. Let’s get real.

We need to put a high value on academic excellence and transparency

Piet Van Lier is a senior researcher for Policy Matters Ohio.

Education reformers take note — Ohio is a case study in how NOT to develop and oversee charter schools. Our legislators have taken a quantity-over-quality approach that has saturated urban districts with low-performing schools. The relative handful of successful charters in Ohio often serve children who differ from students in nearby district schools in terms of income, early literacy skills, special needs and even district of residence. While Ohio’s policymakers have mandated the closure of low-performing schools, management companies with their eyes on the bottom line have skirted the law. Those same operators have upended the legal authority of charter school boards by handpicking members and diminishing boards’ governance role. Furthermore, not enough has been done to ensure that ineffective schools don’t open in the first place. The state education department has delegated charter approval and oversight to independent entities over which it has been unable, or unwilling, to exercise meaningful control.

Pockets of promise do exist in Ohio’s charter sector, and districts and charter schools have begun working together even though state law has made such collaboration difficult. If we want to grow and support charter schools that can become models that benefit all public school children — in Ohio and elsewhere — policymakers need to put a high value on academic excellence, transparency and authentic community involvement. Along with this laser-like focus on excellence in the charter sector, we need to work harder to support district schools, not punish them. In the end, school improvement advocates need to make a new commitment to enact reforms that address head-on the challenges of poverty in education.

Will the charter institution remain truly innovative and honest to its original spirit?

Bruce Fuller is a professor at Cal-Berkeley in the Graduate School of Education, focusing on policy, organization, measurement and evaluation.

The charter school movement is dead. The young institution of charter companies is alive — quite well in parts of the nation, while ailing elsewhere. It’s now been two decades since the first charters opened their doors, first in Minnesota and California, and then spreading like untended wildflowers across the land. But the quality of charters remains uneven — the average charter student still does not outperform her average peer in a regular public school.

So, it’s expected and often helpful that foundations and government are consolidating capital, focusing dollars on reputable charter firms (CMOs) that operate better coordinated schools. Some are showing quite promising results, such as KIPP and Green Dot, although up to one-third of their revenues come from private sources. Worries persist that the most engaged parents are being siphoned out of regular public schools by attractive charters. This must be weighed against the state’s responsibility to provide fresh opportunities for low-income families, to narrow the achievement gap and make our young workforce more productive and more engaged in civic life. That’s in everyone’s interest.

Will the charter institution remain truly innovative and honest to its original spirit? Early charter pioneers rightfully criticized urban school systems for often serving the adults first, children second. Twenty years later, some charter leaders have come to protect their own, failing to hold weak school accountable, even controlling what data are made available for independent analysis. The young institution of charter schooling may yet return to serve the public interest, demonstrating practices that invigorate teachers and lift all children.

The future of charter schooling lies in a new definition of public schooling

Robin Lake is the associate director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington.

Quality public charter schools will continue to expand — especially in urban areas. When they enjoy rigorous government oversight and real control over staffing and curriculum, public charter schools have proven to be effective, especially for poor and minority students. The best charters are showing that with personal attention and rigorous teaching any student can go to college, regardless of their background. Parent satisfaction is extremely high. Charter supporters are addressing uneven quality and are pushing charters to serve more students with special needs. Charters are also leading the way with innovations on instruction and uses of technology.

The choice between charter and district schools is a false dichotomy; we need to focus on creating more high-quality public schools and stop caring what they are called. Public schools that are effective should be replicated; those that can’t perform should be replaced. Expansion of high quality charters should be coupled with system-wide reforms that focus on effective teachers, innovative uses of technology, and accountability for results. More than 25 school districts now view charters as necessary partners in their reform efforts. These districts will continue to open charters until district-run schools outperform them. The future of charter schooling lies in a new definition of public schooling: getting beyond labels invented by adults so that all students are served well. No excuses.

We can learn from charters, but they’ll never replace America’s schools

Dan Domenech is the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators.

All of us can cite examples of charters providing at-risk children with the education and support that will allow them to prosper in their otherwise bleak environment — but not all charter schools are as successful.

A recent study at Stanford University reports that while 17 percent of charter schools provide superior education results, 37 percent deliver learning results that are significantly worse than had their students attended traditional public schools. The other charter schools in the study achieved results no different from those of local public schools.

At the same time, many public school systems in America provide an excellent education to low-income children and children of color. For example, Montgomery County (MD), Fairfax County (VA) and Gwinnett County (GA) are among the largest school systems in America, yet they successfully graduate a diverse population of youngsters, many of whom are economically disadvantaged.

And, according to the latest Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll, 77 percent of parents with children in public school give their school a grade of A or B. That’s the largest percentage ever in the history of the poll.

AASA supports charters operated by the public school system, but by definition, charter schools are the exception to the rule. We in public education can learn from charters — and we should be working together on behalf of all our children — but they will never replace America’s public schools.

Where will charters be in 5-10 years?

Mark Schneider is a Vice President at the American Institutes for Research. He was the U.S. Commissioner of Education Statistics from 2005 until 2008.

