John Thompson is a former Oklahoma historian and inner city teacher who is now an education writer focusing on inner city schools.

When Oklahoma’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver was granted, local news celebrated a new era of “freedom and autonomy,” apparently believing that standardized testing will become less ubiquitous. But the waiver does not mean that educators who are tired of standardizing testing should be smiling, or that we will begin “a whole new way of educating children”. Neither, however, does it mean that a right-wing conspiracy is poised to take over local schools.

Basically, the Obama Administration’s NCLB waivers were designed to relieve pressure to teach to the test for 90 percent of the nation’s schools, while doubling down on ‘bubble-in accountability’ for the most challenging 10 percent, and imposing new standards for evaluating teachers. It may or may not be possible, however, for a poor state like Oklahoma to successfully comply with the federal mandates.

In other words, the federal government has forced Oklahoma to fly blind in regard to many of the experimental policies that it required for NCLB waivers. Combine all three of the new priorities being imposed on urban schools, and we have the potential for great good or great harm being done to poor schools.

Perhaps the biggest problem will not be the challenge of implementing any one of these transformational changes, but rather that all three tasks are being dumped on systems at the same time, even though the discredited old bubble-in route to reform has not been removed from districts’ plates. The best help that the state could provide would be to send the unmistakable message that schools are free to reject the discredited NCLB-type accountability, as they focus on future uncertainties.

The opinions stated above are not necessarily those of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

share this post

Betty Casey has taught high school English, middle school gifted and talented, and Freshman Comp., English Lit. and Humanities at the University of Oklahoma and Tulsa Community College. She is currently managing editor of TulsaKids Magazine, a monthly parenting publication.

In the past few months I’ve had the pleasure of watching three screenings about public education: “Waiting for Superman”, “The Race to Nowhere” and, most recently, “American Teacher.” Of the three, “American Teacher” contributed the most realistic and valuable information to the dialogue about what’s wrong and what’s right in American education.

The documentary follows five public school teachers. While “Waiting for Superman” blames teachers (and teachers’ unions) for everything from low standardized test scores to young people going to prison, “American Teacher” actually lets the teachers tell their story — and it’s a story of heartbreak and courage in the face of low pay, poor working conditions, and lack of respect.

Are there bad teachers? Sure. But does anyone seriously believe that our schools are suddenly filled with bad teachers? My children who went through Tulsa Public Schools were all well prepared for college. Like the dedicated teachers in the film, my children’s teachers were available early in the morning and late into the night. One of their high school math teachers would stay and tutor kids as long as they needed him, sometimes until 9 or 10 pm.

In a single classroom, a teacher has students with a variety of abilities, some non-English speaking students, students who are hungry or in pain, students whose parents may or may not get them to class every day, and, especially in high poverty areas, students who move from school to school several times a year. How is teacher effectiveness measured in this situation?

“American Teacher” points out that Finland has the best schools in the world, as measured by Program for International Assessment (PISA) tests. Thirty-five years ago, Finland’s schools were mediocre. They came up with a plan with input from teachers, the teachers’ union (yes, most of Finland’s teachers belong to a union), business leaders, and policymakers to improve the schools. After the plan was in place, they had the patience to let it work.

Some of these changes could work in the United States. One of the big differences between Finland and the U.S. is that Finland has very little poverty. Finland has socialized medicine, free preschool (formal schooling starts at age 7), and free college. School lunches are free to residents. Children in Finland go to school healthy, fed and ready to learn because of the high quality preschools they have attended.

For this to happen in the U.S., we would have to expand our early learning models, such as Head Start, Early Head Start, and the Educare Centers that we have in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. We would have to make a meaningful effort to make sure that all children had good health care and food. Children living in poverty would need wrap-around services – mental and physical health, nutrition, extra tutoring, care beyond the school day, early learning centers and transportation – in order to match Finland’s high educational outcomes.

Would this be expensive? Absolutely. Would it pay off in having more productive, better-trained workers and better citizens in the United States? Absolutely. Without good schools, the economy suffers on many levels.

Another difference is that Finnish industry leaders have not only promoted the importance of mathematics, science and technology, but also advocated for more attention to creativity, problem-solving, teamwork and cross-curricular projects in schools. A senior Nokia manager who served as chair of a task force on the national science curriculum stated:

If I hire a youngster who doesn’t know all the mathematics or physics that is needed to work here, I have colleagues here who can easily teach those things. But if I get somebody who doesn’t know how to work with other people, how to think differently or how to create original ideas and somebody who is afraid of making a mistake, there is nothing we can do here.

In implementing its reforms, Finland went the opposite way of the U.S., which is currently focusing more on the narrow knowledge required to take standardized tests.

