The Bloom Is Off The Rose

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's stewardship of his city's education system has taken a troubling turn. The resignation of New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein precipitated an incredibly secretive process to name his replacement -- Cathleen Black, chairwoman of Hearst Magazines (you know, Cosmo, Esquire, Oprah) and former publisher of that beacon of journalism, USA Today. Black has absolutely no education experience nor has she ever sent her children to public schools or herself attended public schools. In fact, Black is so unqualified for the job (she does not have three years teaching experience and did not complete graduate work in education) that a waiver from David Steiner, the state education commissioner, will be required in order for her to actually work as NYC Schools Chancellor. (A Wednesday New York Times editorial calls on Steiner to "thoroughly vet" Black "to determine if she is up to the job.") Of course, Klein himself needed such a waiver, although he came to the job having been educated in the city's schools and having been a teacher for a short period of time.

To me, the clear message that Bloomberg has sent to New York City educators and veterans of the New York City Department of Education -- and other potentially qualified candidates across the nation -- is that a complete outsider with no experience in education and no record of public service is preferable to any candidate with experience as a teacher or school administrator. The more galling fact is that no search was undertaken to fill the Chancellor vacancy. The New York Times reports that no one else was "seriously vetted or considered -- and few of the usual suspects ... were even consulted." It appears that Black was tapped to run New York City schools primarily because of her business experience and because she travels in the same social circles as the Mayor. As Black herself said, the job offer "came out of left field."

I'm not some corn-pone, but I'm just left shaking my head here. Is this really the best process to select the leader of the nation's largest school system? Would Black have risen to the top if a true search had been conducted? Is this the type of executive management that voters had in mind when they elected Bloomberg mayor?

Is the selection of someone like Black good or bad for education? Klein argued on NPR that it doesn't matter because she will be surrounded by "extraordinary lifetime career educators.... The problem with public education is it's not operated effectively. It's operated as a political organization." I imagine that it may be freeing in some sense to not be tied down by prevailing orthodoxies, but it is troubling to me to think of a leader of such a complicated system and enterprise lacking any frame of reference whatsoever, let alone any detailed knowledge.

Here are some other takes:

• New York Times - Room for Debate - "Who's Qualified to Run New York City Schools?"
  
• Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic
  
• Valerie Strauss - The Answer Sheet
• Diane Ravitch - The New York Review of Books
• Dana Goldstein - The Washington Post
• Dan Collins - The Huffington Post
  

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The Manifesto, Income Inequality & Credibility

On Friday, I wrote a blog item ('Misleading Manifesto') chiding a group of urban superintendents for misstating educational research in a 'manifesto' published in Sunday's Washington Post. Teacher quality *is* important -- but it does not matter MORE THAN family income and concentrated poverty.

I am convinced that too many educational reformers are happy to 'spin' the truth for rhetorical purposes. I think this is exactly what we saw in this manifesto. While this may help to simplify messaging, target solutions at a more narrowly construed problem, and focus in on what education leaders have direct control over, it carries an inherent policy danger along with it. That danger is two-fold: (1) teacher policy reforms may be set up for failure by overstating their potential impact; and (2) more comprehensive strategies desperately needed to combat rising income inequality and growing poverty in our nation may be discounted and ignored.

For me, this isn't an issue of setting low expectations for children from poverty. We must train and support our teachers to have high expectations and develop the potential in all children. But, from a policy perspective, which is the world in which I work, to not even discuss poverty and inequality -- even though the research evidence points to its preeminence -- is akin to taking it off the table as a policy priority.

Nor it is a lack of belief in the ameliorative benefits that sensible teacher reforms can have on student outcomes by expanding the recruitment pool of teacher candidates, improving initial training and on-going support of classroom teachers, improving teaching and learning conditions within schools, providing differential compensation to teachers for leadership roles, difficult assignments, shortage fields, and demonstrated effectiveness, and more....

For teacher quality specifically, as I argued in my previous post, playing fast and loose with the facts isn't necessary. There is a powerful argument to be made based on the fact that teachers are the most important school-based influence on student learning. That's exactly what my colleagues at the New Teacher Center have done. We've made careful and honest declarations about teacher quality being the most critical within-school variable, but haven't framed the issue in a way that would make us education-industry Pinocchios.

And this leads us directly to the question of credibility. While I am personally inclined to support elements of what the superintendents' manifesto calls for -- and inclined to support elements of broader education and teacher reform agendas -- I am disinclined to associate myself with a clarion call that is dishonest on its face and misserves the national need for a critical conversation and accompanying set of public policies to address issues of economic inequality. That need extends well beyond the education system and requires responses much broader than merely strengthening the teaching profession and overhauling human capital systems.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently has been banging the drums challenging policymakers -- and Democrats, in particular -- to address our nation's historic levels of income inequality and rising levels of poverty. As reported by the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein, since 1976 "virtually all of the benefits of economic growth have gone to households that, in today's terms, earn more than $110,000 a year." Further, UNICEF reports that the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty among 24 OECD nations -- over 20% -- and the second-worst rate (barely ahead of bottom-dwelling Great Britain) of childhood well-being in the industralized world. Further, as Walt Gardner recently noted, a September 2010 U.S. Census Bureau report showed that the percentage of Americans below the poverty line in 2009 was the highest in 15 years. And the rise was steepest for children, with one in five affected. Think this has any bearing on U.S. students' relatively poor performance on international student assessments? Uh-huh.