Over the next 5 to 10 years, I expect to see a continued growth in the number of charter schools — and I believe we will see a proliferation of charters in relatively affluent suburban school districts moving them out of the poorly served inner-city neighborhoods where they tend to be presently concentrated.

I also expect to see consolidation in who provides charter schools, with the number of “mom and pop” one-off charter schools losing out to high-performing charter organizations. This is unfortunate, since some of our best ideas for charter schools started small and grew over time. We should also expect to see more vertically-integrated charter school systems, where students can attend, for example, KIPP schools from elementary through high school (a problem here is that entry for new students at higher grades may become more difficult as students already enrolled in the “system” take up seats in higher grades, leaving fewer seats for others).

I also expect to see an increase in closures of existing charter schools as they come up for renewal and as authorizers take a harder look at the academic performance. This is as it should be: a great appeal of charter schools (indeed one of their core reasons for being) is that they are not immortal — a failing charter school can and should be closed. There are disruptions that go along with these closures and we need to make sure that students and parents in charter schools have plenty of notice and help in securing a new place in a better performing school, but closures are a sign of strength not of weakness.

Could we serve all those in poverty by 2025? Yes.

Bryan Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel (who also contributed to the below) are the co-directors of Public Impact.

Here are two ways the charter sector could transform American public education:

Grow the Best Exponentially: Though controversy rages about the quality of charter schools, few doubt that a subset of charters has achieved extraordinary results with disadvantaged children. The nation needs some of these high-flyers to grow much faster, at rates of 40 percent or more annually, like fast-growing organizations in other sectors. If just the top 10 percent of charter schools grew this rapidly, they could serve every child living in poverty (and more) by 2025. Our report for the Progressive Policy Institute, Going Exponential, provides strategies for charter operators and policymakers to expand the best, based on research about fast-growing organizations.

Break the Excellent Teacher Logjam: Charter schools can create new school models that overcome today’s core problem: the shortage of excellent teachers, those who produce enough learning growth to close achievement gaps. As we discuss in 3X for All, by rethinking job design and technology use, schools could extend the reach of today’s top-25 percent teachers so that most students have great teachers most years, within existing budgets. Autonomous charter schools are uniquely positioned to join pioneers like Rocketship Education in reaching vastly more children with excellent teachers.

Shifting our understanding of what is possible

Ted Mitchell is the president and CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund.

All children can excel in school and master the skills they need to succeed in college and beyond. Many will find this obvious, but in fact we owe our understanding of this in part to high-performing charter schools, which have demonstrated that children from the poorest communities can achieve academic excellence at levels previously thought to be the exclusive domain of children from wealthy, well-educated families.

The breakthrough results that propelled this shift in expectations are the result of years of hard work, persistence in the face of setbacks, and innovating to find the best strategies to educate our children. Whether it be KIPP’s system of rewards and demerits or the use of student and teacher data to inform decision-making at Aspire Public Schools, charter schools have been incubators of the most innovative ideas getting results for students.

Of course, the drive to serve historically disadvantaged children is not exclusively found within charter schools. Nor is success theirs alone. School leaders and teachers across the country are united in their efforts to improve children’s lives. Recently, though, more districts are adopting the innovative ethos of charters — a change my colleagues and I welcome. Houston Public Schools’ superintendent Terry Grier recently told a New York Times reporter, “We can’t sit idly by and let parents think that only the quality charter schools can educate poor kids well. If you see something good, why not try to replicate it?”

The operating structure of a school — charter or district — is not a reliable indicator of a schools’ performance. Many charter schools have not fulfilled their promises to students and parents. When this happens, these schools should lose their charters, just as district schools that fail students should be closed. The reverse is true also: schools that have demonstrated their effectiveness — whether charter or district — should get the resources and support to expand, continue to innovate, and help more students succeed.

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When he was 11, Josh Armstrong was playing basketball at a local park. A man arrived, walked over to someone else playing hoops, and shot him in the head.

“It was the most scared I’ve ever been,” Armstrong admits.

Other hardships followed: his mother got cancer, and his father left the family. Oftentimes, Armstrong doesn’t have enough money for food.

Through the Brooklyn Youth Sports Club, however, Armstrong — and other young adults in similar situations — have found hope, guidance, and a path.

Watch this inspiring story above.

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The cheating scandal in Atlanta schools has been a black mark on American education — but when we speak about it, we often focus on administrators, principals, and teachers. What about the students whose scores were falsified, and their families? How do they feel? And with the chances that cheating is more widespread than we think, where is the system headed next?

In a report for PBS Newshour, we attempted to answer these questions.

Download transcript (PDF)

RELATED CONTENT

What do we do with the cheaters?

John Merrow wonders what we do with those who wronged our children in this situation. READ

With testing, where do we go from here?

When the ranting ends over cheaters in our schools, we need to move forward — so, what are our options? READ

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A world without math?!? Oh no!

Allow us to explain.

There are 11 after-school clubs at P.S. 1, including one that helps students produce their own videos. This year, they created a series of talk shows that focused on topics like math, bullying, health, happiness and peace. Parents and community members were invited in to the school to watch and discuss shows with the students.

