Remarks of Secretary Duncan at the Askwith Forum, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

I was pleased to hear that today’s event in the Askwith lecture series was sold-out. But I hope that no one here today is under the impression that they are going to hear from Lady Gaga. I’m the warm-up act—she is later this month.

All kidding aside, it’s great that Lady Gaga is striving to reduce the serious problem of bullying in schools, especially for LBGT youth. She has a true passion and commitment to protecting children, and to reducing violence and abuse, that I absolutely applaud.

I want to speak to you today not about Lady Gaga’s advocacy, but rather about well-intentioned advocacy that goes awry.

I want to talk about advocacy that inadvertently becomes less about helping children and making tough choices—and becomes more about maintaining ideological purity and making false choices.

The dysfunctional gridlock in Congress today is no secret. Reauthorization of ESEA, or the No Child Left Behind Act, has been stalled for years—even though no one thinks the law is acceptable as it is. We all know it is fundamentally broken.

But I am not just talking about the politics of paralysis in Washington. In schools of education, in the blogosphere, in school board meetings, in superintendent’s offices, in union halls, and in think tanks, too many educators, researchers, parents, and advocates are fighting the wrong battles.

The wrong education battles tend to follow a pattern. You can almost close your eyes and still know exactly how things will unfold, as everyone plays according to type.

Well-intentioned advocates on both sides present policy choices as an either-or choice—not as a “both-and” compromise, however imperfect, that needs to be ironed out.

So, being “for” more state flexibility means you must be “against” accountability.

Supporting the use of student achievement data in English and Mathematics as one element in assessing school performance means you must oppose teaching a well-rounded curriculum.

Being in favor of high-quality career and technical education means you must oppose giving those students a high-quality college-prep education.

In the wrong education battles, tough-minded collaboration gets dismissed as weakness, not as a way to work out a breakthrough win for children.

In the wrong education battles, the perfect, too often, becomes the enemy of the good. And the dysfunctional status quo persists, hurting children and teachers—and ultimately, our country’s economic competitiveness as we continue to under-educate far too many of our nation’s youth.

Today, I want to talk about two challenges that, too often, end up as the wrong education battles. The first is the debate over the impact of in-school influences, like teachers and principals, on student achievement, versus the impact of out-of-school influences, like poverty and poor health.

The second, related battle is over reforming teacher evaluation systems and the use and misuse of student achievement data in teacher evaluation.

Before diving into those debates, I want to make a couple of points.

I’m not in any way opposed to vigorous debate. In fact, I welcome it. I recognize these are issues that stir strong passions and opposing viewpoints. There’s a good reason why these controversies are referred to as “the education wars.”

I want to hear from teachers, and principals, and lawmakers, and union heads who disagree with me. That’s the democratic process at work, and I treasure it. The best way to sharpen your understanding of complex issues is to have your ideas challenged.

I’m so grateful to Harvard professor Monica Higgins for bringing many of the smartest minds and most accomplished practitioners to meet with our management team for a wide-ranging series of listening and learning sessions. There is lots of spirited debate in those discussions.

Now, while I welcome debate, I don’t find that debate which is detached from real-world challenges, or driven primarily by ideology, advances the interests of children. And unfortunately, those distorted debates happen too often in the field of education.

In 2012, our nation has urgent educational problems. In a globally-competitive, knowledge-based economy, it is a stain upon our nation that one in four American students fails to finish high school on time or drops out. In many of our black and Latino communities, 40 to 50 percent of students are dropping out. That is morally unacceptable and economically unsustainable.

In a single generation, the U.S. has gone from having the highest college attainment rate in the world among young adults to being 16th. And in international comparisons, our performance is mediocre at best. It’s telling that the only thing our students lead the world in is self-esteem. The hard truth is that many nations are out-performing and out-educating us. It is this compared-to-what litmus test that educators, school leaders, and parents must constantly keep in mind. Someone once complained to Voltaire that “life is hard”—to which Voltaire replied, “compared to what?”

Educational failure is hard, too. But the first question we should ask of reforms is, would these changes significantly, even dramatically, enrich and accelerate learning for students and teachers?

We shouldn’t be asking “is this a perfect solution?” We should be asking “is this a much-better solution?” Does it help us challenge the status quo and accelerate student achievement?

For me, this sense of urgency about dramatically improving our educational system comes from personal experience. It is deeply ingrained in me.

From the time we were born, my brother, my sister, and I all went to my mother’s after-school program every day on the South Side of Chicago, which she began 50 years ago, in 1961.

When we were little, the older students tutored the younger kids. As we grew up, we tutored the younger students. My mom always tried to have students teach and be taught at the same time.After we were done our studies and chores, we played basketball. Everyone knew our program was a safe haven where kids were nurtured, respected, challenged, and taught right from wrong.

The students and my peers in my mother’s program lived in a poor community plagued by violence and many faced severe challenges at home. Yet because of the opportunities my mother and others created, we saw remarkable success stories bloom.

The teenager who tutored my group when we were growing up, Kerrie Holley, today is an IBM engineer who was named one of the 50 most important black research scientists in the country. Corky Lyons, one of nine children, became a surgeon. He was raised by his grandmother—and never met his father.

Michael Clarke Duncan pursued his dreams in Hollywood, where he starred in “The Green Mile.” And Ron Raglin eventually helped me manage the Chicago Public Schools. Building upon the experiences that shaped him, Ron brought the AVID program to Chicago to strengthen the vital, non-cognitive skills of disadvantaged students.

I know what’s possible when we give young people long-term guidance, educational opportunities, and the commitment and connection of a caring adult. I know our students can be successful, regardless of their zip code and background.

What drives me every day is the recognition that we have this huge untapped academic and social potential that our nation is leaving on the table. I absolutely believe that education is the civil rights issue of our generation.

When I became CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, I tried to take that lifetime of lessons to scale.

Everyone who has worked with poor children knows that poverty matters and affects school performance. But everyone who has witnessed the life-altering impact of great teachers and great principals knows that schools matter enormously too.

Boosting student achievement is not an either-or solution. Educators and the broader community should be attacking both in-school and out-of-school causes of low achievement.

I am a big believer in high-quality out-of-school programs, including full-service community schools. When I was CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, the city became the national leader in large-scale adoption of community schools. By the time I left, Chicago had more than 150 community schools—the most in the nation. Many of those schools—35—have full-service health clinics.

It never made sense to me that poor children should be expected to learn just as readily as other students when they couldn’t see the blackboard, or when their mouths ached from untreated cavities and gum disease. So we dramatically expanded our free vision and dental programs in the schools.

Six years ago, about 12,500 students in the Chicago Public Schools received free vision services—and roughly 10,000 students got prescription eyeglasses.

Three years later, the number of students receiving free vision services and eyeglasses had both more than doubled. The dental care program grew even more dramatically, going from treating 1,250 students to more than 50,000 students. Obviously the need didn’t increase at that pace; it was simply beginning to be addressed.

Since taking office, the Obama administration has also rapidly expanded funding for out-of-school supports for students. Starting with the Recovery Act, the Administration invested $5 billion in growing Head Start and Early Head Start. That expanded access to quality child care for 150,000 additional children.

This December, we invested another $500 million through an unprecedented Early Learning Race to the Top competition. For the first time, states are designing comprehensive plans, not just to increase access to high-quality early learning but to better coordinate the patchwork of programs that now exist in every state. I congratulate Massachusetts. It was one of nine states to win a Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant.

And don’t forget President’s Obama’s health care legislation. Under the new law, the administration has provided more than 275 school-based health clinics with about $100 million to provide more health care services at schools nationwide. Those grants will enable school-based health clinics to serve an additional 440,000 patients—a jump of over 50 percent.

In short, from day one, we have pursued a cradle-to-career education agenda. And it is very much epitomized by our Promise Neighborhood grants, which support a program of high-quality wraparound services and strong neighborhood schools modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone.

I want to underline that great schools and great teachers are the most effective anti-poverty tool of all. And that’s why a good school is at the heart of every Promise Neighborhood.

Even back in Chicago, people used to warn me that we could never fix the schools until we ended poverty. As I say, I am a huge fan of out-of-school anti-poverty programs. I was raised in one. But I absolutely reject the idea that poverty is destiny. Despite challenges at home, despite neighborhood violence, and despite poverty, I know that every child learn and thrive. It’s the responsibility of schools to teach all children—and have high expectations for every student, rich and poor.

Geoff Canada, the founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone and one of my heroes, discovered firsthand that even a continuum of high-quality wraparound services isn’t enough to dramatically boost student achievement. You have to have a great school to close the opportunity gap.

HCZ’s parenting classes, their first-rate preschool program, and the supplemental services inside Harlem’s schools—the tutors, the computer labs, the after-school reading programs—collectively they weren’t doing nearly enough to boost student achievement. So Geoff Canada decided he had to create an outstanding school.

Then he did something else—he commissioned a rigorous study of the Harlem Children’s Zone by Roland Fryer, a brilliant young economist here at Harvard.

Fryer’s research showed that while support services helped increase student achievement for children in the neighborhood, it was Canada’s school, Promise Academy, which dramatically boosted student learning and closed achievement gaps.

