Randi is Right

keep wondering what is going on when I keep agreeing with the teacher’s unions. Randi Weingarten, who I have not quite figured out, had this to say about National Standards at a hearing on the Hill. From the Alliance for Excellent Education newsletter –

"She stressed that simply “getting standards right” would not be enough and called on Congress to fix the “fundamentally flawed accountability system” in the No Child Left Behind Act. “If we are not testing the right information, or the accountability system is flawed, or the tests are inadequate, or teachers are not supported, we will not reap the rewards a standards-based reform system offers,” she said. “As we look ahead to NCLB reauthorization, we need to address these issues in order to fulfill the promise of offering all students a high-quality education.”

She nailed it on this one. My hope is that people get the whole quote right and not just say that AFT thinks NCLB is a fundamentally flawed accountability system – or worse boil it down to AFT hates tests.

I think the unions have a messaging problem. They headlines say that they hate “teaching to the test” and many in the unions are anti-test. But when you really listen and read the quote above, they are really concerned with the tests and the standards we are using – which actually is a viable concern.

The test is supposed to be aligned to the standards. And (this is the real key here) the standards are supposed embody everything someone should learn during that particular year in school. So if the standards are correct and the test is aligned to the standards then, by default, teaching to the test is actually teaching what someone should learn during that year.

What Randi clearly communicates is that our standards aren’t all that great and the tests aren’t all that well aligned. So teaching to the test is not the most productive use of teaching time. Fixing that is critical – but time consuming and costly – if we are ever to truly improve education as a nation.

You can't push a rope.

It is hard to fully understand everything that is going on in every state. So it came as a surprise to me yesterday when I was in Springfield Illinois that the demise of Governor Blagojevich was written in stone long before the unanimous vote was taken. As we walked around the capital, it became very clear that the sin of selling Obama’s senate seat was just a miniscule tip of the ice burg. Apparently his approval rating had fallen to 18% BEFORE the FBI press conference about senate seat for sale. He didn’t even come to the capital during the session much and almost nothing got passed last year due to his arrogance and inability to play well with others. The hatred for this man in the state house on both sides of the aisle was just amazing.

It sounds very familiar – certainly not as extreme – but familiar. The Bush administration became known for bullying, steamrolling and pretty much the “my way or the highway” mentality. No collaboration and nothing of substance accomplished.

One of my favorite leadership lines from Navy training was that you can’t push a rope. You have to lead. It is refreshing to see many in the Obama administration, especially Secretary Duncan, establishing some basic leadership in their departments as we head into these incredibly difficult times. I am very impressed that Duncan went around, met people, and promised to listen. We are absolutely desperate for leadership in education and leadership is not defined as pushing one agenda – it requires people to listen and collaborate.

It is clearly evident that Pelosi and Reid skipped the leadership seminar that the rest of the Obama team went to. No collaboration there and it already creating problems for the administration. The Democrats have a great opportunity to lead this country out of serious issues, and they are going to fail miserably because of these two.

For our own work, I am struck by the times we are able to collaborate with teacher groups and the one group that will never work with us. Early on when I took over as president, I relied on the constructive criticism of the national AFT teacher quality team. (AFT does NOT endorse our program – they do not blindly condemn it either). Because of their input we introduced a policy to be totally transparent and publish everything, we strengthened the program with additional resources and we increased the studies on our teachers. I consider them invaluable in making this a better program. In the end Joan Baratz-Snowden who retired as head of teacher quality for AFT joined our board of directors to continue the progress we have made. They call me with any questions about our program to make sure they are accurate. As Rob Weil told me: “you are a learning organization and we can always work with that”

In Missouri, the Missouri State Teachers Association are neutral on our program. They knew the state had to do something and worked with us to create a bill that was stronger for Missouri and still met the needs of our potential candidates. This collaboration has resulted in over 850 enrollments in Missouri in 9 months of which 425 are in math and science. They listened to us and we absolutely listened to them.

On the Pelosi/Reid side of collaboration for us is the NEA. No constructive criticism, no meetings to discuss ways to improve – they don’t like us and no matter what we do, they will never like us or work on improvements. Unless we develop a college of education program, we are out. Heck it has been 20 years and they still hate TFA.

I do believe that collaboration is on the rise and hopefully the administration will not get discouraged. They should continue to look for ways to strengthen our country by working together. And hopefully the Reid/Pelosi/NEA “my way or the highway” attitude will go the way of the Blagojevich’s of the world.

Distinguished Teachers

There is an outstanding paper about pay for performance written by Joan Baratz-Snowden, formerly of AFT and who now sits on our board of directors. She clearly states the issues with current pay programs for teachers in saying; “it has not produced competitive salaries in the current job market, it does not respond to market forces, and the evidence linking teacher education and experience to improved student performance is weak.”

She has nailed it. But she also nails current pay for performance plans, with the exception of Denver, as weak and struggling. Reading this paper you should be able to see why we asked her help us.

We are currently creating the Distinguished Teacher program for veteran teachers that can be a part of a pay for performance program. Like many things at ABCTE, this has undergone extensive changes by listening to people, like Joan, who were very critical of the first iterations. The program now includes a live observation by trained veteran teachers using UVA’s CLASS observation system, recommendation letters from the school, scoring at the distinguished level on our subject matter exams and demonstration of student achievement through value added analysis.

As Joan points out, development of a solid program takes time. Having constructive criticism instead of political posturing has helped us create a much better program. People criticized Joan for joining our board but working together from the inside gets things done a lot faster than working against someone from the outside.