Approximately 12,000 students from 200 schools across the city, including P.S. 1, participate in clubs run by a non-profit organization called The Leadership Program. Besides video production, there are clubs featuring dance, art, basketball, and many more activities. They give children the opportunity to do something creative and fun, something that they really love, and for some kids, provide an extra incentive to go to school. Research has shown that the programs help reduce truancy.

Above, PS 1’s Olga Rojas reports on a world without math.

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For many high school students, the struggles of others are often distant problems. In urban inner-city schools, where students have tough home situations and little exposure to the outside world, this is particularly the case. But at Banana Kelly High School in the South Bronx, high school teacher Lauren Fardig aims to change that.

Producer John Tulenko went to Banana Kelly — situated in the poorest Congressional district in America — to film a piece on a remarkable curriculum developed by the Morningside Center. These ninth grade students went through several phases of activities related to refugees, discovering important life lessons in the process.

This piece aired on June 20, 2011 on PBS NewsHour.

Download transcript (PDF)

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John appeared with Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp at The JCC in Manhattan on June 13, 2011 for a far-reaching discussion about education in America. You can watch their entire interview, which is part of the JCC’s Conversations series, above.

To buy tickets to future Conversations involving John, please click here.

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How do you judge if a school is good or bad? A strong leader, great teachers, a diverse curriculum and happy children can all be indicators that a school is good — but when state and federal policymakers evaluate schools, they typically consider just one piece of evidence: test scores.

But are test scores a reliable measure of success? We went to the South Bronx to find out.

Download transcript (PDF)

RELATED CONTENT

John Merrow’s Blog

John Merrow goes into deeper detail about how this piece was produced, including asking whether the situation described here is a paradox — or a genuine contradiction. READ

“The Math Blackout” Newscast

One of the 11 after-school clubs at P.S. 1 helps students create their own broadcasts. Here, Olga Rojas and classmates report on an imagined school-wide “math blackout.” WATCH

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At the High School for Health Professions in New York City, the ECO Club recently put on a fashion show — with a twist (tie), though. All the materials were things you can find at home. So, as the participants learned about bigger issues — such as sustainability and how their generation can give back — they were also wearing newspaper miniskirts and garbage bag blouses. Check it out:

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“I don’t care how long someone has been in the classroom. I want results.”

That’s the view of one principal in Hartford, CT, where Learning Matters producers John Tulenko and Audrey Baker traveled recently to investigate the many sides of ‘last in, first out’ (LIFO), a method of teacher retention in many states. The issue is heated, requires its own vocabulary (do you know what ‘bumping’ is?), and has very serious financial implications — Hartford, for example, is trying to cut $17 million from the budget.

This deep, nuanced look at LIFO aired on Monday, May 9 on PBS NewsHour.

Download transcript (PDF)

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Our president, John Merrow, appeared on the ‘EdCast’ series created by Matt Weber of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. (Merrow is a 1973 alumnus.) The podcast was in conjunction with an event at the Gutman Library, where John gave a speech last week. Listen above to ‘On The Education Beat,’ where John discusses education reporting, how the field has evolved in his long career, and his book The Influence of Teachers , among other topics. To access all Harvard ‘EdCast’ programs — including talks with Davis Guggenheim, Wendy Kopp, Randi Weingarten and more — click here.

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The town of Mooresville, North Carolina has a grand plan for its school district: three years ago, they began providing laptops to every student and teacher in grades 4-12 (over 5000 laptops in all). While computers have been around in schools for over two decades at this point, Mooresville is one of the only entirely digital districts in the United States.

The district superintendent, Mark Edwards, speaks of a “disconnect” between students’ everyday lives and school in the absence of technology in classrooms; Edwards also notes that other school districts have visited Mooresville and viewed it as a successful financial model. Mooresville spends about $200 per year, per student on this plan.

One teacher, Bethany Smith, claims she was “a dictator” before this tech revolution; now, she feels her relationship with her students has more flexibility.

Still, though, there are issues: will students remain on-task? Since the program must limit certain types of sites and information, is that a disservice to students? Can a school “divorcing” itself from textbooks actually thrive?

Reporter John Tulenko and producer Audrey Baker explore these issues in this piece, which aired on April 8, 2011 on PBS NewsHour.

Download transcript (PDF)

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This podcast is a companion piece to our reporting for PBS NewsHour on the Chicago preschool vocabulary gap; the PBS report is embedded above.

When the TV show Sesame Street began 42 years ago, it wasn’t all that common for kids to go to preschool. In fact, about 70% of kids stayed home until they went to kindergarten. The creators of the show sought to bring a bit of the preschool experience to the many kids who didn’t actually attend school.

Today, the stats are almost reversed — about 60% of kids under five are in some kind of structured preschool program — but the goal of Sesame Street remains the same: to reach out to the population of preschool-aged kids who do not go to school and prepare them for the school experience.