Professor Fryer didn’t stop there. He asked, what are the characteristics of high-performing charter schools—and can they be applied in traditional public schools? We must stop being satisfied with pockets of excellence—and start taking to scale what works.

Roland’s question wasn’t an ivory-tower, academic exercise. Instead, he went to Terry Grier, Houston’s superintendent of public schools, and said, ‘let’s try adopting the practices of high-performing charter schools in Houston’s lowest performing public schools and see if they work.’

The preliminary results of the Houston experiment, which affects more than 7,000 students in nine schools, are now coming in—and the results are encouraging.

After just a year of implementation, student achievement in math is up dramatically, and reading scores are increasing. Enrollment in four-year colleges is up by about 40 percent.

Even more encouraging, Roland Fryer’s Houston experiment is just part of a body of exciting new research on a new generation of gap-closing schools.

Rigorous research that uses random assignment comparisons is documenting that high-poverty schools can dramatically narrow achievement and attainment gaps.

The Boston Foundation has documented the big impact on student learning of great schools here in Boston. Mathematica has documented the large gap-narrowing impact of 22 KIPP middle schools from around the nation.

Harvard’s Tom Kane has documented the benefits of KIPP Lynn for English language learners and special needs students. Other researchers have found that new, small high schools in New York City are boosting student learning and narrowing the attainment gap.

Now, if a curious visitor from another country plunked down in the midst of our education debates, he would likely find this new generation of gap-closing schools to be very exciting news. He would find them a wonderful testament to the power of outstanding teachers, great principals, and strong community partners to transform the life chances of children.

But in fact the response of some in the U.S. education establishment to schools that produce dramatic gains in student learning has been much more critical, even dismissive.

That curious visitor would be puzzled by those who respond to successful no-excuses schools by making excuses for why they don’t really matter.

Of course, no one should object to understanding the limitations and strengths of this new research on gap-closing schools. But the skeptics of successful schools have jumped from critique to critique, none of which have found much confirmation in rigorous research.

It is telling that advocates wedded to the idea that school achievement is simply a reflection of poverty seem determined to diminish the value of great teachers and great schools. That disrespects the hard work, talent, and tremendous commitment of the teachers and principals at these schools, who dedicate their lives to working with disadvantaged children because they know they can make that special connection that changes children’s lives.

You don’t have to look any further than Massachusetts’ excellent educational system to see that in-school and out-of-school challenges can be tackled at the same time. Over the years, Massachusetts has deeply invested in school reform. It has created rigorous assessments. It created college and career-ready academic standards, instead of dummying down standards, as many other states did. Academic achievement and attainment has gone up substantially. And in many respects, Massachusetts is the highest-performing state in the entire country.

But Massachusetts also addressed out-of-school factors that impede student learning. Under the courageous leadership of Governor Deval Patrick, it has invested in creating the largest extended learning time experiment in the country. It has one of the best-coordinated early learning systems in the nation.

In 2010, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law that calls for chronically underperforming schools to have a significant health and social services components in their turnaround plans. To better integrate social service supports, the state established a Child and Youth Readiness Cabinet, co-chaired by the secretary of health and human services and Secretary of Education Paul Reville.

The both-and solutions can and must be done—and they are being done, right here in Massachusetts. Instead of resting on its laurels, Massachusetts is helping to lead the country where we need to go.

Now, the second, false choice that I want to talk about today is the debate over whether teacher evaluation should include measures of student achievement and growth.

Again, I reject the idea that this should be an either-or debate. Critics of standardized testing make a lot of good points. It is absolutely true that many of today’s tests are flawed. They don’t measure critical thinking across a range of content areas. They are not always aligned to college and career-ready standards. They don’t always accurately measure individual student growth.

And they certainly don’t measure qualities of great teaching that we know make a difference—things like classroom management, teamwork, collaboration, and individualized instruction. They don’t measure the invaluable ability to inspire a love of learning.

As I have said, over and over again, teacher evaluation should never be based only on test scores. It should always include multiple measures, like principal observation or peer review, student work, student surveys, and parent feedback.

That’s one reason why we’re putting real resources into moving beyond fill-in-the-bubble tests. Our $350 million Race to the Top assessment competition is funding two large state consortia, covering 44 states and the District of Columbia, to develop a new and much-improved generation of assessments.

Massachusetts, thanks to Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester, is helping lead one of those efforts. For the first time, teachers will consistently have timely, high-quality formative assessments that are instructionally useful and document student growth.

And for the first time, the new assessments will better measure the higher-order thinking skills so vital to success in the global economy.

Still, the shortcomings of today’s tests don’t mean that we should simply abandon the use of standardized testing in schools and teacher evaluation.

In the last decade, I have talked to literally thousands of teachers and school leaders. I have yet to speak to one who thinks teacher evaluation in America works well today.

Let me be clear: Teacher evaluation today is largely broken and dysfunctional. No one can say who the great teachers are, how teachers in the middle can improve, or which teachers should be dismissed if they fail to improve, even after receiving help and support.

California has 300,000 teachers. It’s top 10 percent of teachers—30,000 teachers—are world-class teachers and some of the best in the world. Its bottom 10 percent of teachers should probably not be in the classroom. But today, no one knows who is in which category.

Again, we have to ask the compared-to-what question. Is an evaluation system that uses at least some measure of student achievement and growth, even if imperfect, preferable to an evaluation system that takes no account of student learning? I’ve learned a lot in Washington. But I was literally stunned when I discovered that several states had laws on the books that actually prohibited using student achievement in teacher evaluation. Think about how crazy that is—and what a perverse signal that sends about the entire teaching profession. Thanks in part to Race to the Top, those laws are now all gone.

The use of value-added analysis to measure student growth is still very much a work in progress. But it is, with all its imperfections, a big improvement over a system that takes no account of student growth in the classroom.

Thanks to groundbreaking research by Raj Chetty and John Friedman here at Harvard and their colleague at Columbia, Jonah Rockoff, we know now that the long-term impact of good teachers on students in adulthood is profound. Their study was not about good teachers creating short-term bumps in test scores; it demonstrated how teachers, for better or worse, literally altered the trajectory of their pupils’ lives.

Their analysis of the long-term impact that teachers had on 2.5 million children found that simply replacing a teacher in the bottom five percent for advancing student growth with an average teacher would increase the students’ lifetime income in that classroom by more than $250,000.

And improvements in teacher quality also significantly reduce the chance of having a child while a teenager and increase college matriculation. Want to increase earnings potential, decrease poverty, and reduce teen pregnancy? Then please spent a lot of time thinking how to attract, retain, and reward great teachers, particularly in disadvantaged communities.

We’re still learning about how to improve teacher evaluation and incorporate measures of student learning. But the work of Tom Kane at Harvard and the MET project, which is based on classroom observations of 3,000 teachers, is the largest study of instructional practice and its relationship to student outcomes ever undertaken. As a result, we know much more today about how to do teacher evaluation right than ever before.

Now, some folks will point out, correctly, that most teachers don’t teach in tested subjects. So, how can student achievement be factored in to teacher evaluation in non-tested subjects? It’s a great question. But I have every faith that teachers themselves can come up with solutions. They already are.

Just last week I met with Dru Davison, a fantastic music teacher in Memphis. Arts teachers there were frustrated because they were being evaluated based solely on school-wide performance in math and English. So he convened a group of arts educators to come up with a better evaluation system.

After Dru’s committee surveyed arts teachers in Memphis, they decided to develop a blind peer review evaluation to assess portfolios of student learning. It has proved enormously popular—so much so that Tennessee is now looking at adopting the system statewide for arts instructors. If we are willing to listen, and to do things differently, the answers are out there.

I can’t finish this discussion without recognizing the extraordinary contribution of Paul Toner, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. Paul courageously led his union to include three-year trends in student growth as one measure in teacher evaluation in tested subjects. And that’s just the kind of informed, carefully tailored, and localized collaboration that school districts need.

The truth is we need more labor and management leaders who are willing to engage in tough-minded collaboration and step outside their comfort zones.

I applaud those who do, like Dennis Van Roekel, the president of the National Education Association, and Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America. They are challenging the status quo, together. They recently co-authored an op-ed calling for major improvements in teacher preparation programs, many of which desperately need an overhaul.

Even though they may be at odds on a number of issues historically, they are still seeking common ground, instead of firing salvos from their separate silos. In some quarters, this simple display of mutual respect and collaboration was greeted with suspicion and disapproval. Some folks seem to prefer the Hatfield-McCoy feuds—which go on forever and accomplish nothing productive.

In my experience, tough-minded collaboration in education is typically more successful than tough-minded confrontation. And Massachusetts has helped set the example, under the leadership of Paul Reville, Mitchell Chester, and Paul Toner. I wonder if they could stand to be recognized for the tough work they have done—and will do—together on union-management issues?

I love the fact that none of them are passive or complacent. They know that Massachusetts, for all its triumphs, still has a long way to go to close achievement gaps.

Collaborating with people who you disagree with doesn’t mean you have to give up on transformational reform. You just have to give up on the idea of getting everything you want, under the terms you want.

