And the winner is.........the STUDENTS!

In the education world, part of the promise of competition is that it will improve schooling for all kids. But we really have not seen that happen in areas where students have a choice of schools to attend. Most of the blame goes to a system that protects schools from seeing adverse affects from competition.

I chair a board for a DC charter school and I am now seeing first hand the two factors that will ultimately make better schools a reality through competition:

1. There has to be more seats than students so that schools actually have to fight for every student in order to survive
2. Parents have to experience shopping for schools long enough to become savvy consumers

It is basic economics that if a resource is scarce, the price goes up. In DC, there are excess seats and not enough students. Wouldn’t be too much of a problem but our reimbursement per student has stayed flat this year and our reimbursement per student for facilities has gone down. Also of note is that many of these schools were built at the peak of building costs in DC. There is no slop in a charter school budget to absorb any reduction in revenue. Ouch.

So the only way to make up for this budget crunch is to make sure you have more students. Basic business sense as more students means more revenue. The result is more schools are pursuing these students and marketing to a lot more of their parents. These aggressive marketing efforts required in these lean times are creating a much more educated consumer out of DC parents - because we have to reach all of them in order to survive.

In order to meet recruitment numbers, schools are offering free after school programs and more laptops. Parents are demanding more to commit to bringing their student to your school.

And the winner is……….the students!!!

It is pretty amazing to see that charter schools are actually building this competition in DC. And because Michelle Rhee is building a better public school system to compete, the students in DC are really going to win over the next few years.

New Education Carnival -

The Carnival of Education Innovation

Next Tuesday, August 11, we’re launching a blog carnival—the Carnival of Education Innovation.

For those of you who have never heard of a blog carnival before, it’s basically a collection of blog post summaries on a particular subject – a “best of the week” so to speak. One blogger hosts each edition of the carnival and then other bloggers and blog readers submit blog posts they’d like included in that edition of the carnival. Then the carnival goes live on a certain date (every Tuesday for ours) and people can come browse the links as a sort of one-stop-shop for all that’s happening in education innovation that week.

The Carnival of Education Innovation will include anything having to do with new ideas on moving education forward (ideas to move education backwards will not be accepted). We’re interested in hearing from people on all sides—right, left and center—and from as many different backgrounds and angles as possible. We want to hear from teachers, administrators, parents, students, politicians, writers and anyone interested in blogging about education and how it can be improved. So please help spread the word.

The benefits to you are many:

1. Each week you get a new link to your blog – building your search ability in google and your status on blog rating sites
2. Each week you get more traffic to your blog
3. Overall building of readership as other bloggers come to know what you are doing in the education space
4. If you don’t have a blog THIS IS A PERFECT WAY TO GET IT STARTED

To submit a blog post for consideration for inclusion in the 1st edition of the Carnival of Education innovation, our carnival submission before 4pm next Monday, August 10. This is how it will work every week—please submit by 4pm on Mondays and then check the ABCTE blog every Tuesday for the new edition of the carnival. The carnival will “travel” at times and be hosted by other bloggers. You can check the carnival homepage (http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_7888.html) or ABCTE’s blog (http://www.abcte.org/blog ) to find out who is hosting each week. Also – when the carnival is up – it helps if you say so on your blog with a link.

Let’s make sure that all your Education Innovations get the readership they deserve!

Please email Mike Holden here at ABCTE with any questions

More Movement

A pretty great day in the world wide webisphere for ABCTE. First, our humble little blog is named to the Top 100 blogs for teachers by Clear View Education. So our sincere thanks for that.

Second, it is great to see a teacher come out in favor of the proposed teacher certification changes in Indiana. A true common-sense editorial to help keep things in perspective which seems to be rare in education these days.

Always a good day – now off to the stakeholders meeting on ARRA over at the USDOE to hear about RTTT funding. And I thought the Navy overused abbreviations and acronyms. Perhaps Congress should create a separate OFEDAB – the Office of Education Abbreviations.

ABCTE - subject matter AND pedagogy

A guest post by ABCTE's Director of Public Relations, Mike Holden:

One of the common misconceptions about the ABCTE program is that our exams focus only on content expertise. I’ll occasionally see a news story or a comment posted online where people are outraged that someone could become a teacher by only passing “a test” showing they are experts in a particular subject.

It is true that in order to earn ABCTE certification a candidate must pass a test in the subject they’d like to teach (i.e. someone who wants to be certified in math must pass our math exam). These subject-area exams by themselves are difficult and should not be quickly dismissed—no one is going to pass without knowing their content and knowing it well.

