Kappan is close to announcing a set of themes for the 2010-11 publishing year. Here’s one that’s ready to share now. Please spread the word to your colleagues. This will take you to a PDF that you can send to colleagues: www.pdkintl.org/kappan/docs/KappanCall_0310.pdf

Theme: Digital kids, innovation, and stone-age schools

Deadline for submissions: June 15, 2010

Publication month: December 2010/January 2011

This issue of Kappan will explore topics related to how classrooms employ new technologies for learning and how new technologies outside the classroom are influencing learning and learners. Kappan editors are interested in reviewing a broad range of manuscripts that address this topic. Some of the questions that interest us are these:

• Do new technologies change how students learn? Do they change how students read and write, study, or think? What important attitudes and skills are lost or improved in the shift to new technologies?

• What’s the future of online student and professional learning? Do the standards change when new forms of technology are available?

• What’s the next wave of technology? How will it change what we believe about teaching and learning?

• When schools embrace new technology, does student learning improve? Where are there examples of this?

• What should schools avoid when confronted with new technologies?

• What legal and ethical issues are raised by new technologies?

Please review Kappan’s Guidelines for Writers before submitting a manuscript. www.pdkintl.org/kappan/write.htm

I posted a six question quiz in an earlier blog entitled, “A Quiz on No Child Left Behind – Who Said What?”

All right, it was a difficult quiz with trick questions, not the kind of quiz teachers should give to students; and you already figured it out—I was trying to make a point.

When it comes to reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) currently known as No Child Left Behind, Democrat and Republican education thought leaders agree on many of the things that need to be changed.

I promised I would give you the answers so here they are, and please correct your own papers.

• Statements on ensuring 100% student proficiency by 2014; version (a) was offered by a Republican; version (b) a Democrat.
•  State standards; (a) Democrat; (b) Republican
•  Remedies/sanctions; (a) Democrat; (b) Republican
•  Student assessment; (a) Republican; (b) Democrat
•  Low performing schools; (a) Republican; (b) Democrat
•  And finally, highly qualified teachers; (a) Democrat; (b) Republican

Tell me if you got all the answers right and I will send you a fabulous prize something.

Are you wondering who are these two highly recognizable Washington-based education thought leaders?

The Democrat is Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy (CEP).  For several years, Jack served as general counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Labor while the Democrats were the majority party. He is a well-known and highly regarded Democrat, and his suggestions are reported in a recently released CEP document entitled, Better Federal Policies Leading to Better Schools.

The Republican is Chester (Checker) Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan administration.  Like Jack, he is highly regarded but clearly a Republican. His suggestions were reported in his weekly bulletin, The Gadfly, volume 10, number 5, February 4, 2010. 

I will be the first to admit that Jack and Checker disagree on lots of education policy issues.  However, on these six points, two highly respected individuals seem to agree more than disagree.

I think it would be helpful to congressional leaders if they could hear from education leaders who represent both political persuasions on what they agree should be changed in reauthorizing ESEA, allowing them more time to debate issues where there continues to be disagreement. Will it happen? Unfortunately not.

Bill

Hopefully you have had a chance to read, the February Kappan article, “Tying Together the Common Core of Standards, Instruction, and Assessments,” by Vicki Phillips and Carina Wong. This article is available to all on the public side of the PDK website so encourage others to read it. View Free PDF

The article certainly supports the common core standards for many reasons and lays out some of what must follow in the states for these to become reality. A question I have is how will all of this get to the teacher level to make an impact? When will we start to see changes in state assessments?

If you are interest in more on this topic – on Tuesday, March 16, at 4:00 p.m. Eastern, PDK will have our first Kappan Conversations: Beyond the Printed Page webinar with Vicki Phillips and Carina Wong. In case Vicki’s name is not familiar to you, she is the education program director at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Joan Richardson will host this discussion.

Recently, two highly recognizable, Washington DC-based education policymakers offered suggestions for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).  One of these individuals is a well-known Republican; the other is a well-known Democrat.

Here’s a quiz. For each statement below, identify if it was suggested by the Democrat or the Republican.

