Arne Duncan Discovers the Obvious!

Every so often, one of America’s “education leaders” gets a whiff of reality and comes briefly to his or her senses. 

This week, U S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan suddenly discovered that not all parents prefer higher standards. Duncan passed on this revelation to Thomas Friedman, editorialist for The New York Times.

Then Duncan and Friedman tipped their caps to Amanda Ripley, author of The Smartest Kids in the World:  And How They Got That Way.

The author of this blog voted for President Obama twice and he’s still glad he did.

Unfortunately, Arne Duncan is a terrible Secretary of Education.

According to Friedman, here’s what transpired. Duncan gave a “feel bad” speech to a group of parents a few days ago. Friedman thinks President Obama should claim the speech for his own and make it his State of the Union Address. What was the problem Duncan chose to discuss before parents? Get ready teachers. You will be fainting in droves!

Harken to the Gospel of Arne:

“Are we falling behind as a country in education,” he wondered, “not just because we fail to recruit the smartest college students to become teachers or reform-resistant teachers’ unions, but because of our culture today:  too many parents and too many kids just don’t take education seriously enough and don’t want to put in the work needed today to really excel?”

Okay. Ignore the gratuitous slam directed at every teacher in the nation. (Duncan thinks we’re morons.)

Oh, yes. Remember that unions have blocked reform. That’s why reforms have failed. It’s not because the reforms have been misguided.  

Well, what does Duncan know now that he failed to grasp five years ago when he became Secretary of Education? He and Friedman now know what Ripley discovered while researching her book. And Ripley now knows what all of us teachers/morons know by…um…well…by teaching. One of these days, I need to complete a review of The Smartest Kids. The publisher sent me a copy and I admit liking it.

But could we please stop “discovering” the obvious?

Friedman  fleshes out his position with a pair of letters from actual teachers. (That alone is failry rare: an education expert quoting a real educator.) One first appeared in the Washington Post. The writer was a seventh-grade language arts teacher in Frederick, Maryland. She explained that she no longer wanted to teach. One problem was a “superficial curriculum that encouraged mindless conformity.” And who demanded that teachers follow such curriculums? That plan was foisted upon us by politicians, bureaucrats and non-teaching experts.

(People like Duncan.)

What most bothered this successful Maryland teacher was the reaction she met when she handed out low grades:

It was about this time that I was called down to the principal’s office…She handed me a list of 10 students, all of whom had D’s or F’s. At the time, I only had about 120 students, so I was relatively on par with a standard bell curve. As she brought up each one, I walked her through my grade sheets that showed not low scores but a failure to turn in work—a lack of responsibility. I showed her my tutoring logs, my letters to parents, only to be interrogated further.

Eventually, the meeting came down to two quotes that I will forever remember as the defining slogans for public education: “They are not allowed to fail.” “If they have D’s or F’s, there is something that you are not doing for them.” What am I not doing for them? I suppose I was not giving them the answers. I was not physically picking up their hands to write for them. I was not following them home each night to make sure they did their work on time. I was not excusing their lack of discipline…Teachers are held to impossible standards, and students are accountable for hardly any part of their own education and are incapable of failing.”

Friedman also cited a letter from an Oregon educator. This time the writer noted that he had gone back and looked at tests he gave in 1992. They were tough and today few of his students could pass them. He notes—and Friedman seems surprised—that today you might get only 8 or 10 homework assignments turned in by a class of 35.

Let me scratch my head for a moment. I know teachers are supposed to be dumb. (Only Teach for America can save us!) But I can’t recall ever being called on the carpet by any parent or administrator because my class was too easy.

By contrast, I once had 36 students in my seventh grade American history classes fail a map test. I told all of them they’d have to stay after school the next afternoon and study for an hour. If they couldn’t make it I gave out my home phone number and told them parents should call. All showed up as required and reviewed for the test.

At the end of that hour, when all my kids headed home, my principal called me down to the office to thank me…Ha, ha, no!