Producer Amanda Thieroff sat down with Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, one of the wizards behind the curtain at Sesame Workshop, the non-profit company that produces Sesame Street and other educational programs.

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This podcast is a companion piece to our reporting for PBS NewsHour on the Chicago preschool vocabulary gap; the PBS report is embedded above.

In cash-strapped Chicago, schools are facing cuts at every level. This includes programs for Chicago’s littlest students: preschoolers.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) provides free preschool for about 30,000 three and four years olds, but that’s not even half of those who need early education.

With too many preschool-aged kids and not enough money, CPS faced a difficult choice: Should it serve more students but spend less on each one? Or should it spend more money but serve fewer students?  In the end, it chose to serve as many students as it could, even though that meant programs would last only 2.5 hours a day and would be closed in the summer. This situation creates a host of challenges for working moms in Chicago.

In this podcast, we examine three specific cases of mothers fighting to maintain balance.

John Merrow, Cat McGrath and David Wald of Learning Matters report.

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Children raised in poverty typically enter kindergarten less prepared than their middle class peers and often never catch up.  For these children — who struggle year after year — school can feel like a losing battle.  More than one million students drop out every year.  We visited Chicago this winter to see what educators are doing to stop the battle before it begins.

This aired on PBS NewsHour on April 5, 2011. Watch:

Download transcript (pdf)

RELATED PODCASTS

The Role of Sesame Street

42 years ago, when Sesame Street began, about 70 percent of kids stayed home before kindergarten. Today, the statistics are almost reversed — so how do Big Bird, Snuffy and the rest of the gang work for children now? Listen to the story.

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Mothers Looking For Balance

The preschool issues in Chicago — namely, a lack of options — have created a host of problems for working mothers; in this podcast, we explore three such situations in detail. Listen to the story.

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John Merrow has been reporting for PBS NewsHour for a number of years. Jim Lehrer is extremely supportive of his work and took the time to produce a three-minute faux newscast to celebrate the release of Merrow’s new book, The Influence of Teachers.

You can find out more about Merrow’s book at the official book website.

News Feature - 2nd Prize: “Small Schools, Big Reforms”

Beat Reporting - Special Citation: Learning Matters and PBS NewsHour

Learning Matters is proud to announce that The Education Writers Association (EWA), the national professional association of education reporters and writers, has distinguished Learning Matters with two awards in the 2010 National Awards for Education Reporting, the prestigious national competition for education journalism.

“Small Schools, Big Reforms” was a short piece produced by senior correspondent John Tulenko that originally aired on PBS NewsHour on December 23, 2010. The segment examines New York City’s controversial plan to close large high schools in favor of small theme schools and featured interviews with former NYC Schools chancellor Joel Klein, as well as United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew. This piece won second prize in the Feature, News Feature, or Issue Package category.

Learning Matters’ John Merrow and John Tulenko’s coverage – in New Orleans and DC to reports on Race to the Top and school board struggles in Detroit, among other pieces – combined with reporting by other respected education correspondents earned a special citation for PBS NewsHour for the 2010 Beat Reporting award.

Learning Matters is an independent non-profit production company based in New York City founded by Merrow in 1995. Learning Matters is supported by eight foundations: Gates, Carnegie, Annenberg, Knight, Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, Wallace, Hewlett, and W.G. Kellogg.

These awards will be accepted by Learning Matters on Saturday, April 9, during the Education Writers Association’s 64th National Seminar in New Orleans, LA.

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This podcast is a companion piece to our reporting for PBS NewsHour on small school initiatives in New York City; the PBS report is embedded above.

What makes a good school? Reporter John Tulenko talks with two young teachers who started in large, under-performing high schools and now teach at Williamsburg Prep - a small high school that graduates 88% of its students on time. Surprisingly, they say that it’s not just the size of a school that matters.

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This podcast is a companion piece to our reporting for PBS NewsHour on small school initiatives in New York City; the PBS report is embedded above.

High School for Violin and Dance principal Tanya John says “size matters” when it comes to the number of students in a school building. Smaller schools create communities that breed success for students. But it’s not just school size that counts - it’s opportunity. At her school, students are immersed in the arts - they study violin and dance every day, (98% of them have no prior training), and 92% of them go on to college.

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This podcast is a companion piece to our reporting for PBS NewsHour on small school initiatives in New York City; the PBS report is embedded above.

Reporter John Tulenko talks with a teacher from a large, under-performing school slated to be closed in the upcoming year and a former principal from another such school. These educators do not deny that their schools are under-performing, but they say that many of the problems that keep them down are not of their own making.

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“Courageous and arrogant”— that’s how one expert described New York City’s efforts to fix its high schools.  No other city has attempted reforms on a scale as big.

Starting almost a decade ago, the city began closing factory-style high schools that enrolled upwards of 2,500 students and  had graduation rates below 50%. To date, 26 such schools have been shuttered.
In their place, the city created 123 small, open-admission, theme-based high schools enrolling only a few hundred students each.  At these new schools,  graduation rates are higher— as high as 90%.

But not everyone is cheering the changes and some have sued to stop it.  What’s going on?