In Chicago and in Washington, I’ve often been told: “Don’t aim too high.” “You are going too fast.” Or: “It will never happen.” But I think the skeptics underestimate the commitment to change in the classroom—and the capacity and desire of teachers and principals to advance student learning.

When the Obama administration took office, the President and I started talking about the need for states to stop dummying down academic standards. We said we had to set a higher bar for success.

Creating common, higher standards—college and career-ready standards that were internationally benchmarked—was supposed to be the third rail of education politics. It was never going to happen. But no one, not one of the experts, predicted what rapidly unfolded.

Thanks to courageous state leaders, and with federal encouragement, 45 states and the District of Columbia, in a state-led effort, have now adopted the Common Core standards. That is an absolute game-changer for our schools, our teachers—and most importantly, for our children. For the first time in our nation’s history, a child in Massachusetts and a child in Mississippi will measured by the same yardstick.

I have also talked repeatedly about the need to transform the way districts and schools did turnarounds in chronically low-achieving schools. I said school turnaround efforts had been far too timid—and that we had to stop tinkering in schools that were cheating generations of children out of their one chance to receive a quality education.

Again, I was told, “don’t aim too high. It’s impossible to turn around struggling schools at scale.”

We’re now starting to get the preliminary results from the first year of our School Improvement Grant programs. Nothing is final yet, and we obviously have a number of years to go before we can really judge the success of this effort. The hard work is just beginning.

But after just one year, I’m pleased to say that the impact on student achievement is more encouraging than the experts anticipated. Many schools, like Orchard Gardens K-8 in the Orchard Park projects near here in Roxbury, are showing double digit gains in both reading and math proficiency in their first year. Change is possible—if you are willing to do things differently.

So, in closing, I’d encourage advocates to stop fighting the wrong education battles. Seek common ground—knowing that it will both take you outside of your comfort zone and require tough-minded collaboration.

The educational challenges facing our nation are massive and urgent. But I am convinced that the capacity, the courage, and the commitment of our nation’s teachers, school leaders, parents, and students’ themselves, is up to the challenge.

Let’s stop defending the status quo when it hurts children. Let’s wage the right education battles. Together, let’s work collectively to advance achievement and a love of learning in America.

It’s that time of the legislative session. Bills need to be moving out of their committees of origin. Budget writers are teeing up the next phase of the session. And all hell is breaking loose. If the legislature were cheese, we’d be serving fondue. Because it’s meltdown city all up in here. I’m not enjoying this mess, oh, no. But I am enjoying this mess, if you know what I mean.

And how could you? I’ve not even given the news that amuses just yet. (Snark alert. Yes, it’s surprising. I know. But it was not a good week for taking all of this so very seriously. You may find your news with a little more than the average snarkicity.)

Tuna Melt on Wry:  I’ve worked the halls of a state legislative session where the only thing that stood between a bill getting passed out of committee and likely the floor of the Senate was a Senate aide who “misplaced” the formal bill documents behind a radiator in a Capitol restroom. I’ve been in the hallways at three a.m. when real compromise is being worked out because folks see a way forward through the middle. But that fish you smell is the two ed reform bills put forward by Rep. Pettigrew and Senators Tom and Litzow being held hostage by leadership that doesn’t want to upset the union. Yes. I know it’s shocking. Not that this is happening. Oh. Heck. That happens every session. No the shocker is that anyone would say it. Like Lynne Varner said it. Preach, girl! (technically, it was the Times Editorial staff, but not technically, it was deeply informed by Varner’s work.) Want some more truth with that brunch mimosa?  We can’t pass a teacher/principal evaluation bill with teeth – evaluations have meaning in terms of employment – because the bill committee leaders want to put forward is the product of some kind of deal worked out with the union and that’s the bill that the “leadership” is comfortable with. And the problem with that, friends, is that anybody gets “comfortable.” We’ve been way too comfortable for a really long time. And we have a pipeline to poverty and prison for our kids of color and disadvantaged kids to show for it. That’s not a flag I’m going to continue to salute.  No one should.

One guy who wouldn’t put up with it is former Louisiana schools chief, Paul Pastorak. He was in town this week to share the learnings from Post-Katrina New Orleans and to put a little pep in our step (and a little bit of boot in our behinds.) His words of advice: This isn’t a battle. It’s a war. A war for kids who don’t have much of a chance otherwise. Fight like it matters. (I’m paraphrasing here, but the sentiment was the same.)

As for the rest of Olympia, what’s dead and what’s alive are separated by the invisible will of a legislator who will continue to fight for something. Unless its necessary to pass the budget, in which case, it’s alive because of the invisible will of a legislator who will continue to fight for something. WaKids died an unfortunate death – the expansion statewide – due to budget concerns and other inferences from folks who either didn’t read or don’t care about the State’s application for Race to the Top  early learning funds. The quality rating system necessary to implement the Race to the Top plan is still alive (QRIS) and as long as the folks at the Department of Early Learning are still able to fog up a mirror, I think we’ll be ok. But as they say in baseball and opera, it ain’t over til the fat lady sings.

Speaking of early learning, check out the increasing awareness of the importance of PreK – 3, nationwide. Washington – commonly considered a laggard in many of the ratings on education change – leads in this area, and could be an incubator for new ideas and initiatives. (If we can get out of our own way in the statehouse.) The Education Commission of the States lists Prek-3 at the top of its 12 for 12 campaign. (The rest of the list is pretty good too.)

Whack a Mole: Bellevue schools chief, Amalia Cudeiro has resigned from her post. She originally took a leave of absence to care for her sick mother. The text messages had barely hit the inbox over rumors of Seattle’s interim chief, Susan Enfield, heading east to Bellevue when her interest in the position was confirmed. Enfield was in the running for the position when Cudeiro was hired.

Meanwhile, the Seattle School Board will vote Tuesday night on its process for hiring a permanent Superintendent. While I know these things can be sticky and difficult to orchestrate, I’m pretty sure this will look a lot like the Macarena. Forward, back, criss –cross, jump around, hands to head and big finish, everyone…. I’d prefer the Dougie, but I’m not the one choosing. (Related, RIP Don Cornelius. The creator of the one and only dance show we all – all y’all – wanted to be on, Soul Train.)

The Great Beyond:

• The growing costs of higher education received a lot of attention this week. A Senate hearing, WaPo editorial, and a reversal in position  by someone other than the Komen foundation, Sallie Mae found its heart and will no longer charge a fee to student loan borrowers in forbearance.
• Locally, the presidents of Washington’s six publicly funded universities lamented the impact of budget cuts – citing a brain drain as one of the most glaring issues.
• A new report out of Oregon shows that chronic absence is a big problem there. Nearly a quarter of the students miss close to a month of school every year.

That’s it, edu-peeps. This girl is heading to the great outdoors. Thanks for everything you do every day to help our kids. Keep up the good fight.

This editorial ran in the Seattle Times.

STATE lawmakers are again punting on sensible education reforms.

Senate education committee chair Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, and her counterpart in the House, Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, D-Seattle, used their gavels to doom promising legislation adding accountability to teacher evaluations and allowing a small number of charter schools into our state.

“It is discouraging that two individuals could completely block the dialogue from happening,” said Ramona Hattendorf, of the Washington state PTA. “The idea of having a good evaluation and discussing how it should be used is not radical.”

McAuliffe and Santos were aided by a stunning lack of political courage by all but a handful of Democrats.

Many thought the moment for true progress had come in the Senate, where the charter and evaluation bills have broad support.

But McAuliffe and the majority of her committee were at an impasse Friday. She refused to let her committee vote on a single education-reform bill, even canceling Thursday’s committee meeting where votes were expected. Colleagues, led by Republican Sens. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island, and Rodney Tom, D-Medina, refused to take a vote on any bill if McAuliffe refused to consider charters.

The governor spent Friday trying to broker an agreement.

It’s worth reviewing what’s at stake. Stronger teacher evaluations are set to go statewide in 2013 but a key ingredient, student achievement, is missing from the policy critera. Teachers like the more-robust evaluations’ inclusion of individualized development plans and training to help improve their craft.

But efforts to tie them to student growth measures — including test scores — have been rejected by the teachers union and the Democrats who do their bidding. That’s too bad. The credibility of the new evaluations hinges on the ability to hold teachers accountable.

Continue reading >>>

This op-ed by Kaya McRuer ran in the Seattle Times.

I am a high school student and I spend seven hours a day, five days a week in school. So shouldn’t I get a say in how I am being taught?

In many Washington high schools, the classes are so full that almost every core course is taught by at least two different teachers, teaching from the same basic curriculum and textbook. Why, then, is there almost always a favorite between these pairings when they are teaching, more or less, the same course?

According to my peers, favorite teachers allow for student creativity and independence in the classroom. They understand and explain to their students why it is important to learn the curriculum. A favorite teacher is not created by giving easy A’s, but by challenging his or her students and encouraging inquisitiveness. Favorite teachers make every effort to give clear, easily understood instructions and explanations and provide extra help to any student who needs it.

The problem is that these types of teachers are viewed as lucky breaks in education, rather than the norm.

Great teachers can make their students fall in love with their subject, whereas a bad one can cause an antipathy that could prevent further interest. The subject being taught does not define whether the students will like the class, rather it is the teacher who makes the subject interesting or not.