So, let's talk about how to strengthen teaching and its central importance to student outcomes. But let's not fence ourselves in with self-serving rhetoric. Let's be honest in our communications and expansive in our thinking about policies needed to improve the lives of American children.

It's about education -- and a whole lot more.

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Misleading Manifesto

I'm sorry, but the "manifesto" published in today's Washington Post really pisses me off because it is built upon a false premise. It is authored by a number of urban school superintendents, including Chicago's Ron Huberman, New York City's Joel Klein, Washington DC's Michelle Rhee, and New Orleans' Paul Vallas. And it -- intentionally? -- misstates educational research.

"[T]he single most important factor determining whether students succeed in school is not the color of their skin or their ZIP code or even their parents' income -- it is the quality of their teacher."

No. That is patently false.

Now, listen here. I work for a teacher-focused, non-profit organization, the New Teacher Center (NTC). Wouldn't it be powerful to go out and say that teachers matter more than ANYTHING else? But they don't. In terms of school-based variables, they do. But in terms of all variables that impact students, they simply do not. No research says that. In our messaging at the NTC, we are always careful to say that teacher quality is the most important school-based variable for student achievement (examples here and here (on page 4)). That's accurate, honest and powerful in its own right.

So why not make the case for improving teaching in a honest fashion? There is an incredibly strong case to make that improving teaching quality is a critically important and policy amenable part of the solution to increasing student achievement and closing achievement gaps for disadvantaged students. But it's only part of the answer which requires solutions beyond the educational system. Let's not lose sight of that.

At the Shanker Blog, Matthew Di Carlo explored this same issue last month and took journalists to task for making similar claims. Back in July, he summarized existing teacher quality research.

September 16, 2010:

The same body of evidence that shows that teachers are the most important within-school factor influencing test score gains also demonstrates that non-school factors matter a great deal more. [emphasis added] The first wave of high-profile articles in our newly-energized education debate not only seem to be failing to provide this context, but are ignoring it completely. Deliberately or not, they are publishing incorrect information dressed up as empirical fact, spreading it throughout a mass audience new to the topic, to the detriment of us all.

Even though the 10-15 percent explained by teachers still represents a great deal of power (and is among the only factors “within the jurisdiction” of education policy), it is nevertheless important to bear in mind that poor educational outcomes are a result of a complicated web of social and economic forces. [emphasis added] People have to understand that, or they will maintain unrealistic expectations about the extent to which teacher-related policies alone can solve our problems, and how quickly they will work.

July 14, 2010:

But in the big picture, roughly 60 percent of achievement outcomes is explained by student and family background characteristics (most are unobserved, but likely pertain to income/poverty). [emphasis added] Observable and unobservable schooling factors explain roughly 20 percent, most of this (10-15 percent) being teacher effects. The rest of the variation (about 20 percent) is unexplained (error). In other words, though precise estimates vary, the preponderance of evidence shows that achievement differences between students are overwhelmingly attributable to factors outside of schools and classrooms (see Hanushek et al. 1998; Rockoff 2003; Goldhaber et al. 1999; Rowan et al. 2002; Nye et al. 2004).

Let's take Di Carlo's and Joe Friday's advice. Just the facts, please.

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Stupid Stuff from Skoolboy

Kudos to Dr. Aaron Pallas (AKA skoolboy) for his terrific post ("It's The Stupid System") today on the Gotham Schools blog.

He takes New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein and the Reverend Al Sharpton to task for their Huffinington Post piece which implies that there is an easy achievement-gap fix -- namely value-added assessment and merit pay alone.

As usual, skoolboy’s main concern is that Klein and Sharpton are talking about effective teachers without ever once discussing what it is that they do. Reward the good ones, get rid of the bad ones, it’s all about sorting teachers–and never about actually improving instruction. Let’s suppose that Klein, Sharpton and others are right–that it is difficult to tell which teachers are going to be highly successful when they start teaching, because the instruction teachers receive prior to taking over a classroom can’t fully prepare them for the challenges of an urban classroom. Why not focus on professional development, and assisting novice teachers in learning effective practices on the job? How does giving effective teachers merit pay and dismissing poor performers actually improve anyone’s practice?

I wholeheartedly agree with Pallas's take on this. I said as much in my post on Monday ("Measurement Is Not Destiny"). The human capital challenge can't just be about rewarding the best and dismissing the worst. It must also be about a focused effort to make the vast majority of educators more effective. That will require a comprehensive effort, including high-quality, job-embedded, sustained professional development and robust induction support.

UPDATE: Corey Bunje Bower at Ed Policy Thoughts has some thoughts on the Klein/Sharpton piece as well.

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Obama's Choices for Education Secretary

There is an interesting story today ('Obama education pick sparks conflict') by national AP writer Libby Quaid about President-elect Obama's looming pick of a U.S. Secretary of Education. It summarizes the behind-the-scenes struggle between the reform crowd and the traditionalist crowd within Democratic circles. The reformers would like to see Obama nominate the likes of Joel Klein or Arne Duncan, while the traditionalists would prefer Linda Darling-Hammond, Inez Tenenbaum or any number of current or former governors.

Here are my musings from a month ago ('What's Next?').

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