Another difference between the United States and Finland is that people in Finland have high respect for teachers and the teaching profession. Teachers are given much more autonomy in how to achieve educational objectives with their students. Class sizes are small – 19 to 21 students – and there is lower teacher turnover. In the U.S., nearly half of teachers quit the profession before five years.

Can we change public education in America? I believe we can, and I believe that most of us can even agree on how to do it if we take lessons from the strongest performers worldwide. It would take hard work, money, and real leadership. We need to involve parents, educators, policymakers, unions, and administrators to create a strategic plan which addresses the real issues of poverty, school readiness, teacher salaries and training, teachers’ working conditions, and respect for teachers as professionals. This would be a difficult, but not impossible, first step. And I say “step” because if we only look at one issue, we fail.

The opinions stated above are not necessarily those of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

share this post

The last generation has seen the rise of education reform. This movement brought a profound sense of urgency to improving our schools, arguing that it is essential for the United States’ survival in the global marketplace. Consequently, reformers argue that data-driven accountablity, as well as an unflinching focus on classroom instruction, are more than a tough-love program for schools. They are the key to prosperity in the 21st century.

Counter-arguments by teachers and social scientists that “schools alone” can not overcome the deficits that many children bring to the classroom were seen as “excuses.” Attitudes hardened, and it became an article of faith that increasing student performance must be based on measurable improvements in teaching and learning within the four walls of the classroom.

The motives of this new generation of school reformers are righteous, but they have it backwards. America can no longer afford to separate education, health, and social services into separate silos. Since NCLB, our schools have focused on the narrow portions of children’s brains that are used for standardized test-taking. Tens of billions of dollars have been gambled on data-driven “reform,” and they have produced minimal gains in student performance.

But those costs could threaten our economic future. For instance, a recent discussion of obesity rates during NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show provided a glimpse at the “opportunity costs” of our ill-fated experiment with test-driven accountability. Similarly, it is hard to read the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s “F as in Fat” report without wishing the effort devoted during the last two decades to raise test scores had been directed towards teaching healthy lifestyles.

More than a third of our children are overweight, and less than a third engage in vigorous daily activity. But the trends are even more frightening. Fifteen years ago, no state had an obesity rate in excess of 19.4 percent. Now, the state with the least obesity has a rate of 19.8 percent. America’s obesity rate is projected to reach 50 percent by 2030.

Obesity kills more than 110,000 Americans every year. Our annual bill for obesity-related health costs is $150 billion per year. We will be paying $450 billion in additional Medicare costs in the next decade due to obesity. But only 10 percent of elementary school children have daily physical education.

The trends in Oklahoma are even worse. In 2010, 31 percent of adult Oklahomans were obese, and 67 percent were obese and overweight. Only 31 percent of Oklahomans engaged in exercise off the job. Our diabetes rate was rate 11 percent, and 41 percent of Oklahoman adults had hypertension. Oklahoma was #1 in the lowest percentage of adults who consume fruits and vegetables daily, and second from the bottom in the percentage of mothers who breast feed exclusively.

The most frightening thing about the trends is that Oklahoma has declined at such fast rates in so many crucial areas. Fifteen years ago, we were 40th in the rate of adult obesity, but now we are #7, meaning that we have gotten fatter faster than any other state in the nation. In 1995, Oklahoma was #49 in diabetes rates but now we are #6, meaning that we have had the nation’s second highest rate of increase. Fifteen years ago, Oklahoma was #30 in hypertension, but now we are #6, meaning we have had the fourth highest increase in the nation.

Unfortunately, prospects for Oklahoma’s students are no brighter. The Annie E. Casey Foundation “Kids Count” data book compiles a list of ten key indicators of healthy children. In 2000, Oklahoma ranked 40th in the nation in terms of those indicators. By 2008, we had dropped to 44th. Our state was in the middle of the pack in regard to a few of risk factors, and the economic challenges faced by our adults were not nearly as formidable as those in other states with similar challenges. But Oklahoma was 45th in Infant Mortality, 45th in Child Mortality, 47th in Child Deaths, 40th in Teen Deaths, and 43rd in Child Poverty.

I could go on. Some parts of the nation, it might be argued, are rich enough to leave no child untested and still have time and money for children’s health. In Oklahoma, however, we have no such luxury. We must hold the accountability hawks accountable. We need a tough-minded cost benefit analysis of teaching to a narrow part of the brain, neglecting the whole child, and then calling upon the separate parts of our fragmented and tattered social safety net to clean up afterwards.