Continue reading >>>

With teacher performance on our–and the President’s–minds, the 2011 State Teacher Policy Yearbook couldn’t be more timely. The Yearbook, released by the National Council on Teacher Quality, grades states on the effectiveness of their teacher policies. The report focuses on five main areas:

1. Delivering well-prepared teachers
2. Expanding the pool of teachers
3. Identifying effective teachers
4. Retaining effective teachers
5. Exiting ineffective teachers

In all of these categories, Washington state’s grades are mediocre. Overall, the state earned a C-, scoring C’s in expanding, identifying and retaining effective teachers, while earning a D+ in delivering well-prepared teachers and a barely passing D in exiting ineffective teachers. This report card puts Washington 26th in the nation in terms of teacher quality policies.

The good news is that the C- overall grade is an improvement over 2009′s D+. Still, the study notes serious areas for growth, particularly in Washington’s lack of objective measures of student performance when evaluating teachers. The study also indicates that Washington’s grades could improve with higher standards for conferring teachers’ licenses, increasing selectivity and streamlining alternative routes to teaching, and making the pension system more portable, flexible, and fair to all teachers.

Read all of Washington’s grades and learn more about the study’s methodology here.

It’s that time again. And while I have loads of stuff in my Friday file, today’s focus is on Washington. Well, both Washington’s.  And because Washington is synonymous with leadership, here’s something extra on just that topic. Here’s your news:

Charters Await the Daylight: I don’t know about you, but if one more person tells me that they wish we could do something about the achievement gap, but bringing public charter schools to Washington will only help a few kids, somethin’s gotta give. I swear I’m going to go buy every copy of Schindler’s List I can find and hand them out like a human Pez dispenser.  How about we start fixing the gap problem for SOMEBODY? Anybody. Washington’s obsession with the perfect as a foil for the good is about to drive this Midwestern girl back home where she can eat fried cheese without guilt or notice.

I normally don’t do this in these missives. But honestly. It’s past time we use all the tools at our disposal. You’ve undoubtedly seen media coverage of the proposed charter school legislation put forward by Rep. Pettigrew and Senator Steve Litzow. As in previous years and iterations, the issue is not without its controversy. Goodness knows change doesn’t come without its dissenters. But even of those who support the issue, some think it has no chance. They are wrong.  But we have to act now. We must push to get these bills voted out of committee over the next five days. While we wouldn’t be completely sunk if they didn’t it would be optimal if we could get the bills out of the house and senate committees by the Tuesday, January 31 cutoff. To that end, please call or email your legislators. I know what some of you saying; “but Chris, I work at XYZ Foundation and I just can’t do that.” Yes. You. Can. On your time and at your expense, you absolutely are allowed to participate in this chunky stew of a mess we call democracy. So, please. Don’t make me beg. It’s not pretty.

Executive Privilege: With four competing teacher/principal evaluation bills in motion, attempts to  “exec”a bill out of committee have been, shall we say, interesting. Despite widespread support for evaluations that factor in student growth and will be used as part of employment decisions, getting these issues past the committee room door – on the House side, at least – has been a challenge. Attempts to move a bill Friday failed and with the clock ticking – Tuesday is the deadline for bills to get moved out of their committee of origin –  it’s not clear at this moment just which, if any, of the provisions will move forward. You’ll recall a similar measure passed the Senate last year. It’s probably obvious, but the sun came up the next morning, and no one came to collect our brains to put in jars on display at the Gates Foundation. Ask a school leader what would help them the most in building an effective team: end seniority based employment decisions and don’t force them to take teachers from the displacement pool. The solution to that conundrum is HB2427/SB6203.

WaaaaaKids: When Washington won federal Race to the Top (RttT) money for the Early Learning Challenge grant, much hoopla ensued and I swear I heard an acoustic guitar somewhere playing  “Kumbaya.” But before the confetti can even hit the floor, that lovin’ feelin has lost a lot of its luster. A cornerstone of our early learning proposal in RttT, WaKids, until now, a universally loved and hailed policy, has come under fire.  OSPI – which played a significant hand in developing the RTtT proposal and budget (including WaKids) – came out with concerns over the cost of full implementation and has reportedly turned in a budget number that would make Donald Trump think about cutting back hair care purchases. Meanwhile, the WEA registered concerns over the funding and those doggone Tea Party folks lodged complaints about just about everything else you can think of including teaching infants about gay marriage. Despite all that, HB 2586, legislation phasing in statewide implementation of the WaKids program did get out of committee on Friday. Hard to say whether fiscal worries will put this bill – and the $60 million in RttT funds – on hiatus.

SOTU: The President’s State of the Union Address had something for everybody. New initiatives. Air punches at the Congressional GOP’ers who’ve stalled nearly every one of the President’s priorities. A list of his accomplishments in office. I’ve been told there was one joke. I couldn’t find it, but I kinda hope that it was when he suggested state laws requiring students to stay in school until graduation or the age of 18. Come on. The world’s most prison-obsessed country is going to put kids in jail for not finishing school? Don’t we already do that? Where’s the focus on what will keep them in school? I liked his reference to high quality teaching and paying teachers more. And emphasizing the need for higher education.

Enjoy what remains of your weekend, fellow travelers. And yes, the Pro Bowl does count.

A six-word essay contest to describe great teachers is generating some great submissions on Twitter (#6wordessay) .

A sampling:

Not a Twitter person? You can enter your submission online.

The contest runs through Friday and is sponsored by Students First. Details here.

The House Education Committee heard testimony on bills before the legislature on establishing a statewide plan for implementing revised teacher and principal evaluations. In particular, teachers spoke up on behalf of HB 2427, which specifically includes student performance in evaluations.

Teacher Caine Lowery, whose students once said that he was “the reason [they] got out of bed in the morning,” talked about how he has been laid-off and re-hired every year for the past four years because of the current, seniority-based teacher evaluation system. He said:

As adults oftentimes we lose sight of what’s most important when we’re battling it out with each other going over these laws and these bills. Our kids are what’s most important. I feel like House Bill 2427 supports our children.

Watch Mr. Lowery and his fellow teacher Ms. Widestead’s testimony here:

Connie Gerlitz, a parent and long-time education advocate, also took the time to testify on the bills. She said “At some point we’ve got to include student improvement in our evaluations. It’s got to be there. That is [the teacher's] job.”

Watch her full testimony here:

Watch the whole hearing on TVW.

In his State of the Union address last night, President Obama made some strong remarks on education. He talks about supporting and rewarding strong teachers and giving schools the flexibility they need to replace teachers who aren’t helping kids learn.

In case you missed it, you can see what he has to say on education below:

TRANSCRIPT:

But to prepare for the jobs of tomorrow, our commitment to skills and education has to start earlier. For less than 1 percent of what our nation spends on education each year, we’ve convinced nearly every state in the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning — the first time that’s happened in a generation. But challenges remain. And we know how to solve them.

At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced states to lay off thousands of teachers. We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance. Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives. Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies — just to make a difference.

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones.

And in return, grant schools flexibility: to teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn. That’s a bargain worth making.

From an editorial in The Olympian:

Anyone who has had students in this state’s K-12 education system knows that there are effective teachers who inspire and motivate their students. The result is students who reach for academic success.

Unfortunately, there are also teachers who seem to have lost their passion, lost their drive and simply go through the motions to collect their next paycheck. They are failing their students, but often get a passing grade on their evaluation.

It’s time – past time, actually – to get an effective measurement tool in place so those underperforming teachers can get some mentoring and guidance and if they still don’t perform, move them out the schoolhouse door.

On education matters, it’s hard to find anyone more knowledgeable than Dr. Thelma Jackson, former president of the North Thurston School Board, longtime board member, a leader in the African American community and staunch advocate for closing this state’s achievement gap between minority and white students. Jackson knows the importance of quality educators.

In a column for The Olympian a year ago, Jackson hit the nail on the head when she said, “The research is clear – an effective teacher is the most important factor in raising student achievement. If we provide an evaluation system that rewards and retains effective teachers and equips them with targeted professional development, we can give our students the teachers they need and deserve.”

We couldn’t agree more.

“Be excellent to each other” declares a smoothed skinned Abe Lincoln in the epic conclusion of one of my favorite childhood movies, “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” The theme of excellence weaves itself throughout the film, as the Wyld Stallyns, Bill and Ted, learn what it means to be excellent. For two seniors on the verge of failing high school this means traveling in time, meeting some “most excellent” historical figures and acing their history final.

In current education debate, we’ve replaced the word excellent for effective. Bill Gates wants “teacher development to be revolutionized” through effective teaching and a majority of teacher effectiveness to be based on test scores. According to National Board standards, effective teachers must be committed to their students and their learning. In layman’s terms, an effective teacher communicates content and develops skills in such a culturally relevant way that a student embraces each learning experience with a desire to grow to exceed course standards. This effective teacher equips each student with career and college readiness skills, maintaining high expectations and instructional rigor, and effectively preparing them to excel at standardized measurements of learning. The effective teacher is a superior instructor. The effective teacher is excellent.