Proficiency

a. Eliminate 100 percent proficiency by 2014.

b. Eliminate the unrealistic goal of 100% of students scoring at the proficient level by 2014

Standards

a.  Change state standards to make them more rigorous and consistent across states.

b.  Get rid of wildly discrepant state standards and cut scores that lead to non-comparable results and mean that a school’s fate depends more than anything else on what state it’s in.

Remedies

a.  Eliminate federally prescribed sanctions for schools that don’t meet AYP targets, and federal requirements for school choice and supplemental tutoring.

b.  Quit being far too prescriptive about what states/districts are supposed to do with/about/to their low performing schools (and districts), little of which then actually happens; the choice provisions aren’t working.

Student Assessment

a.  Stop disallowing use of “multiple measures” to determine AYP, leading to inordinate emphasis on reading and math skills; achievement “growth” should count, too—for all kids, not just those nearing proficiency.

b.  Change state assessments and improvement measures to align them with common standards, and cover a broader range of subjects, skills, and outcomes.

Low Performing Schools

a.  Stop identifying far too many schools as “needing improvement” rather than focusing on the most troubled.

b.  Add approaches for supporting and intervening in low performing schools

Highly Qualified Teachers

a.  Eliminate the current federal criteria for determining which teachers are highly qualified.

b.  Eliminate the highly qualified teachers section

Again, for each of the six sets of statements, decide which one, “a” or “b” was suggested by the Democrat and which one by the Republican. Come back in a couple of days to check your answers.

Who said bipartisanship in Washington was dead?

Bill Bushaw

I just sat in on a White House conference call about President Obama’s proposed 2011 budget for K-12 education. You can view a press release outlining key budget points at the United States Department of Education website.

The budget includes a $3 billion (yes, that starts with a “b”) increase in ESEA funding, but that increase is for competitive programs like the continuation of Race to the Top (RTTT) and the Investing in Innovation (I3) fund. Of course, this assumes that ESEA will be reauthorized during this session of Congress, something that the Learning First Alliance supports (see my earlier post, Reauthorize ESEA ASAP).

The budget also proposes replacing the accountability system established in No Child Left Behind with a new system built around the goal of helping all students graduate college- and career-ready—a very laudable goal and one that I will support with every ounce of my being.

I was also delighted to see a proposed $269 million for teacher and leader recruitment and preparation. PDK supports the Future Educators Association® (FEA), the only international program that helps recruit and prepare middle-level and high school students to become the next generation of great teachers, particularly those from underrepresented populations and those interested in teaching in high-need areas.  You can bet that we will be looking to support K-12, community college, and university partners in establishing great pipelines to get the best and brightest into the teaching field.

Of course, there’ll be lots of controversy as this budget attempts to consolidate 38 ESEA programs into 11 funding streams. But listen to this—it’s the ultimate carrot. (Bugs Bunny, are you listening?) If ESEA is reauthorized this year, the President will send Congress a budget amendment that requests up to an additional $1 billion for ESEA programs.

What’s my take at 60,000 feet?  This president is deadly serious in his belief that high-quality education is the path to greater individual equity and our nation’s collective security. Care to weigh in?

I rattled around the country quite a bit growing up — 18 moves and 10 schools in my first 18 years. And, no, neither of my parents was in the military!

At a young age, I learned that different schools had different expectations for kids and different ways to teach those kids. I started learning to read by the “see and say” method in Maryland only to move to suburban Chicago and discover that phonics was actually the way to learn. Later, I found that math and English in a Wisconsin factory town were a whole lot easier than the math and English in a college town in Michigan.

That unintended exercise in experiential learning has had a profound impact on my understanding and feelings about standards. Why did teachers in Michigan expect me to learn math that teachers in Wisconsin did not? Why were the demands in English so much higher in Michigan than they had been in a neighboring state?

