Same City, Different Worlds: The PEN Conference and the EWA seminar. The two “camps” of education sounding off in Chi-town

Today in Chicago, two major education events took place.  And the two events could not be more different.  On the north side, a group of dedicated educators gathered from across the country to discuss progressive education practices for the Progressive Education Network (PEN) National conference.  Among some of the distinguished speakers and panelists were Pedro Antonio Noguera, Bill Ayers, and Gloria Ladson-Billings.  On the other side of town at the University of Chicago, a very different event was underway: The Education Writers Association (EWA) Seminar entitled “Evaluating Teachers: Beyond the Rhetoric”.  This group included speakers such as Tim Daly, president of the New Teacher Project (Michelle Rhee’s brain child), representatives from the Gates Foundation, a panel of teachers none of whom was a current (non-TFA) educator, and Educators for Excellence (cozy friend of the Gates Foundation and DFER).

   

At PEN, the 600 educators discussed topics like teacher and student voice in public policy, making “child-centered learning” , how to educate the “whole child”, the damage of high-stakes testing to the practice of real informative assessment, sharing ways to incorporate social justice in all subjects,  as well as sharing tricks to engage all learners in a safe, inviting, creative environment.  The three-day event ended this afternoon with a poignant and rousing keynote address by Gloria Ladson-Billings (professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of books like The Dream-Keepers:  Successful Teachers of African American Children)   Dr. Ladson-Billings framed her speech around the disturbing statistics of growing poverty, lack of health care for many families, and the income gap’s exponential growth over the past decade.  She drew a chuckle from the teacher audience when she joked about a new teacher’s complaint about having to teach special education students.  “If you are in education today,” she argued, “then you ARE a special education teacher.   You are an ESL teacher.  Our population is changing.”  She spoke to the complexity of teaching today over and over again saying that “teacher-proof” curricula and “lack of regard for teachers and their work” “can’t improve student learning.”   Her speech ended with a standing ovation.

While Dr. Ladson-Billings was praising the hard work of creative educators, down south, according to the tweetosphere, the day’s talks seemed to center on teacher evaluation including VAM models and how that data is being used in places like Tennessee and Texas.  Thanks to these models, more teachers will be punished and fired (including some simply due to random error).  VAM also represents a significant weakening of union protections for teachers.  These evaluations are being used to systematically destroy the teaching profession as schools become places of fear and compliance.  Teachers will be forced to go against all they know about child development and educating children holistically and instead focus on test prep to increase the all important test score.

At a different point in the conference, panelists from the LA Times divulged that the Times evidently had always planned on publishing teacher’s names with their test score rating.   In fact, “LAUSD's Deasy wanted LAT to "clear the way" by publishing VAM data, says LAT editor D. Smith” (Alexander Russo).  Overall, here’s a link to the day’s schedule: http://www.ewa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=agenda_eval_11  It seems like an event with an agenda if I ever saw one.

Now, back to the PEN conference, my biggest critique was that a vast majority of the participants were from private schools.  And the few public schools represented were from districts like Winnetka, one of the wealthiest towns in the United States.  There was virtually no one, outside a few lone Chicago Public Schools teachers, who represented high-poverty, urban schools.  One teacher from Gage Park High School on the city’s southwest side, invited some students to attend the conference.  The students spoke of the need for equity in funding, of safety in schools and neighborhoods, about wishing to go directly to Mayor Emanuel or even Arne Duncan with their concerns, social justice, collaborating with parents and community organizations, and their desire for the best education for all.  Although the voices of public schools students like these were under-represented, their valid concerns were echoed in Ladson-Billings concluding speech.

To me, the moral of this tale of one city’s schizophrenic day of education is this:  Sure, we love progressive education practices, but only for the rich white private schools.  When it comes to the vast majority of our children in public schools, we want to standardize and sterilize learning into easy-to-compare test prep factories.  We want to sort and control public school teachers, just the way we sort and control their students.  While the rich children explore, learn, question, dream, try, experience, fail, and enjoy the process of expanding their minds in beautiful schools and small classes with no pressure of grades or homework, all the other people’s children are condemned to mindless, empty recitation of facts.  These children’s teachers are forbidden to explore progressive ways to inspire these young people, except in the spaces “between the cracks”.  While the privileged choose a school for its unique, child-centered curriculum, public school teachers secretly “interrupt” the scheduled dry testing curricula with real authentic discussion and learning while telling their students “When the Feds come, tell them we’re on page 93.” (David Stovall, Associate Professor at University of Illinois-Chicago)

Progressive education and its respect for the teacher and the learner is something every child in this country deserves.  Let's start "interrupting" the education deforms happening now to see this goal come into reality.