Then we must reconsider the energy, time, and money devoted to aligning data systems, tests, and punitive evaluation systems. Those resources must be directed to the alignment of our human capital. To do that, we must unite all of our community resources into a team effort, without regard to whether providers call themselves educators, health care professionals, or social workers.

The opinions stated above are not necessarily those of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

share this post

John Thompson

The Oklahoma City Public Schools faced breathtaking educational changes in 2010.  The OKCPS adopted a year-round calender, as it lengthened the school day for several middle schools.  It was required by federal regulations to restructure three schools, while state law forced it to revamp teacher and administrator evaluations.  The district experimented with performance pay, peer review and mentoring of new teachers, incentives for middle school students, and contracting with Teach for America.  It finally committed to the expansion of all-day prekindergarten.

Implementing this slew of policy initiatives would be more than enough of a challenge for 2011.  The previous year’s best ideas - especially peer review, expanding the school day, and implementing early education - have been shown to be effective in increasing student performance, but only with high-quality implementation.  The district’s turnaround efforts, and incorporating test score growth into teacher and principal evaluations, could be beneficial or they could be disastrous.  The prudent policy would be to place a moratorium on new reforms, and concentrate on making these experiments work.

Meanwhile, the OKCPS faces an even greater challenge in the next fifteen months.  Next year’s seniors will need to pass four End of Instruction (EOI) tests in order to graduate. In 2007, about 2,250 freshmen entered OKCPS high schools, and 85 percent of them were non-white. Three years later, only about 331 black students remained in the district’s seven neighborhood high schools to take their junior year EOIs, and less than 55 percent of them passed their English III test.  Without an unflinching focus on this immediate challenge, our children of color will graduate at rates comparable to their counterparts in Detroit.

Incoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Janet Barresi has announced plans for increasing rigor. Done properly, increasing academic rigor need not reduce the graduation rate. A large body of research explains, however, why urban schools can not increase rigor without first laying a proper foundation. The types of efforts that the OKCPS started last year must be properly implemented before low-skill students can tackle a college prep curriculum. A rush to higher standards could create an even more disastrous dropout rate in Oklahoma City and perhaps Tulsa.

Barresi, and other Oklahoma conservatives, also praised the advice they have received from former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. If, or when, the rush to raise standards reveals more failure in urban schools, a second scenario is likely. Jeb Bush has launched a national campaign to increase charters, vouchers, standardized testing and online education.  If Oklahomans do not have the patience for the hard work of improving our entire educational systems, the backup plan is likely to be niche solutions, such as increased choice and ”virtual education” programs, that serve our easier-to-educate students.

The opinions stated above are not necessarily those of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

share this post

The law that could radically change Oklahoma’s school systems for good or for ill was  completely ignored in the latest debates between candidates for Governor and Secretary of Public Instruction on educational policy.   SB 2033, which passed in the final days of this past legislative  session in conjunction with the Oklahoma Race to the Top (RttT) grant application, has received almost no attention.  So maybe Oklahomans would like an overview of the federal education policy that prompted it.

I should first acknowledge my bias as a teacher in the lowest performing high school in Oklahoma, and as a believer that schools must respect students as whole social, emotional, and moral beings and not just a test score.  I served on the executive committee of Oklahoma City’s MAPS for KIDS, the product of a bipartisan coalition of business, labor, and the community, and which sought a humane learning culture for all.  Frankly I am embarrassed that the Chamber of Commerce tends to be more mindful of the dignity of my poor students of color than the educational bureaucracy.

In order to win a $175 million RttT competitive grant,  teachers now will be evaluated on test score growth. Teachers in high-poverty schools who do not meet their growth targets, that will be set by an experimental statistical model, are supposed to be fired. Pay for performance has been authorized; seniority rights have been largely abolished; standardized testing will be doubled; charter schools will be released from their prime method of regulation; and the closing of schools and the mass replacement of teachers have been mandated.

The key to these “reforms” is the Value Added Model (VAM) or algorithms that establish standardized test growth targets for teachers.  The National Academy of Science condemns the use of these theoretical models for high-stakes decisions as scientifically invalid. Two studies found there is a 10 – 15% chance PER YEAR that a teacher who is ranked in the top 20% in raising student performance one year will be ranked in the bottom 20% the next year. Worse, VAMs are even more inaccurate for high-poverty schools and when students are not assigned randomly.

The RttT, however, has not been a complete victory for the teach-to-the-test crowd. Originally, the input of social scientists and teachers was not welcomed by the authors of the RttT.  Because they were creating a brand new world, why worry about educational research?  Grant awards were to be based on the Department’s determination of whether RttT reforms were “transformative” enough. Under pressure from unions and scholars, however, RttT proposals were subjected to a peer review process. Since then, data-driven “reformers” have been exceptionally vocal in their complaints that these objective judges placed too much value on collaboration and achieving union buy-in, and they have invested in a huge public relations campaign against RttT proposals that they see as compromises.