Yet conversations about excellent instruction are drowned out by raging debates about evaluations, contract language, seniority, value-added, and test scores. To be honest about excellent teaching to oneself or to an administrator takes a level of reflection and trust often absent from principal offices where this dialogue (or debate) occurs. However, once you’ve been in the game a while, you long for truth, whatever the cost. And this is where my dream of the perfect teacher evaluation system begins. My rubric would list mastery in the following categories–not at all excellent, approaching excellence, pretty excellent, and most excellent. In my perfect world of fair, meaningful evaluations, teachers and principals would converse openly and honestly about what is attempted, what is accomplished, and what needs to be improved in the classroom with students’ interests at the heart of the conversation.

I am a NBCT and teach in a low-income, high-needs school that reflects major issues in my transient community. We’ve piloted a four-tier evaluation systems for more than four years in my district. This year administration is receiving intense training on how to use the tool more effectively to individualize each staff member’s feedback, areas of improvement, and professional development. Despite this attempt at a meaningful evaluation process, the district has tied the hands of my building leaders, and they are unable to truly differentiate our building professional development by needs and abilities of each staff member. Instead they have to follow the lesson plans of someone in central administration who means well but doesn’t believe in ELL or Special Education needs. Based on the lesson plans he sends out, he thinks the teachers in his district are horrifically unexcellent and likely incompetent.

The bill proposed by Pettigrew and Litzow would support teachers and admin who seek to improve the teaching profession by honest feedback, and meaningful, relevant professional development. It would support removing those teachers (let’s be real, we all have them) in our building who refuse to use feedback and professional development to improve their profession. It could cultivate an environment of PAR (plan, act, reflect). It would promote excellence in our practice.

Some argue that this level of accountability would be detrimental to our current system. I’m quite certain the current system is imperfect and needs help. Others are concerned that an emphasis on testing or other measurements of student growth would paint an incomplete pictures of student achievement, dumping unreasonable responsibility on already slouching teacher shoulders. Perhaps. I agree that the development of a child’s learning is a continuous progress—when I get them at the high school level, the system has already helped or failed them. All I can do is move them further along the spectrum of knowledge, developing the skills they have and hopefully giving them more skills. Our system has already failed kids. I don’t think this bill hastens the destruction of current public education. Too many educators feel the looming dragon of blame breathing down our necks, looking for documentation to prove we have or have not performed our duties. In response, we (adults) become dragons, scorching our students with blaming fire for areas that the system failed them, instead of admitting the system failures, sucking in a breath of resolve and trying to move the child as far forward as possible in the course of a year (or in my district, a few months–high mobility).

I think this legislation holds the adults in the system more accountable to their students and their families. I do understand the concern about teaching to a test. I have teachers in my building who do that now. Additionally, I do not think this bill equates children with test scores. Any Nationally Board Certified Teacher understands the importance of external measurements of achievement. If I’m “that good,” a measly, poorly-designed test isn’t a big deal. This bill simply states that testing will be PART of the evaluation, not the whole thing, not a major part. It’s just a part. Why are we so afraid to face our successes and failures when it comes to educating children?

As it stands, I’m already held accountable for test scores. I teach 10th grade writing with three other English teachers in my building. One of my colleagues is a poor teacher—she doesn’t know how to differentiate and inflates grades and doesn’t collaborate with other teachers. However, she does know how to drill and kill for the WASL/HSPE, which is why she gets asked to take on leadership roles. In contrast, I embed the skills needed to pass these test throughout my coursework, focusing on developing the skills they need to be career and college ready. I will be held accountable for their scores. Honestly, I should be. If I’m not preparing my kids to kick butt on state tests as a speed bump in their journey towards graduation and college, then what the heck am I doing? I know it is scary—even for good teachers. But you know who is not scared? The teacher who isn’t doing their job, who is doing the same thing they’ve done for 20+ years. That teacher knows they are protected by the union contract and thus there is no impetus to improve. Even though my admin know the drill and kill teacher isn’t doing her job the rest of the year, they are limited in the honest conversations they can have with her about improving her teaching, and they know they can’t fire her. She knows her mediocrity is protected by the contract. In the end, her students suffer.

I’ve heard some teachers argue against this bill saying that if this kind of legislation goes through then they might as well teach at easy, suburban schools where students have innate skills and familial support. I used to teach in a suburban school—those children deserve quality instruction as well. In many a prosperous neighborhood school, expectations are so skewed that these students are not getting the appropriate amount of rigor, scaffolding, and excellent instruction they deserve. Yes, they have less outside stress factors and sure, my job was a little easier there. But the teachers that were truly teaching their butts off were able to move students on a continuum of outside measures (common assessments, WASL, AP tests). The others, sat around, stoked that no one would ever call them out for their ineffectiveness. Moving to that type of school doesn’t solve the problem of failing schools.

Lastly, as someone who teaches controversial content (social justice, civil rights, revolution), I definitely don’t want a system that ignores due process or gives power to an administrator to dismiss me arbitrarily. I don’t believe this bill does that. Rather, I think Pettigrew, Litzow, and writing crew attempt to legislate teacher effectiveness which I truly hope leads to teacher excellence.

Be excellent to each other. Especially your students.

Traci lives in Puyallup, WA, is a mother to three, and works at the Bethel School District. She has her Masters of Teaching from University of Puget Sound.

Budget cuts again. The teacher in me shudders. The mom in me is grateful to have been blessed with the children I have. Let me elaborate.

In my classroom this means: more students, a more physically crowded classroom, more prep, more grading, and more diverse needs to meet. It also means, bigger “small group” instruction, more challenging classroom management, and less people to implement effective Response to Intervention models. It means less resources in general to attend to the ever-increasing workload.

As a mother, I thank God every day that I am blessed with children who do not face challenges in learning. When I send my daughter off to her class of 30 first graders, I breathe a deep sigh of relief that she is among the top readers in her class. I take overwhelming comfort in the fact that my fourth grade son participates in a highly capable program, relieving my concern about his ability to learn in such crowded conditions. And I pray that my preschool age son continues to develop on track and follows in the fortunate academic footsteps of his older siblings while trying NOT to think about how many kids will be in his kindergarten class next year. I refuse to think about what these conditions would mean if my children were not so fortunate.

In spite of what seems like utter disregard for the education of our future, I will maintain my usually-positive attitude about this crisis. I will continue to rise to the challenge presented to me as both a teacher and a mother, because one of these days someone is going to come to their senses and get this state’s priorities in order.

The following is prepared testimony given on Friday in the House Education Committee in favor of HB 2428, which would allow for transformation zones and public charter schools in Washington state. Written testimony sometimes varies from the spoken testimony, as panelists are dissuaded from reading from a script.

Hello, my name is Christopher Eide and I am representing Teachers United, a newly-formed organization of educators from the Puget Sound area.  Our educators, many of whom are award-winning, National Board Certified, and/or leaders in their teachers union, begin discussion of education policy with the question: “what does it mean for students?” We pride ourselves on principled dialogue and debate using research and experience and will advocate for policies that we believe put students first.

Charter schools have been a highly-controversial topic in Washington state for over a decade, so we intended to determine what they are and whether they would be good for students in Washington.  We were able to send ten educators to charter schools in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Houston, and New York City to interview students, teachers, principals and parents as well as observe instruction. We read research, had discussions with educators at our school sites and engaged in debates. We examined the proposed legislation.

Because this bill targets disadvantaged students, our framework was then: “what does it mean for disadvantaged students?” We read that the opportunity gap in Washington is growing, and we know that our graduation rate is too low. Very few schools in Washington are successful in doing this work, and roughly 25% of our ‘innovative schools’ serve student populations with greater than 50% disadvantaged students. There don’t appear to be any other programs in place to address this persistent issue in the near future.

We also read that while charter schools on balance are only slightly outperform their traditional public school counterparts, they excel in educating disadvantaged students in urban areas. We also believe that because this bill is highly-restrictive, the data on the average charter school performance is irrelevant for us.

The most convincing element, however, was actually visiting the schools. The leadership, the love of learning, the level of parent engagement and respect for educators that we saw in high-performing charter schools was different than anything we had seen in a traditional public school.  These schools are alive and the excitement is contagious.

Our board, comprised entirely of educators of all levels of seniority, very active in their union, voted to support this bill as it is written.  We do not support all charter school laws, but we believe that this bill is a positive step forward for students, and we hope that you will support it as well.

We know that every student deserves a great teacher, and every school deserves a great principal.

But how do we make sure this happens for all kids?

One way is to make sure that teachers and principals are evaluated using multiple measures that include student performance. And that performance is included in staffing decisions.

Teachers and principals are professionals and deserve to have professional development plans to help them excel at their jobs.

Please tell your legislators to support our educators by treating them like professionals. Tell them to pass HB 2427/SB 6203.

Hope Teague-Bowling is a National Board Certified teacher at Clover Park High School in Lakewood, WA and a member of the LEV Foundation Board of Directors.

In order to understand my perspective on the issue, it’s important to understand a few premises for my thoughts.

1. What’s best for students should be at the center of education conversations.
2. What’s best for adults is usually the driving force for policy debate.
3. All children have the right to a quality education, regardless of race, sex, socioeconomic factors, special needs, etc.
4. High-performing schools rely on three things: a) strong leadership, b) sound instruction, and c) common culture of high expectations.
5. Privatization makes a few things better but NEVER a) education, b) health care, c) police services/military.
6. Change needs both internal systemic reform and external revolution.
7. All charters are not created equal.
8. Strong charter laws can protect children from being the victims of bad charter schools and the replication of current status quo practices.