He grilled me. Had I given a day’s notice so everyone would have rides home? “Yes,” I said. I mentioned that I had also provided my home number. “Do you think students are benefitting from staying so late?” he continued unfazed. “Won’t they be too tired after a long day?” It turned out a mother had complained because her daughter hadn’t said where she was going to be after school. So, mom ended up sitting in the parking lot waiting for the girl to appear. And this was back in 1978.

What Friedman, by way of Duncan, by way of Ripley, discovered is not new. My principal in the late 70s was fond of intoning, “If a student fails, a teacher fails.”

I always wanted to respond:  “If a teacher fails, does the principal fail?” But I didn’t think he’d appreciate my sterling wit.

I stood my ground that afternoon—and the next day stayed again—to re-administer the test. This time, one girl was missing. But 35 ordinary kids retook the test. All I did was switch numbers on the map and the matching choices around. Otherwise, it was the same test.

I never forgot the results as long as I taught: 24 “failures” had A’s the second time. There were 8 B’s, 2 C’s and a single D.

Not one child flunked after studying.

Now, here was Friedman last week—quoting Duncan—quoting Ripley. In a recent policy speech Duncan told his audience:

Amanda points a finger at you and me, as parents—not because we aren’t involved in school, but because too often, we are involved in the wrong way. Parents, she says, are happy to show up at sports events, video camera in hand, and they’ll come to school to protest a bad grade. But she writes, and I quote: “Parents did not tend to show up at schools demanding that their kids be assigned more challenging reading or that their kindergarteners learn math while they still loved numbers.”…To really help our kids, we have to do so much more as parents. We have to change expectations about how hard kids should work. And we have to work with teachers and leaders to create schools that demand more from our kids.

Ripley is a fine writer. But Ripley never taught. So she was stunned when she put together her book. And Duncan was stunned when he read it. And Friedman was stunned because he only writes editorials about education. Neither he nor Duncan ever stood in front of a class of 35 and asked for homework to be passed forward.

They have no idea what it can be like to see only a handful of papers coming up the rows. 

Let’s imagine that they had. I loved teaching and loved working with teens. But if Duncan and Friedman had been manning rooms down the hall they might not be shocked to hear that sometimes students don’t turn in work when they should. Or: they don’t study when they could. Then they’d realize that’s not really the fault of the teacher. They would know what every real teacher I ever met knows.

They would know that parents and administrators often complain, and complain vociferously, if a teacher grades hard and upholds high standards.

You can go back farther back into history to understand what might be wrong in American education today. If you want your child to get an excellent education keep in mind what Thucydides once said:

“Not much is ever gained simply by wishing for it.”
(c. 411 B. C.)

Even the ancient Greeks probably had trouble getting children to turn in homework.

Why I Loved (Non-Standardized) Teaching: Stefanie's Astute Observation

I'VE BEEN BITCHING too much lately about strange legislation coming out of Columbus, the work of the Ohio General Assembly. So I think I'll do a few posts on why I always loved teaching.

One of the great joys of a life spent in the classroom—at least in a pre-standardized world—is the chance to get kids excited and lead them in a direction (or even follow) that neither they nor you expected to go.

Standardized education anyone?
Try testing this.

Every year, when the time came to look at Native American cultures, I liked to start with a quick discussion of what we called the “TV Indian” stereotype, the idea that all Indians lived the same way. To make the point clear, students listed features of the “TV Indian” lifestyle.

Answers always looked something like this:

Teepees
Feathers
Skin clothes
Painted faces
Bow and arrows
Ride horses
Hunt buffalo
Talk funny, say "How," and "Ugh."

I explained that Native American civilizations varied. For example, some natives relied on corn, beans and squash as dietary staples. “How come no one ever does movies about farming Indians?” I'd ask.

“Because it would be boring,” the kids agreed.

I liked to break into a soulful rendition of “Old McDonald Had a Farm” and ask students to sing along. No one ever did.

