Reforming Title II

Ed Sector and Andy Rotherham put for a pretty ambitious plan for the Obama Department of Education. In this chapter, he takes on Title II funding – the $3 Billion in spending each year where “tangible results form these efforts are scant and there is little evidence that these funds are driving the sort of changes that are aligned with broader human capital reform efforts in education.”

For the 2006-7 school year 47 percent of Title II funding went to class size reduction which has not produced great results and 32 percent went to professional development which has in large part become a joke – or in the think tank parlance “compared poorly to the other” professional development for other fields.

Rotherham then does the unthinkable in Washington – he proposes fully leveraging existing high performing programs like ABCTE, Teach for America and The New Teacher Project in order to help solve the human capital issues facing our schools.

This is nothing short of outstanding. In a city where “the new always” is a better solution than “what is working”, I applaud Rotherham’s thoughts and efforts and thank him for a thoughtful look at the problem. It appears that he is creating his dream job in the Obama Department of Education and right about now, I would really support that. And as a former Navy guy would love to see Powell for Sec Ed.

Please read more here.

Free markets include more than vouchers

Props to Ross Douthat for calling out conservatives for limiting their focus to very narrow parts of the overall debate. This may become my new favorite quote in education:

“the most interesting arguments are between liberal reformers and liberal interest groups, with conservatives sitting on the sideline talking about vouchers and occasionally praising the Michelle Rhees and Corey Bookers of the world.”

He rightly points out (pun intended because it is Friday after all), that instead of letting liberals completely monopolize the debates that it is time for all sides to offer solutions to the complex issues facing education.

There are many free-market reforms that can, and should be on the list of policies that should receive more support. ABCTE offers competition to the monopoly held by the college’s of education. That competition will help raise the quality of all teachers in the system. The Association of American Educators offers teachers an alternative to joining a union and pushes all teacher groups to become more of a professional support group. Charter Schools and virtual schools are providing an outstanding example of free-market reforms as their waiting lists continue to grow.

Douthat points out that we all need to be working to encourage excellence in our public school bureaucracy. That excellence can only come from an aggressive agenda that focuses on the entire system and not just vouchers.

Edubusiness Update

Signal Hill had a great conference on education business today. They had 30 minute presentations from a lot of the for-profit entities out there looking for more money or to keep their investors happy. The for-profit side of education is actually not doing too bad when compared to other stocks in the market.

But there is concern. There is a lag time between the plummeting house price and the lower tax revenue. Districts are clamoring right now for cuts. Since the economy is getting much worse, states and districts are about to get hammered. Budget cuts are going to become slashing the budget.

On the for-profit college side, they are still humming along as well and may not get hammered as bad. The private colleges at $45K a year are going to be hurting. But people will still need the degree and these low cost, online alternatives are going to look pretty good.

All in all, education that is not tied to district funding is still looking pretty solid right now.

Building a GREAT teaching work force

A new report on alternative teacher certification released in Education Next called "What Happens When States Have Genuine Alternative Certification?” is absolutely HUGE!! I could not love this report more if I tried. If state policy makers use this report, it will get them to fully understand the issues they create when they do not have alternative teacher certification.

First - it separates the real from the false. There are 47 states that claim to have alternative teacher certification programs but there are really on 21 states that can make this claim. The other 26 states that have the false programs require just as many college credits as regular university based teacher certification programs.

Newsflash #1 – if you have the fake programs, you only get about 5% of your teachers through alternative certification. If you have a real program, you increase the numbers of teachers applying and see 28% of your new teachers coming from your alternative certification program. From the report: “Hardly anyone bothers with an alternative certificate if the requirements are essentially the same as for the traditional one.”

Newsflash #2 – minority representation is much higher in states with real alternative certification than in states without it. Huh. Having artificial barriers to the classroom is keeping minorities out of teaching.

Newsflash #3 – I have to quote direct from the report: “In states that had genuine alternative certification, test-score gains on the NAEP exceeded those in the other states by 4.8 points and 7.6 points in 4th- and 8th-grade math, respectively. In reading, the additional gains in the states with genuine alternative certification were 10.6 points and 3.9 points for the two grade levels, respectively. Among African Americans, test-score gains were also larger in the states with genuine alternative certification.”

WAKE UP STATES!! If you have true alternative teacher certification, like ABCTE, you get more teachers to replace all those retirees, you get a truly diversified teaching workforce and you get higher student learning gains.

Call me……seriously call me……..we will get you on the road to alternative certification asap so you can realize the benefits of a great teaching workforce.

DQC - moving forward!

ABCTE Supports Data Quality Campaign

Washington, DC (November 17, 2008) — Results released Friday by the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) show that states have made impressive gains in building longitudinal education data systems and now must use the information to improve student achievement.

In a press release issued by the DQC, ABCTE President Dave Saba offered support for the campaign’s efforts:

“Solid data is critical in any measurable undertaking if you wish to realistically monitor your progress, make necessary adjustments and legitimately reach your goals. I commend the DQC and all its partners for working together to ensure that we can measure the success of the many improvements to our current education system so that we can ensure success for all students.”

— David Saba, American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence

For more information, please see the full press release from the DQC or visit them at www.dataqualitycampaign.org.

In this economy, starting a business is better than teachintg

I received the comment below on an earlier blog about career changers. A lot of interesting points from this teacher.

1. He/she is leaving because of teachers/administration not because of the kids
2. He/she prefers to start a business in this economy over teaching
3. He/she believes that career changers can get into teaching and bring content to life
4. In their experience teaching is learned on the job

As we continue to look for ways to solve the teacher shortage, when you listen to the teachers leaving the profession and not the groups that supposedly represent all teachers, you get a very different story

“I'm a teacher who is planning a career change. The reason for this is partly that I don't get paid enough (I teach private school), but mainly because in teaching, you are not really rewarded for being talented or creative in the same way that you are in other professional endeavors. I'm planning on opening a small business, which unlike teaching, will grow and succeed in direct correlation with my own efforts and abilities. But here is a word of comfort. Good teaching doesn't rely on 30 years of experience. Some people can teach, and some people just can't. Experience does help, but a person can pretty much learn most of what they need to know in 3 or so years. Also, teachers who once worked in other professions frequently bring those experiences to the table, which only enriches their pedagogy. So the real issue isn't so much that teaching doesn't pay enough, it's more that talented people who want new challenges and opportunities to grow aren't given them. And in my case, it isn't the kids; they're great. It's colleagues and administration that frequently drive the brightest and best teachers into other professions. I don't know how to solve this problem, or else I wouldn't be planning my own career transition.”

Hopping over the low bar

Ed Sector has some great discussion on teacher certification and is using the graph from the Brookings Institution study of LAUSD teachers. The study showed almost no performance difference between alternatively certified teachers, teachers certified through standard routes and teachers with no certification. This is mainly due to the wide variation in teacher performance in all three groups.

The main issue is that there is no selectivity in the current teacher certification process in most states so of course they come out no better than teachers with no certification. The current process is just a matter of completing a series of tasks. It is rare to fail these programs and rarer still to fail the teacher certification test so the certification does not actually do anything for the teachers.

When the bar is low – everyone can jump over. And if everyone can jump over, it is just the same as having no bar at all. Therefore, these results are not surprising to anyone who works in certification.

Our pass rate is less than 35% through the ABCTE program. We have a very high bar so that only the best can make it into the classroom. Mathematica will have the first indication on student achievement on our teachers this winter. Based upon some of the other studies, the higher bar should give us better results.