I have come to these beliefs over the course of my life experiences — a product of homeschooling by two public school teachers, an undergraduate degree from a private college, a master’s in teaching from a liberal grad school, a year of working as a para in an alternative school, six years of public school teaching in both rural and urban communities, and years of reading, hearing, and living the debates about education in the United States.

Since I believe that all children deserve the right to learn in a safe environment with access to rigorous courses and high expectations, it is essential to me that schools provide this. However, the reality is that we are more segregated in public schools than ever. More children (particularly the poor, people of color, and urban – I’ve read a few things too about inequalities in very rural communities) are being tossed to the wayside by adults. Sadly, there are too few schools truly addressing the instructional needs of these students which now encompasses social and emotional factors unheard of fifty years ago. With the current economic crisis, schools are are ill-equipped financially, but most importantly school boards, district officials, and often teachers are culturally incompetent and untrained instructionally to handle the increasing diversity of student needs in their communities. To complicate matters, most districts have an insane amount of rules and regulations established to protect themselves against lawsuits. In reaction, union contracts are written to protect teachers against an unfair district. This lose-lose approach creates the biggest losers — the students. Both groups of adults are so busy worrying about their own butts, they are reluctant, often outright closed, to new ideas, particularly “non-traditional” approaches to meeting student needs. We (public education institutions) are doing the same things we’ve done for decades when our society, communities, and students’ needs have changed (quite drastically in my opinion). You cannot do the same things over and over again with the same bad methods and see improvement. It doesn’t work. If I eat crap and never work out, I will continue to get fatter and fatter. Why am I shocked when I hop on the scale? I have to change something.

In my experience, adults are the most reluctant to change, especially adults in positions of power or those benefiting from the current structure. I am heavily involved in my local union and WEA as a whole. I’m on my exec board and attend events, conferences, meetings, etc – all with the idea that I want my union to represent my beliefs about education, and more importantly, I want it improve the teaching profession. In the last three years of union activism, I almost daily encounter teachers, district employees, and others (all adults) who are threatened by anything new. You ask them to try a new food, a new strategy for teaching content, anything, it doesn’t matter. They are reluctant to even engage in possibilities.

I work in a school with what I would say are some of the most dedicated people I’ve ever worked with. We just received a state award for innovation because we are a STEM school that has a robotics program, our math team teaches to standards, and we collaborate regularly. Most of the teachers in my building are a pedagogically sound, no-excuses-mentality bunch dedicated to success of all students. That is until you start to watch classroom instruction. Or talk about how to reach the unmotivated ELL kid who is struggling to survive in an English class. Or ask build an interdisciplinary course with another teacher. Or ask a hard question about their grade book. Or discuss what real innovation might look like. This is when the status quo appears. This is when a tiny vision of learning becomes clear. Folks only want to do what makes them comfortable, what fits in an eight-hour work day schedule. Administrators and teachers are only open to creativity when it fits in a neat little package.

The last six years, I’ve obsessively read up on the subject of public charters. I’ve worked in a middle class rural-ish school, an alternative school, and a high poverty/urban school. For “fun” on my days off, I visit other schools to see what they are doing to meet their students’ needs and change their communities. I regularly kick it with teachers who teach in the Lincoln Center – a school within a school who’ve modeled their program off of high-performing charter school strategies. In the last six months, I’ve had the privilege of attending two different field trips – one to Houston and one to New York City to see an array of public charters in action. I saw KIPP, YES Prep, Green Dot (a national charter network that is unionized), Harlem Success Academy, Apollo 20 (public school that was converted, still works within district contract), and several others. After confirming my belief that high performing schools don’t have to look the same, it dawned on me that there are three consistent elements that these schools have in common. These three characteristics of high performing schools functions like a three-legged stool. Their success relies on 1) Leadership, 2) Instruction 3) Culture.

The leadership at these schools is amazing. It is shared – teachers and administrators (who often are called team leaders or some other name that changes the power structure of the relationship) and parents are teams. They actually work together. They fight for the same causes, together. They function under a social contract that all parties sign – usually to the effect of “we will work our hardest to ensure your child excels, etc.” It’s not just lip service, they do it. Together. This leadership model is the foundation for their philosophy about instruction. They utilize high-yield strategies. They differentiate for each kid. They expect all kids to achieve. They help all kids achieve. Together. Teachers watch other teachers. They have time to plan interdisciplinary instruction. They make time to address the social and emotional needs of their students. Building leaders are in the rooms of their teachers daily. When a teacher is off track, they call them out – in a straightforward, yet loving way. Why? Because it’s about the kids. Not them. Not their comfort level. Not a contract that says everything must be written down and only certain things can be said to a teacher. This brings me to the last leg of this stool – culture. The culture of these schools is insane. There isn’t a “gotta” culture amongst the leadership (teachers and principals). The buildings (in some cases schools are in one hallway or trailers!) radiate with positive messages about student achievement. Each policy, disciplinary practice, lunch schedule, extended day model, extended year model, and all the other boring stuff in a school that often gets blown off, is intentional. Every adult in that school has agreed to support that culture. My building is a classic example of lip service and limited action. I’m stressed out, overworked, and fighting for change within a system that pretends to care. There are caring, hard working adults just like me in my building, but we are all spinning our plates alone. We meet as a team and try to problem solve, but at the end of the day, few of us are carrying the load for the entire team. We are balancing a child’s future on a one-legged stool. This is unsustainable and prevents true progress.

So back to the essential question I hear often – why can’t this be done in a traditional public school? It can. But it takes all three of those elements in full force to make it happen. It takes adults who buy and promote a common culture. It takes parents, teachers, and building leaders to work as a team. It takes hard work, a desire to improve, a determination to grow, a willingness to push buttons, and uncomfortable conversations about measurements of learning.

This brings me to premise #6, how change works. Generally, people who want to improve a system work for reform from within. You organize, team with others, try to get involved in all kinds of committees/power structures, etc. But what happens? You beat your head against the same damn walls that aren’t going anywhere. So the next option is to go outside the system and try to bring actual revolution. Break the Egypt analogy or anarchist comparison or whatever. What happens there? Sometimes true change happens, sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes it goes back to the way it was.
In all cases, to bring true reform or revolution there must be a catalyst to start this change. Revolutions begin as a festering wound, an unsatisfying reform; the failed promises of leaders who pacify the masses with trite freedoms — the Band Aids for this wound. I see high performing charters as a catalyst. I view charters as approaching change internally and externally. It’s working “in the system” in terms of educating students, hiring quality teachers, using external measures (state tests, etc) to determine success. It also works “outside the system” by shining the light on the district, parents, and teachers who are in it for their summer vacations. It forces other people to go stop and go, “Hey, what are they doing over there? Can we do that here?” It allows teachers who actually want to make a difference make a significant difference!

When it comes to a charter law in WA state, here’s what I won’t support:

1. More segregation of marginalized populations.
2. Middle class/upper class kids getting more resources and fancy schools where they can be artsy (“boutique” schools as my husband call them).
3. The working class/poor, etc being left with the dregs in public schools – institutionally and financially.
4. Privatization of education.
5. No accountability to state/federal education mandates (think for second language learners, special education, etc).
6. No option for unionization if staff wants it.
7. Gate-keeping applications (I hate the idea of a lottery but it seems more equitable).
8. More mediocre schools that are failing to meet the emotional, social, and mental needs of children and youth.

And probably a couple other things I’m forgetting. I’ve seen the charter bill that is being proposed. It takes care of the above concerns I have. Is it perfect? Is there no way for anyone to manipulate it? Nothing is perfect. There are always holes that someone will find, but does that mean we shouldn’t examine it with a critical eye or accept it with reservations? Not to me.

In case you are interested in another perspective, here is a veteran teacher who agreed to travel to New York City to entertain the idea of innovative ways of doing things in education. Check back in his blog history – he was extremely against charters a few years ago, and I think he offers some unique experience/perspective.

Let’s be real – some of the research comes from think-tanks is questionably biased and funded by for-profit entities. However, their points are thought provoking and much of their research actual research. Robin Lake from the Center for Reinventing Public Education looks at the issue from a variety of angles. Additionally, this report focuses on the issue at the federal level.

If you’ve made it this far, congrats and thanks for reading. This is a hot button issue and I’m not out there to change minds. I’m more interested in open dialogue and hashing through issues than making it a for/against debate. Bottom line, I’m tired of adults making excuses at the expense of kids.

From an editorial in the Tacoma News Tribune:

Charter public schools are hardly the most important reform out there, but they do serve as a barometer of a state’s willingness to give every possible option to parents and children.

The highly motivated educators who typically launch charter schools sign a contract – the charter – that commits them to meet specified standards and gives them leeway to reach those goals.

These schools are hardly novelties anymore; they are legal in most states and common in many. Most of the public schools in New Orleans are chartered now. Across the nation, they routinely enroll disadvantaged students who are trapped in low-performing districts and don’t have the money for private academies.

