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JANINE WALKER CAFFREY - EDUCATION INNOVATION
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The Road to Hell...

1/20/2010

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It’s always paved with the best intentions, that road to Hell.  There is no better example of this concept than the brand new requirements for schools, resulting from our United States Department of Education’s “Race to the Top.”  States are scrambling to get pieces of this HUGE pie.  In the state where I live, New York, there are 700 million dollars at stake!  Policy cogs are now racing like crazy to the top of that pile of money.  In order to qualify for the funds, each state must submit a plan to the feds outlining how it will achieve the broad objectives of the “Race.”  The so-called reforms that set the course for our race include the four broad categories of:  adopting standards and assessments, building data systems, improving teacher quality, and turning around the lowest-achieving schools.  These sound really good, right?  As always seems to be the case in education, turning aspirations into policy is where things start heading in the wrong direction.  


Most people believe that adopting standards and assessments is a pretty good idea.  We certainly don’t want illiterate high school graduates.  We should all agree on what kids should know and be able to do, and have some consistent way of measuring it.  We are on the brink of establishing a set of national education standards, including 47 of our 50 states.  Three still haven’t signed up, but eventually they probably will, so they can get their hands on the funding.  Once the standards are approved, assessments will be developed so we will all be measuring our kids in exactly the same way.  Great idea, huh?  States will save a ton of money because they will no longer have to develop their own tests. There will be a real way to compare the progress from state to state, and loads of data to analyze so we can all get better at helping our kids to learn.  States will still have flexibility with up to 15% of standards so they can include things that are locally important.  The problem is that the panels who are determining how these assessments will work are loaded with...are you ready...testing companies.  So, what type of tests do you think will result from this work?  Will they be authentic assessments that evaluate how well kids can express themselves, think creatively, work collaboratively, and integrate learning to solve problems;  all the things that our new national curriculum will likely stress?  Hardly.  These same companies are responsible for creating the tests that are causing the problems that I described in a previous blog.  Testing companies are all about efficient administration and making money.  LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of money.  They link the tests to their own textbooks and then sell the books to schools wanting to crack the code of what is called “adequate yearly progress” required by the feds.  As long as these conglomerates have a seat at the table, we are destined to even worse conditions than we have now.


Building data systems sounds great too.  In fact, I actually work with a huge data system initiative and have seen first hand how valuable it can be.  Educators can determine how they are doing and make adjustments along the way.  But, the cost of maintaining these very sophisticated systems is robbing schools of valuable resources needed to help kids.  Once a large corporation is contracted to build a system, the school district can become a hostage of that company.  I recently witnessed a conversation between a school district analyst and a principal.  The principal was truly interested in how she could improve and wanted fairly basic information.  The analyst told her that the system had a glitch which could not be fixed because the corporation wanted too much money to fix it.  There is a constant push-and-pull between educational agencies and the data management companies, usually resulting in either incorrect information or huge expenditures to fix it.  The “annual yearly progress” indicators required by the feds have become so complex, such analysis is critical to continued funding.


Okay, this one should be easy. The “Race” includes a reform effort for “recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals.”  What could be more basic and positive than that?  So, we will determine if a teacher is effective by how well kids do on the tests.  On the surface, that can work for teachers of core subjects that are tested.  But, how do you determine the effectiveness of teachers of the arts?  Physical education?  Humanities?  Is it okay to be effective at getting kids high scores on tests, but not establish sound relationships with those kids?  Are there attributes that we think are important that we may not be able to measure?  Are we really bold enough to completely overhaul how we license/certify teachers?  Currently, each state has a system of certifications that includes very stringent rules that schools must follow, or lose funding.  The problem is that there is no correlation between state teaching certifications and teacher quality.  There is a great deal of consensus among educators, researchers, and policy makers that our current method of certifying teachers does NOT equal quality, yet schools must demonstrate to the feds that their teachers are “highly qualified” by virtue of their certifications.  In other words, the federal requirements contradict themselves.  Until we are ready to truly address this fact, we will not be able to improve teacher quality.