I have, in many ways large and small, abandoned my belief that local school boards and local school districts have the wisdom to make decisions about what children need to learn in order to be prepared for life after high school. There may have been a time when so many graduates worked in agriculture or local industries that it made sense to trust local authorities to decide what education was necessary to be successful in the local community. (Although I think the truth is that local school boards and local educators never set “standards,” they merely bought textbooks and, thus, always ceded such decision making to someone outside the community.) When even many mom-and-pop operations confront global issues, however, knitting together a framework for education that works for children everywhere is imperative.

Having standards that are accepted across the nation is just the beginning for creating a cohesive education system. As Vicki Phillips and Carina Wong point out in their article, “Tying Together the Common Core of Standards, Instruction, and Assessment,” www.pdkintl.org/kappan/index.htm developing instructional units and assessments aligned to the Common Core of Standards must be the next work.

Agreeing on standards is essential to ensure that we prepare teachers well for tomorrow’s classrooms. As University of Michigan’s Deborah Ball said to me during an interview last summer, how can we know what teachers should know and be able to do in a classroom until we know what we expect students to learn? That really is so very basic.

Then, consider the role that standards will play as we begin to break out of the physical boxes that are schools today. Tomorrow’s students won’t be attending schools that are in physical places. We can anticipate that students will soon be customizing their learning by shopping for education in online malls, selecting among a menu of courses and teachers, perhaps only applying to their local district for the funds to pay for the work and for verification that they’ve met graduation requirements. Such online learning options means students will need the ability to move seamlessly from one course to another or one school to another, confident that everything is linked to a clear set of standards that applies to every education provider.

Teachers, too, will develop deeper individual expertise and in entrepreneurial fashion begin to serve students who want the knowledge they have to offer. Where I moved physically from one site to another, tomorrow’s students will move virtually, studying with teachers across the country and around the world, again all made possible by standards that guide every course.

Standards is an essential step towards ensuring equity and quality learning for all children everywhere. Both our democratic and our competitive needs demand that we move ahead quickly to embrace standards that apply to schools from one end of the country to the other.

I have not met many teachers, principals, or superintendents who think highly of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). While some grudgingly admit that it has helped them focus on lower-achieving and at-risk children, they also point to the narrowing of the curriculum, the over-the-top focus on standardized testing, and the putative remedies that don’t adequately address needed education reform. Its implementation has been highly controversial, and the annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward their Public Schools confirms that it has very little public support.

If that’s the case, then why would the Learning First Alliance (LFA), a partnership of 17-major national education associations including PDK, send a letter to President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan offering support to reauthorize ESEA during the current legislative session? (For more information, visit the PDK Newsroom where you can read a press release and the letter.)

ESEA was first passed in 1965 and has been reauthorized several times since. The last reauthorization took place January 2002 when the act was renamed No Child Left Behind (NCLB). For over 40 years, ESEA has provided significant funds to state education agencies and local school districts. Simply abandoning the legislation is not an option.

However, even the original architects admit that while it has helped the nation focus on the needs of ALL children, now eight years after its passage, we know the legislation is deeply flawed in several ways. That’s why the LFA executive board, which represents over 10 million parents, educators, and policymakers, voted unanimously to fix this legislation as soon as possible. A delegation of LFA members will meet with Secretary Duncan to discuss plans on how we can work with the administration and Congress.

You should know that the 17 member associations are not in complete agreement on the changes necessary to improve the legislation, and the associations with advocacy interests will address those independent of each other.    

In this political climate, it is possible that ESEA will not be reauthorized prior to the fall elections. If that happens, LFA will work with Secretary Duncan and his staff as they disseminate policy directives designed to reduce the negative features of NCLB while keeping its important focus on helping all children reach their full potential, particularly children at risk.

What are your thoughts?

Here’s one for you. The dean of a major college of education says “it is misguided to pay teachers more for earning a master’s degree.” Look up the antonym to “self-interest” and it will reference this statement.

In a commentary, “The Master’s Pay Bump,” Education Week, December 2, 2009, Patricia Wasley, dean of the University of Washington’s College Education in Seattle, and Marguerite Roza, a research associate professor suggest exactly that.