This piece was awarded second prize in the Education Writers’ Association 2010 Awards within the Feature, News Feature, or Issue Package category.

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“It’s Not Our Fault”

Reporter John Tulenko talks with a teacher from a large, under-performing school slated to be closed in the upcoming year and a former principal from another such school. Large schools are claiming it’s not their fault in some respects. Listen to the story.
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Are small arts high schools the answer?

High School for Violin and Dance principal Tanya John says “size matters” when it comes to the number of students in a school building. Smaller schools create communities that breed success for students. Listen to the story.

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Large schools trying to go small

What makes a good school? We talk with teachers at a small high school in Brooklyn, NY. They say it’s more than just the size of a school. Listen to the story.

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This podcast is a companion piece to our reporting for PBS NewsHour on the PAR system for evaluating teachers in Toledo, Ohio; the PBS piece is embedded above.

When Toledo Teacher’s Union President Dal Lawrence implemented PAR or Peer Assistance and Review in his school district, he was met with skepticism. Teachers evaluating one another? Having the power to recommend the dismissal of a peer? John Merrow brings us the story of the program’s rocky startup and how the union leader persevered to bring about this controversial change.

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This podcast is a companion piece to our reporting for PBS NewsHour on the PAR system for evaluating teachers in Toledo, Ohio; the PBS piece is embedded above.

The Toledo Plan has been held up as a model for the rest of the country – a successful collaboration between a school district and a teacher’s union. But according to some Toledo parents, the plan only looks good on paper. John Merrow reports.

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“If only teacher unions didn’t protect bad teachers, everything would be fine.” Doesn’t that sound familiar? This is a common opinion these days, whether it’s in that famous manifesto from leaders like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee or in movies like Waiting for Superman. Is the charge true, or is this an easy answer with a convenient villain?

We went to Toledo, Ohio to investigate a system called PAR, or Peer Assistance and Review, that was developed by the local union and approved by the school board in 1981, nearly 30 years ago. Some now say that every school district should adopt this approach because it weeds out ineffective teachers. Can teachers be honest brokers when it comes to evaluating each other?

RELATED PODCASTS

Accomplishing Change

When Toledo Teacher’s Union President Dal Lawrence implemented PAR or Peer Assistance and Review in his school district, he was met with skepticism. Teachers evaluating one another? Having the power to recommend the dismissal of a peer? John Merrow brings us the story of the program’s rocky startup and how the union leader persevered to bring about this controversial change. Listen to the story.

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Problems with the Toledo Plan

The Toledo Plan has been held up as a model for the rest of the country – a successful collaboration between a school district and a teacher’s union. But according to some Toledo parents, the plan only looks good on paper. John Merrow reports. Listen to the story.

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Steven Brint is a Professor and Provost at UC-Riverside; in this capacity, he frequently focuses on undergraduate teaching and learning. In this conversation with Learning Matters web producer Ted Bauer, taped in late 2011, several of the same key themes are addressed — namely, how higher education can continue to evolve and grow.

Brint is the author of three books, if listeners are interested.

You can listen to the conversation by clicking the play button above. Thanks, as always, for listening.

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Most Haitian schools suffered at least some damage in the January earthquake. If they weren’t completely flattened, they’ve since been deemed “structurally unsound” – too unsafe for children to attend. Some schools set up benches outside of their building and hold classes in the open air. But then, space becomes an issue – schools that once served 500 students may only be able to accommodate, say, 100. And all of this, of course, applies only to kids who went to school in the first place – less than half of Haiti’s youth went to school before the earthquake, and that number has plummeted now that so many families have lost everything. Producer Amanda Thieroff visited a school outside of Port-au-Prince that’s in the process of rebuilding.

*NOTE: Since the recording of this story, SOPUDEP school has reopened at its original site in Morne Lazarre, and students are attending classes in the courtyard outside of the school. Meanwhile, construction at the new site continues.

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Nearly ten months after Haiti’s devastating earthquake that killed thousands and left 1.5 million homeless, not much has changed. Tent cities abound, rubble litters the streets… 48% of children went to school before the earthquake, and now that number is significantly less. The official start date for school this fall was October 4th, and many schools have yet to open. There are, however, people who are working to make life better for the vast numbers of youth currently living in tent camps. Producer Amanda Thieroff reports from Port-au-Prince.

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STORIES & INTERVIEWS

Struggling to Rebuild

Most Haitian schools suffered at least some damage in the January earthquake. If they weren’t completely flattened, they’ve since been deemed “structurally unsound.” Some schools set up benches outside and hold classes in the open air. But then, space becomes an issue; schools that once served 500 students may only be able to accommodate, say, 100. And all of this, of course, applies only to kids who went to school in the first place–less than half of Haiti’s youth went to school before the earthquake, and that number has plummeted now that so many families have lost everything. Listen to the story.

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Li, Li, Li (Read, Read, Read)

UNESCO estimates that 1 in 5 adults worldwide cannot read or write. In Haiti, that number is even higher. Forty-four percent - nearly half of the population of Haiti – remains illiterate, and since the earthquake in January, schools have collapsed, and many children won’t be going back to school when they reopen this fall. But a non-profit program has sent so called “readers” out to various camps around Haiti to read to displaced children. Listen to the story.