AS PART OF THE UNIT, I always showed a series of slides that I created, including one of a woman with a strange-looking elongated skull (see above). Students gasped when the image filled the screen and I explained that standards of beauty vary. Tribes along the Pacific coast, for example, often used a board-like device to reshape babies’ heads.

The higher forehead was considered attractive.

I liked to ask the kids if they could think of any modern American cultural practices that the natives might have found ridiculous. In one class, a girl named Stefanie King raised her hand a moment, thought better of it, and lowered it again. I called on her anyway. She hesitated, looked down from the high dive, and took the plunge. “Mr. Viall,” she said, “their customs seem dumb to us but it’s no different than American women who pay for boob jobs.”

When the roar of laughter subsided, and after I stopped doubling over myself, I replied, “That’s why I like having you in class, Stefanie. You always know how to think.”

IT'S NOT STANDARDIZED EDUCATION, of course, but in those days, a teacher could still use his best professional judgment.

Emily Cavell, one of my star students,
drew this picture of the TV Indian stereotype.

The Key to Better Education: It's Not Just Teachers

The ancient Greek historian, Thucydides

Two days ago I posted this brief item from a book I'm trying to write about education.  If you follow the news at all, you probably notice that teachers are taking serious heat for the "school crisis" we have in the United States today. 

Let's leave aside the question of whether we really have a school crisis or not.

Let's try to identify the MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR if we want to improve education.  If we want students to get a good education what is the key???

Below you have the short chapter again (until I find a publisher I call what I'm doing "typing for no pay"):

Aesop’s Gym

“Not much is ever gained simply by wishing for it.”

Thucydides

Here’s the first clue, maybe the only clue that matters in the end:  If you hope to improve education you must understand that schools function, in fundamental ways, just like workout facilities for adults. 

***

Imagine that you have a gym filled with state-of-the-art equipment, a mile from your home. Membership fees are reasonable and you can readily afford to join. The gym opens early, stays open late, and closes only once a year on Christmas Day. Machines are available to work every muscle group and free weights in racks stand reflected in mirrored walls. Treadmills, stair-climbers and stationary bikes are all aligned in perfect mechanical rows.

Still, something is missing.

And in education—as in exercise—identifying that missing “something” is the real key. 

So?  Is the key to improving American education building better facilities. Some people think education can be saved if we give kids computers.  If equipment was the key then everyone who owns a stair-climber at home would already be in shape.  What about creating new national standards?  We already have food labels on all our packaging, telling us how many calories we're eating; and the U. S. government just changed the Food Pyramid into a Food Plate. 

Still, Americans are fat and getting fatter.  That's because writing new "standards" is an exercise in futility, if the real key is missing.

How about teachers?  Are they then the real key?

Well, they're one of many. And every kid is another equally important key.  Parents are keys, as well. 

It's fairly simple, really.  You don't get in shape because the GYM is better or the machines are newer.  The trainer at the gym can certainly help--but YOU have to get to the gym, yourself.  You get in shape when YOU are motivated.

YOU have to head for the gym.  YOU have to work hard on the machines.  If you're a student YOU have to be willing to work to get a good education and your parents have to instill that kind of drive in you; and if we keep ignoring this simple concept, school reform in America is going nowhere, going nowhere fast, and at great cost.

Motivation...that's the real key.  You have to be motivated to get out of your lounge chair and head for the gym.  Otherwise, machines (school computers, smart boards, fancy new textbooks) and trainers (teachers) cannot have an affect.

In the end, good education comes down to hard work and it's really a matter of who wants to get to the gym and sweat. 

A number of readers responded to my post.  Here are a few of the best answers:

LORI CHISMAN BARBER:  My answer would be: Well, a trainer cannot will people to come in and work out so it has to be the people with the will to get in shape (or stay in shape) that have the desire to go to the gym. So, school related--it would be the desire to get an education; the desire to learn.

CHRISTINA VOGELSANG:  "The willingness to learn."

