Reform-O-Meter takes a hit

Over at Flypaper, Mike Petrilli is keeping the Obama Reform-O-Meter which he has pointing to a fairly neutral education agenda for the President and Secretary Duncan. He needs to point the arrow more to the left this week.

We got notice that the Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) is beginning to release some of the $635 million they have to dole out under ARRA. They want to give out $143 million to 35 lucky groups to improve teacher quality. From the email:

• Department of Education (DOE) announces funds to improve the quality of new teachers by creating partnerships among Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs), high-need school districts (local educational agencies-LEAs) their high-need schools, and/or high-need early childhood education (ECE) programs. Partnerships would create model teacher preparation programs at the pre-baccalaureate level through the implementation of specific reforms of the IHE's existing teacher preparation programs, and/or model teaching residency programs for individuals with strong academic and/or professional backgrounds but without teaching experience.

Note that we are not eligible because we are not an Institution of Higher Education even though we currently have an innovative approach that prepares people from professional backgrounds who don’t have teaching experience.

But now, in the name of innovation, the DOE is going to throw a ton of money at groups that have never created a model teacher preparation program. In fact, when they create so-called alternative teacher certification programs they are almost always a few classes short of their normal master’s program.

Exactly the opposite of what Clayton Christensen says we need in order to create disruptive innovations in education. True innovation will not come from within the system. Note that Clayton even refers to ABCTE in this CNN Commentary.

Roughly a third of the “innovation” dollars go to those most firmly entrenched in supporting the status quo. Looks like Mike needs to move the arrow.

NCLB and Education Reform Leaders

Mike Petrilli over at Flypaper wonders if NCLB has created a new breed of education leaders and he is mainly looking at superintendents of large school districts.

It got me thinking about the other dramatic shift that seems to have been caused by NCLB through the highly qualified teacher requirement. Over the last 18 months 5 different state directors of teacher certification have suddenly retired. Kansas, DC, Louisiana, Colorado and Georgia.

This is no small shift. Thes directors were considered leaders in the teacher certification world and, more importantly from a reform perspective, were dead set against alternative teacher certification.

Twenty percent turnover is a pretty big deal. This sea change will open the doors in these states to new certification options and will provide more expanded markets for ABCTE.

Exciting times….

Teacher testing is necessary

If you have not seen Flypaper over at Fordham – they have a lot of posts on their blog. They had a recent post about a study that will appear soon that says that teacher testing deters good people from becoming teachers. I posted the following response on their blog:

I am very curious as to how they came to this conclusion that the test is the barrier that keeps potentially great teachers from teaching. I can honestly say that after seeing 6,000 people start our program and less than 40% actually complete, that our test is absolutely necessary. This is because many of those potential teachers “whose educational backgrounds qualify them to teach” cannot compose a coherent essay and don’t have the most basic knowledge of their subject matter.

I wholeheartedly agree that a test with a passing rate of 95-99% is a useless waste of time and money. If every university had a minimum standard for graduation that meant that every teacher would have outstanding writing skills and subject matter mastery, we would be the first to push for the elimination of teacher testing. But we are nowhere near those kinds of results. The essays we see from college graduates are nothing short of dismal.

And many of the people going through our program would much rather take a test then sit through countless hours of useless classes.

The McKinseystudy of the best school systems in the world found that selectivity of teachers was a key driver of their success. We have to select the best teachers with tests that truly measure ability to very rigorous standards, like the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence exams, in order to compete in the world market.