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Ayiti: Author Edwidge Danticat on Haiti and its Children

Edwidge Danticat is an award-winning Haitian-American author. She has recently come out with a new children’s book called Eight Days, which tells the story of a little boy daydreaming about his life in Haiti while he is trapped under his house for eight days following the earthquake. Ms. Danticat supports Li Li Li and has read with the children on one of her trips to Haiti.  Listen to Ms. Danticat talk about her experience reading Eight Days to Haitian children who were traumatized by the earthquake.  Listen to the story.

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UNESCO estimates that 1 in 5 adults worldwide cannot read or write. In Haiti, that number is even higher. Forty-four percent - nearly half of the population of Haiti – remains illiterate, and since the earthquake in January, schools have collapsed, and many children won’t be going back to school when they reopen this fall. But a non-profit program has sent so called “readers” out to various camps around Haiti to read to displaced children.  From Port-au-Prince, Producer Amanda Thieroff has the story.

To learn more about Li Li Li, or to donate, please visit www.lililiread.org.

This interview is part of a series on Haiti’s schools after the earthquake. Click here for the full story.

Photo credit: Judith Scherr.

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Edwidge Danticat is an award-winning Haitian-American author. She has recently come out with a new children’s book called Eight Days, which tells the story of a little boy daydreaming about his life in Haiti while he is trapped under his house for eight days following the earthquake. Ms. Danticat supports Li Li Li and has read with the children on one of her trips to Haiti.  She did not read her new book with the children from Li Li Li, saying that she didn’t want to “spring it on them” and then leave (Li Li Li does not, at the moment, have psychological supports for the children it serves). She did, however, read the book at an International Rescue Committee “child-friendly space” after the children received some psychological preparation. Listen to Ms. Danticat talk about her experience reading Eight Days to Haitian children who were traumatized by the earthquake.

Purchase Edwidge Danticat’s book Eight Days on Amazon.

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The lack of sustained leadership has plagued the Washington, DC public school system for decades. Our nation’s capital, home to fifty thousand students, boasts one of the worst school districts in the country. Two thirds of students are far behind in reading, in math, three quarters.

In June 2007 new mayor Adrian Fenty assumed control of the ailing school system, firing the incumbent superintendent and replacing him with Michelle Rhee. Some questioned her lack of experience managing a public school system. Others felt she was exactly what was needed – a change agent from outside the district. In July the city council unanimously voted her in. Since then she has plotted a deliberate, and frequently controversial, course.

This series follows Michelle Rhee’s attempts to reform one of the most challenged school districts in America. Can Rhee provide a model of reform for the entire country, delivering on her promise of an excellent education for every child?

These videos, as part of the “Leadership: A Challenging Course” series, have won a Cine Golden Eagle and two EWA awards.

This program was made by possible by support from the Annenberg, The Eli and Edythe Broad, Bill & Melinda Gates, William and Flora Hewlett and Wallace Foundations.

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There were 28 podcasts created across the three years of this series. You can find all of them on one link here, and an invaluable guide to the timeline and history of Michelle Rhee and George Parker is here.

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Almost 60% of black and Latino students at four-year colleges and universities fail to earn diplomas.  For black men, the figure is even worse–about 70% don’t graduate.  But if it doesn’t have to be this way and a number of universities are proving it.

At the State University of New York at Stony Brook, a diverse institution with 16,000 undergraduates, 70% of black students and 65% of Latino students earn diplomas.

Stony Brook uses a carefully thought out approach to help low-income, mostly minority students reach the finish line and it could be a model for the rest of the nation.

Download transcript (PDF)

This podcast is an extended interview from Part 4 in our ongoing coverage of the national Race to the Top competition. Listen to more podcasts and watch the full series online here: Race to the Top Series.

Would you work harder–and teach better–for an extra $15,000? That’s the question researchers at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University set out to answer three years ago whe they offered higher paychecks to public school teachers who raised their students test scores.

It’s not idle speculation. President Obama’s Race to Top grants encourage states to tie teacher pay to student performance, on the assumption that, if their livelihood depends on it, teachers will make sure their students improve. But is it true?

This program reveals for the first time the surprising results of Vanderbilt’s extensive three year study.

Download transcript (pdf)

This is Part 4 in our ongoing coverage of the national Race to the Top competition. Watch all the reports online.

Is Rhee unfairly campaigning for Fenty? Or merely speaking her mind?

This podcast is a bonus feature for Episode 12 in a 3-year series covering Michelle Rhee’s reform efforts in Washington, DC. Watch episode 12 here. Or follow the full series here.

75 DCPS teachers were fired this summer under the new teacher evaluation system, IMPACT. Learning Matters producer Amanda Thieroff spoke with Claudette Carson, a former elementary school teacher in the DC public schools about teaching, IMPACT, and what she’s doing now that she’s been terminated.