But there is a second exam that all candidates must pass and it should not be overlooked. This important component to the program is the Professional Teaching Knowledge (PTK) exam, which tests an ABCTE candidate on knowledge related to working with students. Here’s a short summary from the PTK snapshot that goes over what is included on that exam:

“The American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence believes that highly skilled teachers should possess a comprehensive body of knowledge that is research-based and promotes student achievement. The Professional Teaching Knowledge exam is designed to assess a new teacher’s knowledge of teaching-related criteria. Such knowledge is typically obtained in undergraduate preparation in areas such as human development, classroom management, instructional design and delivery techniques, assessment, and other professional preparation. This exam also contains a writing component that will evaluate a candidate’s ability to write to audiences they will most likely address as a teacher: parents, colleagues, and/or school administrators. Candidates will be asked to compose their written response without access to any writing aids such as spelling and grammar tools.”

How difficult is the PTK exam? Take it from ABCTE biology teacher Keria Morton, who was already in the classroom and used our program to get certified and keep her job:

“After teaching for three years, I knew I had the content knowledge and teacher know-how to pass the tests. After all, I passed the Praxis test with no preparation and I did not figure the ABCTE tests could be much harder, despite what they told me. But I missed the cutoff [for the PTK exam] by two points. Boy, was I unprepared for just how difficult these tests were. No random person could just come in and pass these tests. I am not even sure a few months of diligent studying could accomplish it. You have to know your material to meet the challenge the ABCTE program offers to you.”

Or, on the content side of things, here's a video of ABCTE math teacher Wanda Champaign-Martin, who underestimated the ABCTE math exam and found out the hard way that the tests are “very comprehensive.”

Finally, here’s ABCTE English teacher Bridgette Blake, who talks about how the county she was teaching in recommended ABCTE to her and that the administrators “knew that this program would definitely prepare [her] for the classroom.”

ABCTE does issue its teaching certification based on tests, but these exams allow people to place-out of college coursework and they are not easy. As we tell potential ABCTE candidates, the tests are “rigorous and comprehensive.” The average candidate takes 8 to 10 month to complete the program and the exams should not be sold short. We want our teachers to show that they know their subject AND how to teach it. Aiming for anything less wouldn’t be good for anyone.

The Cartel - watch it

Fridays need to be simplified – especially in the blogosphere. So I just wanted to provide some quick thoughts on The Cartel – the documentary that looks at education in New Jersey but could apply to any state. To me the most powerful point in the movie is the charter school lottery. The artificial caps on the number of charter schools in this country means that in many places you have to put your name into a lottery to see if you get to go to a great school.

In the movie two women get so overwhelmed by the fact that their daughters get in, they have to leave the classroom where the lottery is held and go outside to celebrate. When asked what this means to their daughters they simply say - this has saved her life, she now has a chance at success. The striking contrast is the next shot which shows a girl with tears just streaming down her face because she did not get in.

Imagine your life decided by a lottery. Imagine your safety and success are totally dependent on a random drawing. It is absolutely pathetic.

The second striking thing is the interview with the head of the NJEA teacher’s union who demonstrates a total lack of concern for students. In one case she is asked if it is OK that a teacher with massive anger management issues punched a student in the face and could not be fired. Her response is that of course it is OK as long as there is due process it is a good thing.

Finally, if you have not seen Derrell Bradford speak on how to save students, you have not seen passion in education. He was brilliant and you cannot help but get excited by the opportunity to do anything to save kids from hideous schools when he is done.

It is definitely worth seeing the film and if you are in education reform – you need to show it in your state. Thanks to Dan Lips and Heritage for the screening!

Clear and concise

Great post and first comment over at Eduwonk today on what matters more in education - class size or teacher effectiveness. Then 'Jonathon' hits the nail right on the head summing up the research that is continually ignored by education policy makers:

"Several reputable studies have showed us that: a masters degree in education has little to no benefit to students; beyond five years of experience, teaching experience does not have a strong impact on student achievement; and class size does not nearly have the impact on student achievement as teacher effectiveness"

It is amazing that research can be ignored in favor of what feels good.

No longer "just a test"

For years we have fought the mantra that ABCTE is just a test. Those opposed would just continue to say we offered no pedagogy even thought it was patently false (see here). Now comes the Indy Star with this quote:

"» Nonteachers could become teachers without going through a school of education by taking a curriculum offered by the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence."

Finally, people are realizing that we have a curriculum. How huge is that?? And with Indiana's great new state superintendent, this could be a great new state for us.