Becoming Diane Ravitch

Even before Alexander Russo's tweet last week ("I read somewhat [sic] that you should wait at least 30 min between switching sides and diving back into the debate, just like eating & swimming"), I was drafting this blog item about Diane Ravitch and had landed in just about the same place.

I struggle in making a professional assessment of Diane Ravitch's conversion from a Lamar Alexander-era U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education and a No Child Left Behind proponent to chief curmudgeon on all things draped in education reform. Her past explanations about "accumulating evidence" and getting "caught up in the rising tide of enthusiasm" for school choice don't seem to tell the whole story. I'm not suggesting she's insincere, but I just don't understand how she got from here to there.

Don't get me wrong. I find myself in agreement with many of Ravitch's recent statements, especially those about the one-sidedness and rhetorical hyperbole surrounding Waiting for Superman and other education reform PR vehicles, such as NBC's Education Nation. And I think she is right in her efforts to recast what education reform is or should be. So it's not that I think that people don't have the ability to change. It's more about trying to process and understand so fundamental a change that takes someone from being a ringleader for an accountability-driven education system to a few years later being the foremost national critic of educational accountability, charter schools, and business-style approaches to education reform. How could a highly educated person have gotten it so wrong and so immediately reversed herself? Perhaps I should just go and read her book and see if the answer lies within?

Ravitch doesn't make my job of processing her transformation any easier with her misleading tweets and blog posts. On 9/23/2010, Ravitch tweeted about the recent Vanderbilt University teacher merit pay study and its connection to the federally funded Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF):

Vanderbilt U study discredits merit pay so next day USDOE hands out hundreds of millions for...merit pay. Blind to evidence and research.

Really?!? Ravitch is too intelligent not to know that she is engaging in deliberate simplification in support of her apparent stance against differentiated compensation of teachers. With spin like that, she should go run a political campaign. 'Tis the season, after all. Ravitch is engaged in the same kind of hyperbole that she rightly criticizes in what Alexander Russo has taken to calling "reformy types".

The National Council on Teacher Quality provides a wise counterpoint to Ravitch on the merit pay study here:

Good teacher pay strategies are never written in a vacuum: they're part of a well-thought out system of incentives and professional supports designed to attract and keep the best teachers.... First off, it's no surprise that the findings showed no correlation between performance pay and increasing student achievement, meaning that the very premise of the study might be called into question. Performance pay is a reward system designed to send strong signals that the profession honors and rewards results but, perhaps even more critically, it should increase the profession's appeal to individuals who might not otherwise consider teaching, convinced that the profession disdains excellence. It's a silly notion to think that teachers leave their "A" game at home, absent the promise of a little extra pay.

Funded TIF proposals -- and the federal program itself -- are about much more than pay tied to student test scores. Proposals all have a compensation component, but also embed other critical elements such as classroom evaluation, professional development and collaboration. As examples, check out the CLASS Project led by the Chalkboard Project in Oregon, Chicago Public Schools District #299, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards proposal for the state of Maine and Richmond, Virginia, and several successful Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) proposals, including one in Knox County, Tennessee.

Absolute, steadfast consistency in the face of mounting or available evidence is not my suggested goal here. Blind faith and arrogance are found in too many education advocates and policymakers on all sides of the debate. So, at a certain level, I appreciate Ravitch's conversion. But the credibility of her current positions and statements are, in part, determined by a plausible explanation for that evolution.

As a final thought, I recognize that I've been especially critical of some education reformers and reform ideas as of late (here and here and on Twitter). Given that I place my personal views somewhere in the middle between the most aggressive reformers and the most steadfast defenders of the educational status quo, I only felt it appropriate to share some nagging questions I've had about someone on the opposing side of the debate.

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Research: Attracting New Teachers to Urban Schools

New research led by Tony Milanowski of the University of Wisconsin-Madison provides more evidence that increasing teacher pay may not be the best approach to attract new teachers to high-need, hard-to-staff urban schools. A key finding of the study -- published in the International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership -- which explored job factors important to pre-service educators was that "working conditions factors, especially principal support, had more influence on simulated job choice than pay level."

'Policy implications' include:

• "[M]oney might be better spent to attract, retain, or train better principals than to provide higher beginning salaries to teachers in schools with high-poverty or a high proportion of students of color."
• "[I]nduction programs and curricular flexibility are important to new teachers. The finding that induction programs are attractive, combined with evidence that such programs can be
  effective in reducing teacher turnover (e.g., Ingersoll and Kralick, 2004; Smith and Ingersoll, 2004), suggests that urban districts may want to implement high-qualityinduction and mentoring programs, especially for new teachers in schools with high proportions of poor students or students of color."

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Duncan Speaks

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan today delivered a major speech on the Obama Administration's teacher quality priorities before the National Education Association. He challenged the NEA to think differently about approaches to teacher compensation, while thanking NEA for its support of National Board teacher certification. He also said that the Adminstration was not interested in imposing reforms on teachers, but wanted to work with educators to develop such reforms.

Here are some brief excerpts -- on teacher pay and reform:

I am big believer in this program, but let's also be honest: school systems pay teachers billions of dollars more each year for earning PD credentials that do very little to improve the quality of teaching.

At the same time, many schools give nothing at all to the teachers who go the extra mile and make all the difference in students' lives. Excellence matters and we should honor it—fairly, transparently, and on terms teachers can embrace.

The President and I have both said repeatedly that we are not going to impose reform but rather work with teachers, principals, and unions to find what works. And that is what we did in Chicago. We enlisted the help of 24 of the best teachers in the system to design a pilot performance compensation system. We also sat down with the union and bargained it out.

It was based on classroom observation, whole school performance and individual classroom performance, measured in part by growth in student learning. The rewards and incentives for good performance went to every adult in the school—including custodians and cafeteria workers—not just the individual teachers.

Where you see high-performing schools—it's the culture—every adult taking responsibility and creating a culture of high expectations.

On seniority and tenure--

And I'm telling you as well—that when inflexible seniority and rigid tenure rules that we designed put adults ahead of children—then we are not only putting kids at risk—we're putting the entire education system at risk. We're inviting the attack of parents and the public—and that is not good for any of us.

I believe that teacher unions are at a crossroads. These policies were created over the past century to protect the rights of teachers but they have produced an industrial factory model of education that treats all teachers like interchangeable widgets.

On data, student assessment and teacher evaluation--

Now let's talk about data. I understand that word can make people nervous but I see data first and foremost as a barometer. It tells us what is happening. Used properly, it can help teachers better understand the needs of their students. Too often, teachers don't have good data to inform instruction and help raise student achievement.

Data can also help identify and support teachers who are struggling. And it can help evaluate them. The problem is that some states prohibit linking student achievement and teacher effectiveness.

I understand that tests are far from perfect and that it is unfair to reduce the complex, nuanced work of teaching to a simple multiple choice exam. Test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation or tenure decisions. That would never make sense. But to remove student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible.

It's time we all admit that just as our testing system is deeply flawed—so is our teacher evaluation system—and the losers are not just the children. When great teachers are unrecognized and unrewarded—when struggling teachers are unsupported—and when failing teachers are unaddressed—the teaching profession is damaged.

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