SCOTT ZEILMAN said "initiative to use the tools available to them."

DWAYNE SHELLY had a whole list of good ideas; you have to like his passion.

TIMMIERA LAWRENCE put it simply:  "A willing participant."  But she's a teacher, and so is her husband, Dale, so she had a slight advantage.

Say "Wabbit:" The Inherent Limits of Merit Pay and Standardized Testing

Coming to a school near you.

THANKS TO EVERYONE who responded to yesterday's post, "Aesop's Gym." I'll provide the answer, if you're interested, tomorrow. In other words, it's not too late to try to solve the essential riddle in education.

For now, let's take up the question of merit pay, based on test scores, an idea beloved by many of the biggest names in education reform, a panacea offered by fast-talking politicians across the land. 

It's a key feature of Senate Bill 5, as lawmakers set out to "improve" Ohio schools.

Sunday, I actually met two teachers who favor merit pay, although I don't think they're fans of SB5, by any means.

Then, Monday,  I talked to a friend, a speech therapist in the local schools. She's a twelve-year veteran, still filled with first-year-out-of-college idealism, and worried about where we're headed in American education.

If you went back thirty years ago, when my friend was in grade school, many of the students she now sees in therapy would not have been allowed in public schools. But the field for speech therapy is changing. It's not just the kindergartner who says "wabbit," any more. My friend serves Downs Syndrome kids and severe behavior kids and one autistic child who, until this year, has been totally non-verbal. 

At age nine, "Martha," as I'll call her, had never spoken a word in her life; and at home mom had no idea what to do. 

Naturally, a little girl with no effective way to communicate is going to be frustrated. So, until recently, she simply snatched at any food she saw in reach. And she's "a biter," too.

AT FIRST, NEITHER THE SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER my friend works with, nor my friend, nor the classroom aide could figure out what Martha wanted. So Martha reacted the only way she knew. "Look out," the special ed. teacher said in warning to the therapist one afternoon, "she's going to bite." With that, my friend drew back in her seat, and Martha jerked forward in hers, and sank teeth in her blazer. 

She missed flesh but did leave a hole in one sleeve.

The special education teacher has bite marks up and down her arms these days. But like my friend, she and the aide keep plugging away, and I don't think their dedication has anything to do with merit pay, even if you could measure what they're doing. 

They've been doing a lot of behavior modification exercises, for example, and using a combination of signs, and cards, and verbalization techniques, and they've been breaking through. Recently, Martha wanted apple slices to eat. First, she took the card that says, "I want," and placed it on the table before her. Then she took a card with a picture of an apple and placed it next to the first card. She didn't snatch at slices. And she didn't snap at the therapist's arm, either. Instead, she said in a faltering way, "I want apple."

Over a cup of coffee this weekend, my friend mentioned that she was "excited to go in Monday and try again" to help Martha. It's a sentiment hundreds of thousands of teachers express in different ways, each and every day. And I don't think this kind of motivation comes down to money.

I don't believe for one minute that you can ever "measure" education, with all its variables, and what scares me most about plans that say we can, and then draw direct links from test scores to merit pay, is that you'll bog down teachers in paperwork and spend hundreds of millions on statistical analysis and won't be helping kids like Martha in the slightest.

The more we focus on testing, testing, testing and measuring, measuring, measuring, and the more lawmakers and bureaucrats stick their noses into the process, the more real teachers will become like accountants trying to figure out the U. S. tax code.

IT'S THE I. R. S. MODEL FOR OUR SCHOOLS.  And it's coming to a classroom near you.

What's Really Missing in Our Schools? Thucydides Knows.

As some people know, I'm trying to write a book about education.  Here's the shortest chapter I have so far.  See if you can determine what might be missing.

Trust me on this.  We can give all the standardized tests we want and even tie teacher merit pay to results.  But we're not ever going to improve education until we understand what it is.

Aesop’s Gym

“Not much is ever gained simply by wishing for it.”