Finally, of course we want to turn around our lowest-achieving schools.  Our “Race” includes an aspiration of a 95% graduation rate.  One of the key indicators of how well a high school is performing is how many of its students graduate in four years.  But once again, the translation of an ideal into policy is where we go astray.  A stark example of this can be seen in alternative schools and juvenile justice facilities.  Kids come to these programs because they have fallen behind.  These schools, by definition, will have kids who will take a little longer than four years to complete high school.  They frequently have extremely low reading levels which must be addressed before high school credits can be earned.  They enter these schools with little or no high school credits.  Yet, in order to meet the new requirements, these miraculous schools are expected to get the students to graduate “on time.”  In order to be called a graduate, as it is defined now, the student must complete all requirements at the same time her cohort class graduates.  To further compound the problem, there is no room for alternative paths to diplomas.  Incarcerated students who pursue a GED diploma will be considered drop-outs.  Therefore, in order to qualify for state and federal education dollars, a juvenile justice facility can only offer the traditional track, and the students must graduate “on time.”  So, let me ask you:  would you prefer that a 17 year old re-enter society with a few high school credits and no hope of high school graduation, or with a GED diploma and a path to community college?


So, what is the answer?  It is actually very simple;  outputs only policy coupled with market competition.  Schools should be accountable for producing students who are college-ready.  Don’t worry if the kids are going straight into the job market or to a technical school.  Recent research confirms that all of the same skills and qualities are required for success in any post-high school arena. We already have a good start with our national standards, but let’s leave the testing companies out of the process.  Instead, create authentic assessments, in collaboration with our higher education system, to evaluate if high schools are turning out the products they need.  Then, our high school educators can design the assessments for the kids they will receive from the middle schools.  Middle school educators will have the same opportunity to design elementary school grad assessments, and elementary schools will do the same for preschools.  Forget high school credit requirements, teacher certification rules, prescriptions for minutes of seat time and reading instruction, and all of the other inputs that our federal and state agencies now require.  Allow schools to truly redesign everything to get the highest number of kids to achieve the results we want.  Schools can transition and graduate kids when they are READY, not when the calendar says it is time.  I have seen kids ready to start college as early as age 15, and as late as age 21.  It really is not a race, despite the name of the Department of Education’s initiative.  


Once we have solid assessments in place, require transparent reporting of the results.  Parents need to know what percentage of kids are ready when they transition or graduate.  Now we can let market competition drive the system.  Give all parent in the country their fair share of the education pie.  Let them use this money to select whatever schools they want:  public, private, or charter.  Once parents have this power, they will become educated consumers of education.  It will demystify the learning process and get them truly invested in their children’s learning, increasing graduation rates even more.  The money saved by eliminating the infinite number of bureaucrats and administrators now required due to regs and rules can be put into the classrooms where it belongs.  It is time to end the Race to the Top and begin the race to real reform.

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The State of Education in America

1/17/2010

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So how are we doing?  No doubt you have heard about America’s international ranking in education.  But do you know who ranks the educational systems of the world?  An international consortium called Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development  establishes rankings based on a variety of factors, but is particularly focused on educational attainment.  In other words, how many of our citizens are finishing high school and college?  Some of the most telling information suggests that our younger generation is actually a bit less likely to complete college than previous generations.  This is causing the U.S. to slip in the rankings compared to other industrialized nations.  This comes in the wake of the infamous No Child Left Behind (NCLB) initiatives that are required of every state’s public schools that receive federal dollars.  While some of the NCLB statistics suggest that students are getting better at the standardized tests required, it seems these results are not translating into graduation rates and college readiness.  

I am not a bit surprised.  It has always been my belief that the NCLB assessment strategies are actually causing our kids to become dumber.  That’s right, dumber.  I do not make this statement lightly, and understand that many of my colleagues, particularly those entrenched in policy making, would disagree.  I truly believe that we are reducing our children’s intellectual capacity by focusing so much effort and attention on the tests that currently create the educational landscape of public schools.  I have seen this dumbing down of American kids first-hand as a mom, teacher, and school leader.   

When my own two children were young, they truly loved school.  They attended a variety of public schools in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Florida.  I have always believed strongly in our public schools and was very pleased with the education my children received - until the 2001-2002 school year, when my son was a senior.  There was a palpable shift that particular year that seemed to start a downward spiral in the quality of education in our own community.  Suddenly there was a great deal of attention on test scores, and the alignment of the curriculum with the tests.  Teachers had to stick to the text books as never before, proving they were “on track” so kids could digest as much as possible before the tests, which occurred in the spring.  School districts began adjusting their calendars so they could start earlier in the year.  One year, several districts actually began the school year in July to get a leg up on other districts.  Teachers seemed beaten down, and abandoned practices that would engage and excite kids, so they could meet the myriad of requirements from the feds, state, and local district.  For many kids, school was becoming something which needed to be endured, rather than something that should be embraced.  My son graduated right as this was happening, but my daughter still had two years to go.  We soldiered through her junior year, watching as she steadily lost interest, motivation, and intellectual curiosity.  We then made an unusual decision to remove her from public school during her senior year.  Instead, she completed a couple of courses online, and took a couple of courses at the local university.  While, she was angry with us at the time, this was the right decision for her.  We watched her regain her love of learning and saw her strive to develop her skills.