The statement is based upon the publication in July 2009 of “Separation of Degrees: State-By-State Analysis of Teacher Compensation for Master’s Degrees.” The report uses research conducted at the Center for the Reinvention of Public Education.

In a nutshell, Patricia and Marguerite suggest if higher teacher salaries are automatically linked to advanced degrees, why wouldn’t many teachers select the most expedient and cheapest degree?

That’s exactly what my daughter‘s friend did, a delightful woman who started teaching five years ago—someone I respect as an excellent mathematics teacher. But in talking with her, I can comfortably say that she picked the easiest path to earn her master’s degree and learned very little about more productive teaching methods leading to higher student achievement. She got her “master’s pay bump” quickly but wasted her time and money on a degree that had no meaning. HOW SAD!

Patricia and Marguerite are not recommending eliminating graduate work for teachers.  Rather, they recommend that colleges of education must do a better job aligning graduate work to help teachers increase student achievement, and that teacher pay should be linked to improved student outcomes.

Granted, we face challenges in creating a rational way to link teacher pay to improve student outcomes, but we have more tools now than we’ve had in the past, and several centers including the National Center for Performance Incentives at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University are doing important research on the issue.

I applaud Patricia and Marguerite, but I’m curious. Is this too much accountability for other colleges of education? 

Bill

I’ll be spending part of my weekend with the deans of the leading schools of education. They’ve formed a group called the Deans’ Alliance and meet several times a year to share concerns about teaching, learning, and research. With their cooperation, Kappan launched a new column this year titled R&D. Each month’s issue of Kappan features the work of one or more researchers from these major research universities. Since September, we’ve had the privilege of showcasing the work of Mark Wilson (University of California, Berkley), Deborah Ball (University of Michigan), Heather Hill (Harvard University), James Spillane (Northwestern University), Jonathan Francis Osborne (Stanford University).  In the February issue, we’ll feature work on informational literacy by Nell Duke (Michigan State University).

The R&D column is short — just four pages — but long enough to give readers a good sense of this new work. It provides a great springboard for anyone who wants to explore each topic in more depth — the references alone would provide a substantial resource for anyone to use.

If you haven’t already done so, I hope you’ll take time to read and comment on those columns each month. (If you’re a member of PDK, simply log into the web site — www.pdkmembers.org/members_online/members/login.asp?tp= — then go to the “find an article” feature on the Kappan page to locate a topic or author.)

Also, I’d love to know what areas of research would most interest you. You can add a comment about that here.

by Sandee Crowther, President, PDK International

We have just completed the “Aughts” (2000-2009) and for many of us a great deal has changed!  Some things many of us were using are beginning to disappear or even become obsolete!  How many of you still use dial up internet, cameras with film, state and city maps to locate something, email accounts that you have to pay for, public pay phones, PDAs, VCRs, calling 411, movie rental stores??  You may still use some of these things but many of them are becoming obsolete.  Some newspapers and magazines are going out of business, some people no longer have a landline, even phone books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and record stores may disappear.

Some of these things are disappearing because we buy, use, and love the new gadgets: iPhones, iPods, flatscreen TVs, GPSs, TiVo DVRs, USB thumb drives, and Kindles.  Think about how this is changing how we do things and what we use and need to have with us.  Yes, I even got rid of my old Palm Pilot and older version cell phone and shifted to an iPhone and love having everything I need in one product and using intuitive touch rather than a bunch of buttons.

But the bigger questions for educators is what does this mean for those we are NOW educating or will be educating in the near future?  What might become obsolete in education by the end of this new decade?   Some possibilities: desks, homework, fear of Wikipedia, lockers, typical cafeteria food, outsourced webmastering (use the students instead), paperbacks, language labs, education classes that don’t teach or model the use of  technology, the role of standardized tests in college admissions, even paper????

We need to prepare our students for this century with the skills they need: communication and collaboration,  critical thinking and problem solving,  information, communications, and technology literacy, leadership and responsibility.  At the same time we need to let them use the tools they already know how to use as a part of their learning process.

So “What’s on Your Mind”  as we figure out how to provide the best education possible for our students?