Thucydides

Here’s the first clue, maybe the only clue that matters in the end:  If you hope to improve education you must understand that schools function, in fundamental ways, just like workout facilities for adults. 

***

Imagine that you have a gym filled with state-of-the-art equipment, a mile from your home. Membership fees are reasonable and you can readily afford to join. The gym opens early, stays open late, and closes only once a year on Christmas Day. Machines are available to work every muscle group and free weights in racks stand reflected in mirrored walls. Treadmills, stair-climbers and stationary bikes are all aligned in perfect mechanical rows.

Still, something is missing.

And in education—as in exercise—identifying that missing “something” is the real key. 

LEAVE AN ANSWER BY USING THE "ANONYMOUS" CHOICE UNDER "POST OPINIONS."  OR SEND ME AN EMAIL AT VILEJJV@YAHOO.COM.

You can now find the answer at: http://ateacheronteaching.blogspot.com/2011/10/key-to-better-education-its-not-just.html

Arne Duncan: The Armor of Achilles

Sunday, under the heading:  NEWS THAT WAS INEVITABLE, the New York Times reported that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the Obama administration want to offer states "relief"  before schools all over the nation begin running afoul of penalties written into the No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB) in 2002.

The problem is so simple even a caveman could have predicted it.  Nine years ago, with bi-partisan support and great fanfare, Congress passed a law which promised that ALL children would be proficient in reading and math by 2014.  Penalties were included if states failed to keep make "adequate yearly progress" toward this noble goal. 

The problem from the start was that noble goals aren't necessarily realistic.  It was kind of like calling World War I "the war to end all wars."  No matter how ringing the phrase, perfection has a tendency to be well beyond humanity's straining reach.

What exactly went wrong?  First, most states spent six years lowering standards and then gradually raising them again, to insure they showed "progress" in testing numbers, no matter how bogus, to avoid the initial round of penalties under NCLB.  From 2002 to 2008, almost no real gains were made.  In the 2008 elections many of the original backers of the law were kicked out of office; and President Obama and Arne Duncan took over shortly after and began talking about new and improved standards.  Duncan would end the "race to the bottom" which began when states began scuffling to avoid penalties and launch a true "Race to the Top."

One set of standards had failed.  What we needed, Duncan insisted, were BETTER standards.  It's kind of like when one diet plan fails. What the poor dieter tells himself is this:  "It's not my fault.  What I need is a BETTER diet plan." 

Today, nine years into the Age of the Testing Fix, an era when we are repeatedly told that we can test our way to success, states like Arkansas and Kansas are clamoring for relief.  They can't reach the noble goals set under NCLB by 2014, and can't promise that every child will be proficient in reading and math in 2 1/2 years.  They say it isn't fair to hold them accountable for testing targets set under the Bush-era law...when they're working hard to write new standards and draw up new tests to align with these standards, to comply (this time) with rules under the "Race to the Top" initiative being pushed by the Obama administration.

If you're an ordinary, brown-bag educator, the type who sits at a real classroom desk and grades real papers from real students for half your lunch every day, and eating your bologna sandwich is your idea of a relaxing break, you knew in 2002 this was coming. 

I dare anyone to read the first hundred stories you come across about "raising standards" in U. S. education today.  I doubt you will find a single sentence that includes these words:  "students," "must work harder," because in the last two years, I haven't seen those words yet.  The theorists and bureaucrats keep talking about writing new standards, about "bench-marking" U. S. standards to match with standards in countries like Finland and Japan and South Korea. 

We keep talking about testing and standards and miss the essential point.  It's like putting on the armor of Achilles.  Just because you WEAR the armor of Achilles, that doesn't make you Achilles.

Let's say, as a society, we were really committed to excellence in education.  Let's say we didn't have one extra dollar to spend.  Could we still raise standards?  Of course we could.  And we wouldn't need Arne Duncan to tell us how.