One nice thing about charter schools is that their charters can be revoked – quickly – if they don’t deliver on their promises. Traditional schools are not bound by contracts; when they fail, they are too often allowed to go on failing and failing.

Charter schools are hardly a panacea. Washington could have a fantastic public education system without them. The problem is, it has neither. It has an inexcusably high dropout rate, especially among blacks and Latinos. It also has a miserable record of getting high school graduates into the college and technical training they need to succeed in the job market.

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From The Columbian….

Now that the state Supreme Court has affirmed what the state constitution proclaims — that basic public education is the state’s paramount duty — proper pursuit of that goal requires innovative thinking. That’s one reason charter school projects elsewhere have been supported by Seattle’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And that’s why charter schools should be tried in Washington.

Actually, our state’s stubborn resistance to charter schools could work in our favor. We can benefit from what those 42 other states have learned in at least three ways described by Robin Lake, a researcher at the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education. First, the state would make sure charter schools are opened by people who know what they’re doing. Second, there would be rigorous oversight based on specific expectations. Third, charter schools that don’t succeed would be closed.

The proposal Sen. Tom and others are formulating would likely focus on educationally disadvantaged children. The schools’ renewal rates would be based on success rates. Although results around the country have varied greatly, many charter schools have been successful in urban settings. Lake said, “We do have an unforgiveable achievement gap (in test scores among different ethnic groups and income levels) and a graduation rate that needs to be addressed. … In most states, charters are an important piece of the reform strategy because they bring in new ideas and new energy. It’s part of the mainstream options (in those states) for public schools now.”

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Rep. Eric Pettigrew and Sen. Steve Litzow, flanked by parents, community members and educators, announced two major education bills Thursday that will seek to improve the learning and achievement for all students, especially those attending low-performing schools.

“These bills would have impact right now,” Pettigrew said.

These bills are one step in the right direction, and we can’t wait for the perfect solution for the adults in the system, Litzow said.

“We have all been failing a generation of kids,” he said. “We cannot ask them to wait any longer. We must be taking steps.”

Pettigrew (D-Seattle) and Litzow (R-Mercer Island) are the primary sponsors of both bills in the House and Senate, respectively. Rep. Bruce Dammeier (R-Puyallup) and Rep. Glenn Anderson (R-Fall City) are each co-sponsoring one bill in the House, and Sen. Rodney Tom (D-Bellevue) is co-sponsoring both bills in the Senate.

The first bill promotes instructional excellence in Washington’s public schools. It builds on the state’s new teacher and principal evaluation system and calls for a comparable statewide system so all educators can be evaluated fairly based on individualized professional and student growth, and a consistent training of evaluators.

The second bill’s primary focus is to the close the achievement, or opportunity, gap in Washington. It authorizes the use of public charter schools and the creation of a transformation zone, or statewide school district, to increase opportunities and alternatives for students and those in persistently low-performing schools.

“These reform bills will provide the framework required to make sure every classroom throughout the state has a great teacher,” said Litzow, the ranking minority member of the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee. “Over the past decade the system has been trending in the wrong direction; Washington is one of only nine states where the opportunity gap has been growing and this legislation is key to transforming basic education for the benefit of Washington students.”

The two bills are expected to be submitted today and will then be assigned bill numbers.

Pettigrew believes Washington must use all alternatives to create a positive impact on the opportunity gap, including authorizing public charter schools and establishing a transformation zone.

“It’s time to confront the fact that our school system is failing the same set of students, year after year,” said Pettigrew, the Majority Caucus Chair in the House. “Traditional efforts over past decades have failed to close the achievement gap, and today we have the opportunity to lay the foundation for a new approach. This bill will provide a much-needed alternative for students who wouldn’t otherwise have one, without compromising the effectiveness of our public school system.”

Although the two bills deal with vastly different subjects, they both have the same goal: improve the learning and achievement of all students.

“As we discuss how to ensure every classroom is a quality learning environment for every child, it is critical that we recognize that innovations in learning are critical,” said Anderson, a co-sponsor on the teacher/principal evaluation bill. “Reaching every child in a way that shows them the path to be successful in school is what we should be striving for. These bills are a step in the right direction.”

The first bill creates a performance management system for educators based on the teacher and principal evaluation system currently being piloted in Washington. Beginning in the 2013-14 school year, the bill requires each teacher and principal to have an individual growth plan designed to help them increase their skills based in part on their performance evaluation.

“The most important thing we can do for our students is provide them classrooms with the highest quality teachers,” said Dammeier, ranking Republican on the House Education Committee. “This educator evaluation legislation will help adequate teachers become good, and good teachers become great. It will strengthen our schools and bring about better outcomes for our students.”

The bill also requires common components of the evaluation system to be developed and used by school districts to ensure fairness and comparability of evaluation results. Multiple measures of student growth data must be used as a significant portion of the evaluation.

In addition, the bill states that teachers and principals who receive the lowest evaluation rating – a 1 on a scale of 4 – for two straight years would lose tenure, or provisional status. Teachers and principals can gain tenure if they receive a 3 or 4 three times within a five-year period. A fair and rigorous dismissal process would also be established for those who fail to improve after receiving individualized training.

“Much effort has gone into better evaluating teachers and helping them refine their craft through real, meaningful feedback on effectiveness and potential for growth. That effort is wasted unless we take the next logical step and use that information to promote effectiveness, and ensure that our best teachers remain in our classrooms. This bill will help to do that.”

The second bills creates a statewide transformation zone, or school district, and authorizes the use of public charter schools in Washington, which would be joining 41 other states with charter laws.

The bill builds on Washington’s existing authority to intervene in the state’s lowest-performing schools by creating a transformation zone, a practice many major cities and states are beginning to use. The schools in the transformation zone, using existing state and federal funds, would be allowed increased flexibility to improve student learning through such innovations as hiring a staff that best meets the needs of students, longer and/or more school days, and use of technology to facilitate learning.

In addition, the bill authorizes the use of public charter schools that primarily serve educationally disadvantaged students to address the state’s persistent achievement gap issues. The charter schools, held to the same state and federal accountability measures, would be required to have an open enrollment and be operated only by non-profit organizations with proven track records in other states.

Among those standing with the lawmakers in support of the bills were representatives from Microsoft, the Washington Roundtable, Partnership for Learning, League of Education Voters and Stand for Children.

This is a summary of a bill introduced to the state Legislature today focusing on excellent instruction. We’ll update when a bill number is assigned.

A Bill to Promote and Support Instructional Excellence in Public Schools
Bill sponsors: Rep. Eric Pettigrew (D-Seattle) and Sen. Steve Litzow (R-Mercer Island)

The single biggest in-school factor affecting student success is the quality of instruction. Establishing policies that support and advance educators, based on professional evaluations of performance, will help ensure every student has the opportunity to achieve academic success and earn a family-wage job.

Washington is currently piloting an evaluation system for educators that will be completed in June 2012 and implemented statewide in the 2013-14 school year.

This legislation would put in place a system that uses the new evaluations to help determine school, classroom, and educator needs. Evaluation results would be used to identify professional development opportunities to support educators who need additional help and bolster the skills of high-performers.

By supporting educators who need additional help, and bolstering skills of high-performers, we hope to ensure improved educational achievement for every student.

Key elements of the bill include:

• Supporting teachers and principals by aligning professional development activities with individualized needs identified in their performance evaluation.
• Using multiple measures of student learning in the evaluations of teachers and principals.
• Allowing principals to hire and place teachers based on performance and skills match, as well as seniority.
• Using locally bargained polices to layoff teachers and principals based on performance.
• Granting continuing contracts (“tenure”) based on performance.
• Establishing a rigorous but fair dismissal process for teachers and principals rated ineffective if they have not improved after receiving targeted, individualized, intensive professional development, coaching and support.

To support the implementation of the evaluation system and these polices, the state should provide resources for:

• Training principals to use the evaluation system and how to objectively evaluate teacher performance.
• Training teachers on the evaluation system and how to participate most effectively.
• Expanding principal mentorship to ensure good leadership at the school level and effective use of the evaluation system.

Happy new year to you and yours! With my GB Packers on a bye-week, I’ll spare you the NFL superlatives this time around and get right to the big news of the day.  Make that the big NEWS of the day;

Suit Up: The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the state is not living up to its constitutional obligation to fully fund basic education. The suit we informally referred to as NEWS for the coalition that included the  McCleary and Venema families was filed in 2009. It  stipulated that Washington was (and is now) in violation of its constitutionally mandated “paramount duty” to” amply provide for the education of all children.”  Lo and Behold!  The state Supremes agreed.  In pretty direct language, the  ruling,  basically said “you gotta walk the talk.” The Court will stay engaged in the issue while the State implements HB 2261, which put in place a new definition of basic education and required the state to fully fund implementation of the definition by 2018. It’s not like the ruling was met with a thud in the legislature, but some are saying we will still see cuts this session.  For her part, the Governor seems to have gotten the message, touting an increase in the sales tax as part of the solution;   more importantly, seeing the damage that Tim Eyman’s 1053 has done to our state budgets and the state’s ability to fully fund education the Governor will bypass the Attorney General’s Office and “seek court guidance on the constitutionality of a law limiting tax increases.” That would be I-1053. (LEV is the lead plaintiff in the suit in question.) With exquisite clarity from the Supreme Court, the Governor clearly sees what we see: limiting the ability of the legislature to do its job is costing education – our kids – and by extension, putting the State at odds with its own constitution.