More from the Ravitch/Hanushek Debate

Here's another comment from the debate between Eric Hanushek who argues that firing 5-10% of "ineffective" teachers would dramatically improve American education and Diane Ravitch who says, as Linda Darling-Hammond so aptly put it, "you can't fire your way to Finland".  For the full thread, see:  http://www.eduwonk.com/2011/11/second-response-from-diane-ravitch.html  

All I have heard in this silly debate is the same old tired talking points being thrown around. I know I shouldn’t even bother commenting because everyone has already made up their minds.

But still…I cannot help but think of my students, asleep right now in the psychiatric hospital where I work.

I think about “T” who is in the foster care system, was badly abused until he was 9, and has such extreme behavior problems that he requires a 1:1 staff with him at all times. He can’t read well and still does basic addition and subtraction even though he’s in the 5th grade. But today, he saw some older kids learning square roots and he begged me to try and solve them too. And you know what? He figured it out!! He ran up to me so excited that he had accomplished this work that he gave me a great big hug.

I think about “J”, also a ward of the state, living in a group home, who has gang affiliations and a history of school failure. I think about his astute and powerful comments in my class yesterday when someone brought up life in the inner-city. I sensed an anguish in his voice because he is such an intelligent young man and knows EXACTLY what a rotten hand he’s been dealt.

I think about little “A”, who thinks he is thug-tastic, but is actually a scared little 10 year old boy. I saw the cracks in his armor today when he pulled me into his room to speak with his case worker saying “Ms. Katie, tell her I’m doing 8th grade work! Tell her how smart I am!” The smile on that boy’s face was priceless.

None of Mr. Hanushek’s policies help MY kids. All I want for them is a teacher who CARES about them and gives them the chance to succeed. Test scores are nothing. International comparisons are nothing. What will help these children is not being talked about.

Instead, we debate back and forth about evaluation processes, tenure, firing procedures, and speculations not based on reality.

I’m sick of this. I want to talk about income inequality, lack of health care, and lack of mental health services. Even the best teachers cannot give my kids what they need.

Sure I want good teachers in the classroom, but the classroom itself is broken. The only reason I can reach some of my kids is because I work outside the school system. I have no standardized tests hanging over my head, I have no scripted curriculum to follow, I am supported DIRECTLY in my classroom by 2-3 staff members at all times, I have a multi-disciplinary team of people working on every aspect of these children’s lives including social workers helping families, doctors addressing biological and brain issues, and counselors teaching direct social and coping skills. We even have a recreational therapist who guides kids through art and play, addressing the whole child.

I have to go to bed now because I need rest to do a very very difficult job. At least I, unlike my colleagues in the schools, do not need to worry if tomorrow will be the day the firings begin. But do not expect me to stop fighting for what is right for my students. I will resist Hanushek and all those who take the spotlight off the very real issues at play in my students’ lives for as long as it takes.

John Thompson replied: 

KatieO,

Do you think Hanushek is even aware of the difference between students on IEPs for learning disabilities as opposed to emotional or conduct disorders? Are any of his fellow economists aware of such a difference? Are they aware of what happens when there is a critical mass of traumatized kids in classrooms and schools? If so, have they ever tried to control for that difference? If they are aware of those issues, why haven’t we read about studies trying to take that into account?

And I wrote: 

@johnthompson I don’t think any of the education “reformers” of the day have the slightest idea what our kids in the inner-city actually go through. What you said about “a critical mass of traumatized kids in classrooms and schools” is spot on. Our children are sick because of the conditions we let them grow up in. And the impact of this concentrated poverty and excessive violence is taking its toll on our schools. America should be ashamed.