At first glance, Oklahoma would seem to be a complete victory for data-driven “reform.”  SB 2033 and Oklahoma’s Race to the Top proposal allow for the firing of educators based exclusively on test score data, but they do not require it.  We could be heading towards an even more extreme regime of nonstop test prep and a legal Battle of Verdun as districts purge their veteran teachers, or we could collaboratively build on experiments that work, and reject the innovations that do not.

Our RttT also authorized “peer review” evaluations of teachers, modeled on a system developed by the American Federation of Teachers where mentor teachers assist struggling teachers and recommend the dismissal of teachers who do not improve.  Typically, peer review results in the efficient dismissal of the bottom 10% of teacher every year.  And the union has been open to The Grand Bargain where peer review committees including teachers and principals use test score data for teacher evaluation. While teachers cannot accept evaluations solely by management that use primitive test score data to drive the evaluations, we can support the use of that data by committees that have been trained in its strenghts and weaknesses.  And the AFT has called upon Ken Feinberg who led the victims compensation process for the World Trade Center and who is now doing the same for the Gulf oil spill, to analyze valid means of evaluating teachers.

But here’s the kicker.  The flipside of “the Grand Bargain” is that administrators must share control, and that runs contrary to education’s “culture of compliance.”  But the bipartisan collaboration of MAPs, as well as the RttT planning process, has created goodwill between business and teachers unions, along with the understanding of why we can no longer ignore the wisdom of teachers as we enter this risky new era

The opinions stated above are not necessarily the opinions of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

share this post

Since President Obama endorsed the mass firings of teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Island, my wife (who originally supported Hillary) has taunted me about teachers ripping their Obama bumper stickers off their cars.   When I explain my contradictory feelings on the President’s policy on schools, my wife’s eyes glaze over, so I will leave it to readers to judge whether continued, cautious support for the Obama policy is prudent or wishful thinking.

There are two schools of educational thought in the Obama Administration, as there is in school policy in general. Traditional educators draw upon generations of social science and the new field of cognitive science, and seek to better educate the entire human being. Drawing upon the work of Nobel Prize Laureate James Heckman and scholars like Diana Ravitch, they see early education as the key, as well as getting all kids to read for comprehension by 3^rd grade. Turning around the toughest high-poverty schools, and closing the huge Achievement Gap between Whites and children of color, requires a commitment to “the Heart,” as well as “the Head.” Improved educational outcomes for challenging populations require relationship-building, in addition to an engaging curriculum. Community schools that bring the diversity of the community into the school buildings, and bring poor students out into the community, are the most promising approaches.

A new generation of data-driven “reformers” have rejected the traditional approach and gambled that an unflinching focus on instruction can transform urban education. They dismiss any talk about socio-emotional factors or worries about problems outside of the four walls of the classroom as “Excuses.” ”Reformers” assume that tiny programs like Teach For America and KIPP can be brought to scale as long as educators have “High Expectations.”   Their coalition, which includes entrepreneurs, hedge fund innovators, and other billionaires; Bush Administration true believers in No Child Left Behind; and young neoliberals and leftists,  is united by an undying faith in data. Fundamentally, they believe that a wave of ”disruptive innovation” will transform education, and the Market will create a “Brave New World,” if “the status quo” is stripped away. By the status quo, these reformers mean unions, school boards,  social scientists, and anyone who doesn’t believe that “schools alone” can undo the effects of poverty. Data-driven “reformers” have the best public relations spin that billionaires can buy, and they dominate the editorial boards of great newspapers and middlebrow weeklies like Newsweek.

The civil rights community is split down the middle, often having a foot in both schools of thought. The Obama Administration is equally split; Secretary of Education Arne Duncan signed the manifestos of both camps.   Recent press coverage makes it seem like Obama has rejected his campaign statements, that condemned “bubble-in testing,” as he has pushed a tougher, meaner version of NCLB, but that is only half true.  Secretary Duncan has filled pivotal positions with directors of think tanks funded by Bill Gates, but despite the “reformers’” contempt for old school education reporters and university-based scholars, traditional education experts have not been completely excluded.