Let's say every teacher in American set their head and hand to working harder every day.  That would certainly help;  but let's be honest about the problems we face in American education and admit that we have to expect students to work harder, too.  Let's admit that parents have to stop whining if teachers are demanding.  Let's admit that if we want true higher standards, our children will need to spend more time on academics when they get home.

At some point, the diet PLAN isn't the critical factor.  The dieter has to be committed.  No plan will work unless the dieter is willing to push away the plate. 

We don't need the Department of Education to tell us what to do and how to do it--and if they really want to help, let the experts come into the classrooms and show us how it's really done.  We don't need to rewrite standards.  As a society, we have to be committed to education. 

Standards on paper don't make the Japanese schools better.  Japanese students are simply willing to work harder than American students, generally, and Japanese parents are more likely than American parents to approve of a heavy workload when educators require it.

Ever hear that America's schools are failing when compared to Japanese schools?

In the spring of 2009, the number of U. S. students taking the SAT’s climbed to a record 1.55 million. 

Those who took four years of English and three years of math had better scores, averaging 151 points higher than those who didn’t.  Go figure.  They worked harder and it showed.

Since No Child Left Behind went into full effect in 2006, however, the average score for white students had dropped 2 points. 

The average for African Americans and Puerto Ricans was down 14 points.

The average for Asian Americans was up 36.  It's not the standards the government puts on paper that matter.  It's the standards people set for themselves.

The armor of Achilles isn't the key to any battle.                            

Sarah Palin and Real Education Reform: Put Down that Fork!

TODAY THE REALLY BIG TALK IN EDUCATION is all about “higher standards” or “bench-marking” U. S. standards to standards in countries like Finland, Japan and South Korea, where education is supposedly better. 

I’m not much of a believer in “standards” as a solution to school problems; but clearly we need to do a better job teaching American history.

At a stop in New England, during her recent bus tour, Sarah Palin was asked to comment on Paul Revere’s ride. To say that her answer missed the mark and lacked a certain grammatical polish is an understatement. Palin explained:

He who warned, uh, the…the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and um by makin’ sure that as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warnin’ shots and bells that uh we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free…and we were gonna be armed.

I taught American history for 33 years; so I suppose Palin’s teachers could have done better. Then again, maybe it’s not them. We all bear some responsibility for what we know and what we don’t know. In my case I clowned around in school as a teen and don’t know as much chemistry or biology as I could have.

Sometimes, the schools and teachers are doing their jobs. Sometimes it’s students who aren’t working enough.

Changing “standards” so far has had a minimal effect—or no effect at all when it comes to improving our schools. It’s kind of like the change from a “food pyramid” to a “food circle,” shaped like a plate. I support First Lady Michelle Obama’s efforts to promote better eating. I just don’t believe the pyramid was the problem and I doubt the plate is a solution.

IT’S THE SAME WHEN EXPERTS get loose and start slinging their favorite theories of education.

At best, the “standards movement” sweeping the nation will have minimal effect. We know it’s already expensive. My gravest fear is that it will backfire badly and be even more expensive in the end than it already is.

Take my history class, for example. When we covered the American Revolution my students and I spent an entire day on the story of Lexington and Concord. (The girls thought it was interesting because at least one woman was seen by the British to be firing their way.) I then asked my students to write a 300-word “eyewitness account.” Anyone who ever had me for class could tell you, I graded this kind of assignment like I was an English teacher.

In this case, I was trying to give students more writing practice.

The problem, of course, is that on a standardized test a HISTORY teacher won’t ever be credited with successfully teaching writing.

So, teaching writing would technically be a waste of time.

That struck me as nuts when I was still teaching and still does today. It seems like a strange way to “improve” learning outcomes.

So, no. I don’t believe “standards” will be our salvation.

If you want better schools a major part of the problem can only be fixed when we convince students to work harder or begin demanding that they do. If we want to lose weight we don’t need new diet plans or standards.

We need to exercise a little will power. We need to show a bit of restraint. We need to do our part and lay down our forks.