Speaking of exquisite clarity, you’d think that a ruling from the Supreme Court might do the trick in ensuring full funding of basic education for all of Washington’s kids. Think again. How to fund and how much is up to the legislature. Send them a message. Now would be good.

Sea(ttle) Sick: A recent survey about Seattle Public Schools shows pretty wide support for teachers in the districts as well as the individual schools of those polled. The survey showed not so much love for the school board. Interim Superintendent, Susan Enfield fared much better, though her name recognition wasn’t terribly high.  In results that don’t surprise, the further away you get from the teacher in the classroom the lower the good vibes. We may never know whether huge poll ratings could have convinced Enfield to stay in the hunt for the permanent job, but according to school board President, Michael Debell, she certainly has what it takes. With a national search for a new Super on the horizon, here’s some advice worth following.

Show Me the Money X 2: A lot has been said about the importance of effective teaching and the influence teachers have on student outcomes. A new study shows that high “value-add” teachers improve not just test scores but children’s lives. Higher value add can mean lower teenage pregnancy rates, higher college matriculation and higher incomes. Speaking of higher incomes, highly effective  teachers in DC are receiving bonuses this year  as a part of the evaluation system implemented while Michelle Rhee was Chancellor of DC Schools.

Happy Anniversary: You’ll excuse me for missing this one, dear, but how do you send flowers and chocolates to NCLB? The landmark education reform bill turns ten this week. In the “shocking!!” department, reviews are mixed. Education policy should be local. We should be honest about how we serve all of our kids. And held accountable. It’s a mixed bag. Meanwhile, we may hear soon about which states will be granted waivers from NCLB. Rumor has it Washington is considering a February run at a waiver – but given the backtracking we’ve done lately on some accountability measures, I wouldn’t get too excited.

Light Reading Dept.:

• A new study on the impact peers have on vocabulary acquisition in early learning settings should create more demand for universal PreK.
• In education, time matters. But what you do with it matters more.
• Hawaii’s Race to the Top grant funds are in jeopardy. Send them across the water, we’ll put ‘em to use.

Censored: And now, the highly anticipated and much debated list of Edu-kids’ banned words for 2012. These are the words that should only be uttered or written in the name of winning Scrabble or putting someone to sleep. Here we go, in no particular order – and no, there aren’t ten of them.

• Disproportionality – Can’t we just use “unfair” or “racist?” Any word that has absolutely no auto-correct suggestions and needs two hands to count syllables should be reconsidered
• Rubric – we’re not even using the word correctly. Come on.
• Mutual Consent – Is this Vegas?
• Unpack – Unless you’re talking about luggage, zip it.
• Value Add – I know, I know. I just used it. And there are super huge, major, smartypants reports coming out about “value add” this year. Unless you’re talking about putting more money on your Starbucks card, I don’t think anybody knows what you’re talking about. And even then, it would be add value.
• Digital Learning – Oh, Tom V.A., I’m sorry. I know this one hits you where you live. But do real people have any idea what it is you’re talking about? Classes on-line. Say it.
• Disaggregate – Any word with three g’s should be let go.
• LIFO – Words that aren’t words, I can’t take it.
• RIFF – See above.

That’s it for this week, Edu-pals. For my buddy Rob, go Lions. For everybody else, Packers/Patriots Super Bowl. Get used to it.

Over the past few years, Washington state has seen a steady increase of National Board Certified (NBC) teachers. In fact, Washington is second in the nation for the most new NBC Teachers. The increase in the number of NBC teachers began in 2007, directly correlating with a bill passed in the legislature that awarded a $5,000 bonus to those with National Board certification. With this added incentive, the number of NBC teachers went from 485 in 2007 to 919 in 2008, far surpassing the growth seen in previous years.

In addition to encouraging professional growth among teachers, the certification program also rewards teachers who work in “challenging” schools. Challenging schools are defined as having a certain percentage of students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch (50 percent for high schools, 60 percent for middle schools and 70 percent for elementary schools). NBC teachers who work in these schools can earn up to an extra $5,000 for their work. As the data stands, a quarter of all NBC teachers work in challenging schools.

Both the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and the governor’s office believe that this bonus program is an important aspect of teacher success in Washington. However, it still may see cuts in the face of a continual state budget shortfall. The governor’s budget did propose two options to cut the NBC teacher’s bonus: The first option would reduce the bonuses by 50 percent; the second would reduce them from $5,000 to $4,000. Both of these choices were included in LEV’s budget calculator. As of today, neither option has been enacted as the budget continues to be debated in Olympia.

The full story on the growing number of National Board Certified Washington state teachers can be found over at OSPI.

This blog post was written by Jody McVittie, MD, Executive Director, Sound Discipline and Terry Chadsey, MS Sound Discipline Board President. Read more about discipline and the school pushout issue on our website. To attend our Dec. 8th event in Tacoma, please RSVP here.

In the Seattle School District, African American elementary school students are nine times more likely to be suspended than their white peers. — (Seattle Public Schools, 2009)

Traditional school discipline systems are not working for many students — and it’s more than just a “student” problem, it is a system problem. The overrepresentation of students of color in suspension, expulsion, truancy and dropout rates is only the tip of the iceberg. It is time to look at what is “under the water” and rethink how schools, educators and our communities approach the many interactions between adults and students that, overtime, have come to result in tragic outcomes.

At a local elementary school, a small group of boys consistently got into fights and challenged other students at recess. Using traditional models to address the issue, staff removed the students from recess and assigned the offenders to a timeout. The hope was that the students would somehow learn to behave appropriately at recess. However, this tactic did nothing to solve the problem and disruptions continued.

The administrative team wondered what was missing. Why wasn’t the time-out working? Someone asked if these students were misbehaving because they simply didn’t know how to play. To test this theory, the team restructured the timeout as an opportunity to teach the students. Using simple games, instructors taught the boys how to take turns, how to collaborate and how to follow the rules. When the students became more skilled, they learned and practiced several popular recess games. As they mastered these games the misbehavior stopped.

Can you imagine the long-term impact of such a simple (and respectful) teaching intervention on each of these students? Rather than being shamed for awkward attempts to play with other students, the boys were taught the tools to address problems and resolve conflict — life skills that translate to the playground and beyond. Instead of “being bad,” the boys were accepted into the group and learned to have fun. Students learn to want to do the right thing on their own, because they have experienced what it feels like to be a contributing and connected member of their community. They feel good and it goes beyond behaving just because there is a fear of the consequences for breaking rules.

Often, when students have repeat issues with discipline, they get the message that school is not a place for them. Instead, if we taught students the skills to connect with peers on the playground and feel successful in building friendships, what might young people learn about their place in school? In the world?

The League of Education Voters has begun to shine a light on school discipline. There is a growing recognition that our current approach to addressing misbehavior actually pushes away the very students who most need school. It is time we question our assumptions about discipline in schools:

- We assume that social skills and classroom behaviors are learned outside of school. If a first grader doesn’t know their ABC’s, we teach them. However if they don’t know how to behave, we suspend them. There is clear evidence that increased social skills and community building actually deepens and enriches academic environments.
- We assume that when students make a mistake, we must teach them by creating a negative impact so that they will not repeat the problem behavior. We try to teach by hurting. We assume that through pain they will somehow learn to do something different next time. Never mind that the reason the student made the mistake was because he or she did not have the skill to be socially appropriate the first time. (Any parent is aware that knowing what one should do and actually applying it are two very different things.)
- We assume that showering students with positive and negative incentives will somehow teach them to do the right thing even when no one is looking – despite years of science that contradict this belief.
- We assume that students can learn even without a sense of a safe learning community, when brain science provides direct evidence to the contrary.

At Sound Discipline we believe students (and all of us) learn best when we are held to high standards and have the opportunity to repair our mistakes while maintaining dignity and self-respect. We work with schools to create environments where:

- everyone does the right thing – even when no one is looking,
- adults model and teach the social competencies necessary for academic engagement without sacrificing academic goals or focus,
- students are held accountable and expected to repair their mistakes,
- shame and humiliation are no longer used to “teach” or “have an impact,”
- students have opportunities to practice skills using their real life problems,
- mutual respect with cultural proficiency contributes to learning and academic excellence,
- students contribute to the classroom, to the school and to the larger community,
- reflection and continuous improvement are woven into daily practice, and all children demonstrate significant academic achievement.

We know from our data that this approach can address the tip of the iceberg and more. A holistic discipline approach fosters relationships that enhance academic achievement. We also know that it is not easy. This vision requires commitment, practice and willingness to change assumptions about ourselves, our students and about behavior. It takes leadership and willingness to learn from mistakes.

At its core is the recognition (well documented by science) that students with social skills feel safer, more connected; and more valuable and with that internal sense they are more able to address and master the academic challenges presented them. They are more likely to succeed academically and to become contributing members of our communities.

We hope you join LEV in creating this future.