I recently was on Chicago’s NPR station speaking about the mental health of our kids: http://www.wbez.org/story/teaching-mentally-ill-children-delicate-balance-children-and-teachers-93503

I’m not sure if what I was trying to communicate actually got through in the piece, but I wanted to say that you need a dedicated TEAM of experts to work with kids with mental health problems. Too often, schools are being left to deal with too many kids with too many problems (there’s that critical mass, you speak of…) all alone.

Instead of helping these schools with these children, we overcrowd our classrooms full of kids with significant, and I mean truly debilitating, often undiagnosed problems. To add insult to injury, we understaff and underresource those same schools. Heck, we don’t even train some those teachers properly before giving them some of the hardest to educate students.

So no, I will never agree to an evaluation system that inevitably will be primarily based on faulty test scores. I will not agree with firing 5-10% of my colleagues, because the playing field is too unfair. It is unfair for the kids and the staff alike.

I am absolutely baffled and disgusted by people like Hanushek who clearly have no idea what teachers face from day to day, especially in these inner-city schools.

Teachers have been doing what they can for years. It’s not enough and I want change too. But the rest of society has to step in and do its part.

Firing to Finland Farce

Here is a comment I posted on a blog:  "Lifting Student Achievement by Weeding Out Harmful Teachers"http://www.eduwonk.com/2011/10/lifting-student-achievement-by-weeding-out-harmful-teachers.html

As has been said before, I’m sorry, but “you can’t fire your way to Finland.”

I taught for many years in a Japanese high school, one of those “high-performing” countries everyone is so concerned about. What I saw in classrooms was boring lecturing, little discussion, and overall teacher-centered techniques that left students disengaged and often asleep (Japanese teachers rarely woke these students.) The children were so tired because they spent HOURS every night at cram schools with 1:1 tutoring. They could sleep through class because they knew they’d learn it that night. The Japanese don’t succeed because of superman teachers.

In fact, the best teaching I’ve ever seen was from the time when I taught in a “failing” 99% low-income, 100% black elementary school on the south side of Chicago. What I saw in literally EVERY classroom was creative, thoughtful, hard-working teachers trying every possible trick in the book to reach their students. But it was never enough. Behavior problems plagued the school and children had difficulty focusing on learning with all the outside problems that they brought. The poverty that surrounded them created an obstacle that even fantastic teachers could not always overcome (although, there were some exceptions with some students. There are bound to be outliers.)

How do you decide who to fire when everyone is working so hard? Do you fire the fifth grade teacher who took on the inclusion classroom with 10 children with learning or behavior problems? Do you fire the kindergarten teacher whose students had never been to school before? Do you fire the 3rd grade teacher whose students had had a string of subs the entire year before and were completely out of control? Do you fire the special ed teacher whose students do not make progress as quickly as their peers? And what do you do with the 1st year teacher who is still learning her trade, is she to be fired because she hasn’t had time to improve? What about the art teacher? How do you judge her work?

And let’s not forget favoritism. The principal was close friends with one 5th grade teacher. Lo and behold, her classroom had none of the children known to have behavior problems. She had one special education student with a mild disability while the other 5th grade teacher had 10 children with significant disabilities. Classrooms are NOT randomly assigned in schools.

The issue of teacher quality is such a complex and subjective topic. Despite what Bill Gates would have us believe, you cannot easily quantify what “good teaching” is, and people’s definitions vary depending on what you value.

Not only would firing 5-10% of teachers not work, it would damage morale and ultimately the teaching profession. When you have half of all new teachers quit before they have been in the classrooms five years, I think the real question we should be asking is “How do we get teachers to STAY in the classroom long enough to become great?”

When Are We Going to Talk about MY Kids?

For too long, the conversation about education reform including topics like charter schools, funding, standardized testing, and teacher evaluation has skirted around what to me, is the central issue.  What do we do with the disruptive, most-difficult to educate children?  Any teacher will tell you the adverse effects on the learning environment of having even one highly disruptive child in the classroom.  In many schools, especially--but not limited to-- in the crumbling, violence-filled neighborhoods of the inner-city, schools are often overwhelmed with children exhibiting extreme behaviors.