Before Obama, “reformers” ridiculed advocates of pre-natal health, early childhood education, school-based nutrition and social services, and pre-K, but now those efforts are recognized as essential. Despite “reformers’” dismissal of class size as an ingredient for improving schools, and their desire to use the budgetary crisis to get rid of high-salaried Baby Boomers (who typically hold more traditional educational values), $100 billion of stimulus spending saved hundreds of thousands of teachers’ jobs. The Duncan Administration is now pushing a $10 to $23 billion package to reduce education cuts, and he has rejected the data-driven “reformers’” demand that seniority rights be eliminated, and collective bargaining agreements abrogated, as a quid pro quo for saving jobs.

My own position on all this is that we did not elect Barack Obama as Chair of the School Board. He has placed his finger on the scales, creating incentives for untested policies, but it is unclear whether his administration will continue to micro-manage the process. The Administration seeks innovation, but it has not repudiated science, and if these “reforms” fail, I expect that his administration will tilt back to the side of veteran educators and give us a chance to lead the civil rights revolution of the 21^st century.

The opinions stated above are not necessarily the opinions of OK Policy, its staff, or its board. This blog is a venue to help promote the discussion of ideas from various points of view and we invite your comments and contributions. To see our guidelines for blog submissions, click here.

share this post

The vote on SB 1111 suggests that on educational issues, old assumptions and old alliances seem to be breaking down. The bill represents at least the third time in three years that Oklahoma Democrats representing low-income urban districts have opposed their party leadership and most of the organized educational interest organizations on education bills. In 2007, it was HB 1589, a bill to expand sponsorships of charter schools that revealed the beginning of a schism. That bill was passed and signed by Governor Henry. Last year, an especially nasty fight surrounded SB 2093, a private school voucher bill that proposed giving  a 50 percent tax credit to individuals, up to almost $5,000, who donate to a fund providing private school scholarships. The bill was defeated in the House, with only two Democrats – Jabar Shumate of North Tulsa and Rebecca Hamilton of South Oklahoma City – supporting it (18 Republicans also voted against). This year again saw bills to expand charter school sponsorship and private tax credits for private school scholarships, but much of the energy has focused on Sen. Jolley’s bill, labeled the Education Accountability Act.  The bill, which is being promoted heavily by the state Chamber of Commerce and Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition over the vigorous opposition of the State Department of Education, is based on the conviction that the public school system is not providing adequate evaluation and reporting of student performance. SB 1111 now awaits action by the Governor, who appears likely to veto the measure. 

So what’s going on here? At its essence, these battles represent a profound frustration and disappointment in the poor performance of public schools in low-income, disproportionately-minority urban neighborhoods and a belief that poor families deserve a wider array of choices for their children. In Oklahoma and around the country, African-American political and civic leaders, along with some liberal education reform advocates, have become vocal supporters of expanding the choices available to low-income parents through charter schools, and in some cases, private school vouchers. Last week, when an Oklahoma County District Court dismissed a challenge of Oklahoma’s charter school law, Rep. Shumate issued a press release that declared:

Today’s ruling is a victory for families in Tulsa and a loss for bureaucrats who would condemn the poor to a substandard education because of the circumstances of their birth. I believe education is the civil rights struggle of 21st Century America and have actively supported the efforts of charter schools, which are proving that all children can learn and achieve, regardless of poverty or family background. If the Tulsa schools had succeeded in their lawsuit, they would have effectively turned their back on the neediest children in our state.

This movement for expanded choice has run up against strong opposition from public school interests, including the school boards, superintendents, teachers and the State Department of Education. The votes on SB 1111  suggests that a high level of distrust has developed between the public school system and the dissident Democrats.

Interestingly,  none of the urban Democrats who have supported school choice bills and the Education Accountability Act have supported SB 834, the controversial effort of Senate Republicans to give public schools greater flexibility by easing an assortment of school mandates and making it easier to dismiss teachers. Public school boards and Superintendents have strongly supported SB 834, with some arguing that public schools should be allowed to operate more like charter schools. For Rep. Shumate, however, allowing whole districts to become “like charter schools” actually diminishes choice. When I asked him to explain his position on SB 834, he asserted that “best practices have proven that charter schools function best because families that attend and teachers that work in those environments had the option to choose it as an alternative. Forcing teachers and famiies into a deregulated system is counterproductive to what makes charter schools unique – the element of choice.”

Not too long ago, the education debate at the Capitol did not extend to much more than funding, teacher pay and class sizes. As the debate has broadened to include such issues as charter schools, testing, merit pay and tenure, new perspectives, new alliances, and new conflicts have emerged.

OK Policy looks forward to being a voice in these debates, and would love to hear your points of view on SB 1111 and other education issues facing the state.

UPDATE: On April 30, Governor Henry vetoed SB 1111, citing concerns about its constitutionality, costs, and effectiveness. There’s talk of a compromise in the works.

share this post