Three years after Mayor Adrian Fenty hired Michelle Rhee to turn around DC’s troubled public schools, the former classroom teacher and non profit leader has become something of a national symbol.  What many call her “slash and burn” way of operating has fueled big changes in the system, but success is still a long way off.

Today 12% of the city’s 8th graders are proficient in math, up from 8% when she arrived, and reading scores have improved from 12% to 14%.  Rhee is banking on IMPACT, her new method of evaluating teachers, to make even larger gains.  IMPACT is unlike anything in public education anywhere, because nowhere else can teachers lose their job immediately after being rated ineffective, even if they are tenured.

This final report in our 3-year series weighs the reforms Rhee has made to DC schools and examines a teacher evaluation system with potential to become a national model.

Download transcript (pdf)

You can watch the entirety of the Michelle Rhee series here:

This program was made by possible by support from the Annenberg, The Eli and Edythe Broad, Bill & Melinda Gates, William and Flora Hewlett and Wallace Foundations.

10th grader Jennifer Addo immigrated to New York from Ghana in 2009, and grew up speaking Twi (pronounced “Tree”) - a traditional West African language. She now attends the Coalition School for Social Change in East Harlem, New York - a neighborhood where more than half of the population identifies as Hispanic.

(Note: This story was produced by youth at the Coalition School for Social Change in collaboration with the youth-media program Children’s PressLine. Because English is Jennifer’s second language, she may be hard to understand at times throughout the story. Please feel free to use the transcript below to follow along.)

For more information on Children’s PressLine, please visit www.cplmedia.org.

Transcript

[Sound up: street sounds, cars passing]

[Jen, walking: Right now, I’m on 125th and 5th avenue. I’m about to cross the street.]

Jen: My name is Jennifer. I’m from Ghana.

I came here with my dad and my two twin sisters.

My mom’s in Ghana with my baby sister. She did not get a visa.

[bus passing]

[entering school, walking upstairs]

Jen: In the morning like 8 o’clock… It’s ESL class. I’ve been in that class for like…eight months.

[Sound up: Neva in front of class]

Jen: My first language is Twi. When I started school I started speaking English, when I was like six years.
Like…Ghana we speak English, but we don’t speak like how Americans speak. Americans, they speak it fast. But in Ghana we don’t speak it fast like that. So when I come here it was difficult for me.

[Neva: Nerlandi, will you read us your response please? You're too shy? Oh my goodness...]

Jen: I don’t know, I feel shy. I feel shy when I’m talking. I’m not shy when I speak Twi, but sometimes English, my accent is not good so…that makes me shy.

[laughing, Spanish speaking in class]

Jen: Most of the kids speak Spanish in the class.

Auri: My name’s Auri, I’m from Dominican Republic.

Carlos: My name is Carlos, and I’m from Dominican Republic.

Ranfis: My name is Ranfis, I came from the Dominican Republic.

Jen: They’re Dominican, they’re Puerto Rican people.

Carlos: Most of the people in the ESL room is from Dominican Republic. In my house they only speak Spanish, my mother, my grandfather, me, my sister, my brother…

Auri: My mom, my cousins, my dad…

Ranfis: My father speaks Spanish sometimes and sometimes he speaks English…

Auri: All my friends mostly I speak Spanish.

Jen: I don’t speak Spanish. Just me.

[post - buzz sound]

Jen: When I was first coming here, I didn’t know…I didn’t even know that they got some Spanish people here. The only thing I knew was blacks and whites, that’s it.

Jen: When I came here, they gave me a Spanish class, but I didn’t know nothing about Spanish. So I told them I can’t do it.

Jen: It’s hard for me.

Jen: When you’re with the Spanish people and they’re speaking Spanish, you don’t know what a person is saying. That is hard.

[post - music]

Carlos: When I speak Spanish I feel like I’m in my country. In Dominican Republic.

Daniel: When I was with my friends, my family speaking Spanish.

Carlos: That’s my natural language.

Ranfis: I feel more comfortable because I know Spanish better than English and I understand everything they’re saying and I don’t feel like…

Jen: …that’s my language and because I know everything…everything in there, so. When I’m talking, I’m good.
[beat]

Jen: I wish there were other people in this school that speak Twi.

Jen: If you are the only one in school that speak Twi or one language that no one can even hear you when you’re speaking it, it’s sad. So she’s speaking with them.
Jen: And I’m like, [fade out music] Oh my god, I wish my school got the same. I would speak with them.

[Beat. Fade in classroom]

[Classroom B Roll: Neva: Do you think English in the United States, do you think it’s a good idea to have English as the universal language?]

Daniel: Yes.

Neva: Why?

Daniel: They say, the more languages you know, the more your pocket grows. [laughs]

Jen: My teacher in ESL Class is Neva. [My name is Neva and I am an ESL teacher here at the Coalition School for Social Change.]

Neva: If they start speaking Spanish to each other, that’s fine. Obviously when the material is presented, chalk and talk I like to call it, everybody is in English and for the purpose of academic responses, each student will respond in English.