Let me paint a picture of what types of behaviors I am talking about for all the non-educators out there.  As a teacher on an inpatient psychiatry hospital unit, some typical behaviors I see are children who quickly become aggressive or violent with peers or staff, threats of harm towards self and others, extreme opposition to authority, acute hyperactivity and impulsivity (VERY disruptive in a traditional classroom), and even inappropriate sexually-acting-out behaviors in the classroom.

In the highly restrictive environment of a psychiatric hospital, we have the staff and the training to deal with these intense behaviors.  But here’s the thing, after the kids “stabilize” (translation: when they are not actively trying to hurt themselves or others), we discharge them STRAIGHT BACK INTO THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.  As funding for mental health facilities dries up around the country, kids more and more often get sent directly back to school.  And due to mental health privacy laws, many many times the teacher has NO IDEA that the child was recently hospitalized for problems like homicidal ideation or other threats of violence.   

So my question is, what do we do with THESE kids?  Are we as a society committed to educating these children despite their outward distain for learning?  And the answer I keep hearing is “no”.

I hear story after story from my students who were asked to leave their charter schools.   It’s not that charter schools do not educate any child with a disability, but that they ask the disruptive ones to leave.  And frankly, my kids DO disrupt the learning environment.  It’s true.   But does that mean they aren’t entitled to an education?  The charters have chosen to throw the burden and the cost of educating these kids back onto the neighborhood schools.  Then, as a slap in the face to public education, they boast about their higher test scores and lower costs.

Now, I’m not saying that given the chance, neighborhood schools wouldn’t get rid of these kids too.  They can be really really hard to work with.   But there are these darn LAWS that say you have to provide “a free and appropriate” education to any child that walks through your door.  The neighborhood schools cannot easily remove the children from the learning environment. 

Let’s talk about the funding of schools.  For the moment, let’s even disregard the ridiculous inequality in our system.  I heard just this morning on CNN (http://yourbottomline.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/08/u-s-public-education-a-race-to-the-bottom/), Christine Romans complain that the U.S. spends more per pupil than nearly any other nation.  Diane Ravitch appropriately replied that a vast majority of the increase in spending over the past 40 years is for special education, and not going into supporting the general education classroom. 

Back in 1975, our country made the decision to educate ALL children regardless of disability by enacting the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).  To me, this is a beautiful and powerful idea.  But it also is an expensive one. 

I taught for many years in Japanese public schools.  The Japanese education system is often praised, and for some good reason, but here’s the unspoken dirty little secret:  the Japanese separate their children with severe disability into special schools.  Then, the remaining kids with lesser disabilities are not given support in the classroom.  There was NO SUCH THING as a special education teacher in any of the schools I worked in.  Instead, kids that struggled academically are weeded out after the high school entrance exam.  It is a “merit” system where kids that test well are funneled into the “academic schools” for college prep while everyone else is thrown away in “technical, commercial, and agricultural” vocational schools where few will go on the college.  I taught in both an academic and technical high school.  The technical school kids were being prepared for factory work and most would not dream of college.  Looking back, after now being trained as a special education teacher, I can identify many kids who probably had learning disabilities.   But they were not helped in Japan.

Now I come to standardized tests and teacher evaluations.  If a teacher’s job depends on how students perform on a test, there is now a perverse incentive to get classes with the easier-to-teach students.  This means both individual teachers and whole schools will be incentivized to remove the disruptive kids from the learning environment.  With all the emphasis on test scores, I have felt the push to go back into general education since special education students show progress at a much slower rate.  Instead, I was lucky enough to find a position OUTSIDE the accountability-obsessed public school system.  In my classroom, I have the freedom, the autonomy, and the support of staff in my classroom to actually reach these difficult to teach kids.  My students, despite being in the middle of a crisis in their lives, actually look forward to school.  They ask thoughtful questions, interact with complex ideas and concepts, and are not berated or written-off due to their behavior problems.  Rather, we focus on teaching them better coping skills for anger than acting out violently.  And in that controlled environment, they generally respond positively.