As a teacher and school leader, I also felt this shift.  During this time, I was working for a wonderful organization called AMIKids, serving at-risk youth.  The heart of education for these troubled kids was experiential learning.  Since its inception in 1969, AMIKids integrated academic skills with water and wilderness activities to provide an exciting context for learning.  The kids loved it, many becoming academically successful for the first time in their lives.  But, many states and local school districts began to shut down this type of learning in our programs.  I created a common curriculum for the programs, which were located in eight states and the Cayman Islands.  This curriculum was closely aligned  with each state’s or country’s standards, so I thought it would be readily accepted, and even embraced by our educational funding agencies.  I could not have been more wrong.  Although policy makers and legislators intuitively understood that experiential learning could be exciting to kids, they only wanted kids working toward the state tests.  In many places, our educational success was being evaluated purely by our students’ performance on these tests.  This made absolutely no sense, since our students were only with us for a short time, and came to us at different times throughout the year.  Even if a student only arrived at the program a couple of weeks prior to the annual test, we were tied to those results.  I left the organization in 2002, feeling completely impotent in my ability to positively impact the educational quality of the programs.

In 2003, I started a private school called Renaissance Academy, and finally felt like I could provide the kind of education that kids really needed.  With a focus on the arts, the school encourages kids to think critically, create fearlessly, and embrace their intellectual curiosity.  It was at Renaissance Academy that I finally understood what kids need to be driven toward high school graduation and success in college and beyond.  

So, how are we doing?  Not very well.  Our nation’s high school graduation rates are not increasing, and it looks like college completion rates are decreasing.  We are seeing greater disparity among ethnic groups in educational attainment, employment rates, incarceration rates, and every indicator that tells us of the health of a demographic group.  It is time to make school a place where kids are challenged, inspired, and motivated to become the brilliant leaders needed in our world.
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A Nation of Education Consumers of Education

1/4/2010

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Did you happen to catch the Mad Men episode called The Fog?  This fifth episode of the show’s third season (http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/episode305) illustrates beautifully the experience of childbirth in America during the early 1960’s.  During this time, when most American babies were born in very sanitized hospital settings, women were routinely sedated and very unaware of the process of giving birth.  They were put into a kind of “fog” to make things easier on everyone; the doctors, nurses, moms-to-be, and husbands who were much more comfortable waiting in another room. Nobody questioned this for years, as it was seen as modern science and not up for negotiation.  But a funny thing started to happen.  Women, who suddenly became able to regulate WHEN they had babies, thanks to birth control pills, now began demanding HOW they had babies.  By the time my two were born in the mid 1980’s, there were a myriad of choices around this event.  I could give birth under water, in my own home, in a birthing center, with a midwife, in a traditional hospital, in a birthing room, with drugs, without drugs, etc.  It was mind-boggling reading all of the information and talking to countless friends and relatives about this decision.  Ultimately, I thought I had made the right choice, but changed my mind midway through labor and asked for the drugs.  

Today’s new moms exercise even more choice in childbirth and view the experience as something within their right to frame and plan according to the needs and preferences of their families.  With this increased choice comes increased responsibility to educate oneself.  Without being an educated consumer of medical services, a mom-to-be would be completely at the mercy of the nearest emergency room personnel to make all decisions for her.  

And that is exactly where we are with our education system in the United States.  Sadly, most parents have very little knowledge about the incredible choices that are available for educating their children.  They just keep on perpetuating the status quo by not challenging the system or demanding better alternatives.  

It is time for parents to revolutionize how their children are educated, the same way they revolutionized the way their children are born.  My goal this year is to use this blog as a place to provide parents with the truth about education, in order to arm parents for this revoluation.  I will examine what works, what doesn’t, and help parents find their voices for the sake of their children and our country.  My vision is to create a nation of educated consumers of education. I hope you will join me!
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    Janine Walker Caffrey writes about reading, education and a few other topics related to happiness and life in general.

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