Neva: Most English as a Second Language Teachers would agree, when they’re speaking amongst themselves, they can speak in their own heritage languages.

[Classroom: Neva: Explain how these jobs, performed by immigrants, contribute to the American economy...Daniel: many jobs are filled by immigrants who cannot speak English but they are able to contribute to the American economy by taking jobs that other Americans may not desire…]

[Neva: Good class, good class. Have a nice weekend!]

Jen: I want to be a nurse. My auntie says, no, set the high one first. If someone ask you, be like you wanna be a doctor.

Jen: She said you need to know Spanish when you working. Cause…someone might come there and the person don’t know how to speak English so you got to translate it for the person.

Jen: I think I want to take Spanish again.

[post - music]

Jen: I miss my mom a lot. I miss her. My auntie was like, oh, I’ll take you to a visit, and I was like, I’m not going, I’m not going. I want to get my job, do everything before I want to go there. When I get my job…I’m going to visit, oh my god. I wish it’s happening.

Jen: I’ll be like, oh mom…I’m here! She’ll be happy.

Jen: For Children’s PressLine, I’m Jennifer Addo.

The state hired Paul Vallas, veteran superintendent of Philadelphia and Chicago, to turn around the city’s troubled schools.  Three years later, Vallas is ready to move on, proudly proclaiming he’s created “a model district.”

The school system is unquestionably transformed.  By next year 2/3 of New Orleans public schools will be chartered, the highest percentage in the country.  Paid for with public money but permitted to operate with limited government oversight, charters are considered by some to be the best possible solution, and by others an unproven experiment that could leave needy kids behind.

This final report in our 3-year series, turns a critical eye on Paul Vallas’ legacy in New Orleans.  What has he done, how is it working, and will his changes last after he’s gone?

Download transcript (pdf)

In one of the most closely watched teacher contract negotiations in the country, Washington, DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and union leader George Parker finally agree on deal breaking issues such as tenure, performance pay, and hiring and firing policies. In June, district teachers voted overwhelmingly in favor of the new contract, which offers them a 21.6% salary increase as well as performance pay incentives of up to $30,000 a year.

Over the course of the two and a half year-long negotiations, Parker and Rhee spoke candidly with John Merrow about the role of unions, the national implications of the contract, and why it took so long to come to an agreement.

Oct. 9, 2007

“I am a change agent. And change doesn’t come without significant pushback and opposition.” - Michelle Rhee

Download audio file (83.mp3)

In this interview, Michelle Rhee talks about why Mayor Fenty chose her and why D.C. schools have failed for so long. (15: 26 min / Download Transcript)

Nov. 26, 2007

“The union has never been the problem.” - George Parker

Download audio file (89.mp3)

In this interview, Washington Teachers’ Union President George Parker suggests that Rhee’s reform efforts could threaten union rights. (12:14 min / Download Transcript)

July 22, 2008

“Am I a benevolent dictator? Maybe.” - Michelle Rhee

Download audio file (113.mp3)

In this interview, Rhee reflects on her controversial first year, including her relationships with the community, the City Council, and Mayor Fenty. (16:29 min / Download Transcript)

July 22, 2008

“We are now a competitive school district, where student achievement may well determine our existence.” – George Parker

Download audio file (112.mp3)

In this interview, George Parker discusses a lack of accountability in unions, and updates us on contract negotiations and teacher morale. (13:07 min / Download Transcript)

Sept. 30, 2008

“We are not afraid of accountability” George Parker

Download audio file (123.mp3)

Pressure is mounting on George Parker to reach a contract agreement. In this interview, he shares his views on performance pay and tenure, and suggests that an impasse may be close at hand. (6:45 min / Download Transcript)

Oct. 7, 2008

“If we have ineffective teachers in the classroom, the goal is to not have them in the classroom any longer.” – Michelle Rhee

Download audio file (124.mp3)

In this interview, Michelle Rhee argues that, without significant changes in the way principals and teachers are held accountable, the “dance of the lemons” will only continue. (9:28 min / Download Transcript)

Jan. 27, 2009

“Tenure is the holy grail of teacher unionism” - Michelle Rhee

“I think the challenge in this contract is that there is opportunity versus sacrifice” – George Parker

Download audio file (210.mp3)

With the national teachers’ union now at the table, contract negotiations take on even greater national significance. In this interview, Michelle Rhee and George Parker discuss the major sticking points which include teacher compensation and tenure. (9:53 min / Download Transcript)

May 3, 2009

“I can’t control what the media says or does.” – Michelle Rhee

Download audio file (244.mp3)

In this interview, Michelle Rhee discusses the impact of national media coverage on her relationship with D.C.’s teaching force. (10:36 min / Download Transcript)

May 3, 2009

“It created a culture of low morale…lowest that I’ve seen since I’ve been in DC Public Schools and I’ve been here for 25 years.” – George Parker

Download audio file (243.mp3)

In this interview, George Parker reflects on the last 17 months of negotiating with Rhee and talks about a “culture of fear” in D.C. schools, as well as his views on pay-for-performance and special education. (10:29 min / Download Transcript)