My students with significant behavior problems are just as intelligent, thoughtful, creative, and loving as any other child.  They just have difficulty expressing it.  They have experienced trauma, abuse, bullying, school failure, learning problems, and other experiences which hinder academic ability.   Today’s reforms are purposefully EXCLUDING these children while they simultaneously talk about education as the “civil rights issue of our time”.  The reformers would box in the definition of what “achievement” looks like to reading and math skills.  My kids may often struggle with reading or math, by my god they are amazing actors, singers, rappers, comedians, and leaders!  And they are so very discouraged by their experiences in the schools.  “My charter school kicked me out.  I’m no good.”  “School is so boring.”  “The kids bully me for being different.”  “My school said I should drop out.” 

There is a conversation we need to have as a country.  Are we going to look at the whole child?  Are we willing to look past the negative behaviors to see the essence of these exceptional children?  What happened to progressive ideas of education where we focus on creating learning environments that work for ALL kids instead of boring test-prep factories that actually create and foster negative acting-out behaviors?  Or, will we continue to push these kids out, to make them believe they are worthless, to practically guarantee their entrance into the criminal justice system?  I want to think that we as Americans believe in the dignity of every human being.  But my experience tells me we do not.

Let's make this WORK!

OK, here are my ideas to take all the negative “reforms” happening in education and using those structures for good!

1)  Teach for America:  Instead of throwing these young, talented, driven people off the deep end into their own classrooms immediately, change the program into an internship program.   TFA teachers would be assistants in a certified, veteran teacher's classroom.  Think of the immediate positive impact they could make!   Think of the time and energy they could bring!  Think of how it will help both children and teachers!

2)  Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:  Instead of dictating how teachers should teach or how they should be evaluated, why don’t you focus your significant funds into wraparound services like health clinics, mental health services, pre-natal care, funds for full Pre-K programs, or food and housing programs?  Help combat the poverty which holds too many of our kids back so that teachers can better do what they do best:  teach!!

3) Charter schools:  Stop pushing out children who are difficult to educate and instead focus your time and energy SPECIFICALLY on those kids.  Use the innovation and lack of red tape to be a haven for these kids.  Do not market based on the test scores, but rather the innovative programs that help kids experiencing school failure, behavior problems, or learning difficulties.    How about a charter designed for a full hands-on experience to cater to kids with significant attention problems (Maybe TWO periods of gym a day)?  How about a school dedicated to getting kids out of gangs?  How about special multi-language schools where non-native English speakers are highly valued!?!

I will keep adding to this as I think of ideas….

You Can’t Mass Market Passion

After engaging in some light debate on a HuffPo piece by Whitney Tilson (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/whitney-tilson/do-schools-matter_b_967425.html), I came to a new understanding of what exactly bothers me so much about KIPP and TFA type “reforms”. 

For some reason, my thoughts kept coming back to the image of the veteran teacher who inspired Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin to start KIPP.   (Was that on Waiting for Superman?) I’ve heard them interviewed about going to this woman during their time in TFA and learning effective techniques to inspire kids.  They said they were so impressed they decided to start a school based on her style of teaching.

Basically, they took a good teacher’s good idea and mass marketed it.

My understanding is that KIPP teachers are expected to adhere to very strict guidelines including longer hours, being available by phone, and are taught specific teaching techniques to use and phrases to say.  (Kinda reminded me also of that silly binder TFA corp members are given.)   Now the thing that goads me is that many teachers do many of these practices already.  I know many public school teachers who give out their cell numbers and always take a call from a student or a parent.  Most teachers arrive early and stay late anyway.  And nearly all teachers are looking to improve their teaching techniques and may use many of the same ideas.

 

The problem is that the KIPP model tries to make their schools “teacher proof”.   Perhaps this is why teachers turn over so quickly there, they are expendable.  It doesn’t really matter if they work them too hard, as long as they follow the given rules, teachers are interchangeable. 

I could go on about respect and dignity in the workplace, but I believe there is a more fundamental problem with this type of model.  Great teachers may use many of the techniques that KIPP does, but they may also throw all those ideas out the window IF THEY DON’T WORK.  That’s the thing about teaching unpredictable, creative, impulsive, individual children, there’s no telling what they will do!  Listen to a teacher’s stories someday about the crazy unexpected things that happen on any given day in their classrooms.  It’s all part of the magic.

However, teachers who were never properly trained, who are relying on scripted curriculum and pre-packaged phrases are not ready to capture many of those teachable moments.  Part of being a professional is always adding to your practice.  And a seasoned teacher has a bag of tricks ready for nearly any situation.  

KIPP and TFA negate the autonomy, the creativity, and the passion that real powerful teaching requires.   It cheapens it into something that can be copied quickly.  “Do a chant in class and the kids will learn!”  Fine, that probably does work for some kids.   In fact, I love that idea.  I’ve used that idea.  But depending on the kids in front of me, sometimes that’s not the way to go so I try something different.  No wonder many kids leave charters, the young untrained teaching force is not prepared for their unique learning styles.  And then they blame the child.  I believe it’s called “no excuses”.

A school’s mission should be to give teachers the best possible learning environment and then let them do what they do best.  Figure out the puzzle that is each individual child. We have it backwards in America, we underfund, overcrowd, and stack the deck against even a good teacher, then we tell them what to do and tell them they’d better step in line or risk being held “accountable”.

 

Did the founders of KIPP forget that veteran teacher who taught them so much?  Do they really not recognize that great teachers like that are great not because of the “right words” or “right strategies” but because of the passion and creativity they bring?  The power to inspire a child cannot be cultivated without serious effort and time as well as encouragement and support.  And they sure can’t be picked up a “Teacher R’Us” and then replaced as needed. 

Let me pull from my bag of teacher tricks now…what is needed for teachers is more encouragement, support, and maybe a gold star wouldn’t hurt.  

Class Warfare Within the Family

Over the past few months, I have begun to feel some tension within my family.  Just a little background, I grew up in an upper middle class home on the North Shore of Chicago.  My high school is notorious for its upper class snobbery and as a teenager, I spent much of my time at my friends’, well for no better word, mansions.  It was NOT your typical upbringing.

Recently, while spending time with my family I have begun to feel a greater and greater disconnect between myself and them.  I find myself uncomfortable at their fancy galas, awkwardly sharing drinks with my sister’s friends who are doctors, lawyers, and rich business people, and being dragged to various upscale restaurants and bars which I simply cannot afford.

I began to realize that my choice to become a teacher means I have moved to a different social class than my family of doctors and business people.  And the class gap is widening.

Now, I’m not saying I am completely upset by this change.  I find myself proudly joining ranks with union brothers and sisters.  I am impassioned to work side by side with the less fortunate.  I am glad that I am not so far removed from the suffering of people directly impacted by bad economic and educational policies.

 

But I find I have less and less to say to my family.  In many ways, they just don’t get me and they never will.  My sister works hard as a doctor, and I respect her dedication and drive.  But she is invariably surrounded by people who are of a similar social background, only coming into contact with lower classes through her patients, never as friends.  Her doctor friends complain of those “lazy nurses at Cook County Hospital” who are too protected by their union.  I always challenge them to question, “What bad practices caused the union to fight for those protections to start with?”  But the doctors do not care.  In their mind, the nurses are just plain “bad”.

 

Time and time again, I have been forced to sit through dinners and nights out with my sister’s friends who literally brag about the new diamond earrings they bought, rave about the condos they have invested in for the bargain price of 500 grand, and show off the latest designer bags or clothes they have purchased.  They complain that after student loans, they will only be making a measly 100 grand in their new job.  Sometimes I want to scream out “Do you realize that I will NEVER have that kind of cash thanks to my career choice?” Making a six figure salary is not in my future.  Nor is owning a home, a car, heck, I’d be hard pressed to keep a dog.   

But I love what I do.  I think I make an important contribution, in my small way, by working with the children and adolescents who have been left behind.  I love advocating for those kids, protesting for their rights, pushing back on systems that only benefit the diamond earring owners and six figure salary types.

Still, I do have regrets.  I find myself really really angry that people who are doing jobs like business or public relations are making so much more than I am.  I feel like what I do is ultimately the more important job.  And there is some jealousy there.  Jealousy, resentment, and the feeling that a deep injustice is occurring. 

I suppose I will need to just get over whatever it is that I am feeling.  I am just scared that if the people who I love and know to be thoughtful, kind, intelligent folks don’t care enough or know enough to be outraged by the growing economic inequality in our nation, what hope is there that change will ever happen?