Why a School of Education?

I have recently become the founding dean of the school of education at Merrimack College. The school itself brings together already existing undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as a graduate institute that focuses on non-degree programs and professional development for K-12 teachers and administrators. It is, as such, not a true “new” school of education. Nevertheless, I had to reflect on whether it was even legitimate to take on the position of dean of a school of education in today’s educational policy climate. I am giving a short speech at the beginning of a forthcoming conference on the future of education that formally launches the school of education, and I thus want to lay out some of my thinking around why a school of education is not only relevant, but vital for preparing future educators.



(I should be clear at this point that I am speaking for myself as an individual and not on the behalf of the institution. Nevertheless, as dean, I occupy a public role and thus cannot simply take off my “dean” hat to put on my “blogger” hat. Thus whereas before I wrote in and through my expert and professional role as a social foundations scholar, this line, at least to me, is no longer clear. Let the reader, as such, beware.)



Twenty-five years ago just about every licensed teacher came through a traditional, bricks-and-mortar school of education. The alternative pathways in place were few and far between; in 1985 less than 300 individuals across the country had gone through an alternative route to gain teacher certification. Then along came Teach For America, the standards and accountability movement, the emphasis on “teacher quality” and alternative pathways, and, poof, a generation later schools of education are on the defensive, feeling outdated, maligned, and marginalized. 60,000 individuals a year go through alternative pathways towards teacher certification, states routinely create regulations and partnerships (e.g., ABCTE) that privilege “off-site” licensure programs (oftentimes seen in district-based residency programs), and the entire notion of a teaching degree within a “traditional” institution through course-driven seat-time seems antiquated. (This is not a dissertation, so check out NCEI’s data, David Angus’s brief history, or any of David Labaree’s writings on the subject.)



I of course hear AACTE’s cogent argument that 85% of all teachers still go through schools of education (they include the number of individuals going through alternative pathways run by higher education institutions), and I think Arne Duncan’s speeches about teacher preparation programs have been way too stereotyped, as they are in fact not antagonistic to the idea of schools of education (whereas the Bush administration completely was). Nevertheless, schools of education are clearly on the defensive, and I see that every day through the very positioning of how AACTE is responding and what the federal government is privileging in its funding, and, closer to home, in how Massachusetts and other states are revamping regulations and priorities within the context of the RTTT competition.



So why a school of education? Why buy in to a physical school of education within a residential liberal arts and pre-professional college?



The answer – rhetorically, pragmatically, and, yes, data-driven – is that it is the only formal place where future educators will have the opportunity to reflect, rethink, revise, and re-vision their ideas of what it means to be an educator in a complex and bureaucratic organization called a school enmeshed within a pluralistic, stratified and “global” society while beholden to deeply linear, outdated, and all too often punitive notions of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. To put it simply and quickly, schools of education offer the opportunity to change your mind about oneself as a teacher, to break out of the pattern of teaching simply as one was taught.



Teacher preparation consists of three things; two of them are standard and what is usually talked about: the opportunity to learn and the opportunity to practice. The opportunity to learn includes content knowledge (e.g., math), pedagogical content knowledge (e.g., how to teach math at the elementary level), and pedagogical knowledge (e.g., good classroom management skills such that one can actually deliver the math lesson one meant to). The opportunity to practice, in turn, is to actually try all of this out in an actual classroom. This traditionally includes pre-practicum and actual practicum opportunities (i.e., student-teaching) that can range anywhere from six weeks to an entire year. The third (which is never really talked about but what I argue is at the crux of powerful teacher preparation) is the opportunity to change.



This three-fold formulation – at least for me – greatly clarifies why traditional teacher preparation oftentimes appears so outdated. This is because the opportunity to learn and the opportunity to practice can legitimately and powerfully be done in a wide range of locations and modalities. (Which of course doesn’t mean it is done legitimately and powerfully in other locations and modalities outside of higher education institutions; but that is another argument and a completely different issue that I bracket for now.) I can become immersed in math and even in how to teach math through in-seat, hybrid, or online courses. I can teach myself calculus and I can sit with a master teacher in a professional development workshop to gain her perspective on “tricks of the trade” of ways to get student interest and enthusiasm. Similarly, the opportunity to practice can legitimately be done in a wide variety of formats. The key is that one sees multiple models of practice, attempts multiple modes of teaching, and gains substantive, ongoing, and critical formative feedback in one’s attempts as a new teacher. Institutions of higher education, in my perspective, have no monopoly on these opportunities to learn and practice.



Where higher education does have a monopoly, and one that is paramount to future teacher success, is in providing the opportunity to change. College – be it at the undergraduate or graduate level – is the only formal place I know where future teachers have the opportunity to carefully, thoughtfully, and critically examine the underlying assumptions and in-practice narratives of what teaching and learning means, what it should look like, and how do they fit into this picture. College – to put it both in truly banal yet also truly profound terms – changes us. Or at least it should, if we as academics and teacher educators do our job.



And this opportunity – the opportunity to change – is crucial. School is not a simple or obvious place. It is embedded in complex economic, sociological, political, psychological, and historical networks. This can refer to how school is organized, the demographics of who goes to school, the psychometrics of who succeeds in school and why, or the political realities of school funding (to name but a few off-the-cuff issues). None of us has thought all of these things through. And they matter. Perhaps not to the immediate classroom lesson. But to why I am teaching that lesson in the first place, in the way I am teaching it, with what kind of scaffolding, and with what kind of assessment I give afterwards.



I would claim that none us can be a good teacher without – at some conscious or subconscious level – having delved deeply into these dynamics, even if it is at the level (memorialized by Ted Sizer’s Horace’s Compromise) of realizing that the classroom is a negotiated inter-dynamic process. One has to consciously realize this before one can change it (if one so wants). (Which is why Sizer used this example as his set-up for the profound argument of what came to be known as the Coalition of Essential Schools model.)



And, and here’s the kicker, one can’t do that on one’s own. I can’t on my own push my mind beyond the boundaries of what I already know. To use Wittgenstein’s metaphor, the limits of our language become the limits of our world. I need a space – most likely a physical space with a real professor who has delved deeply into these issues for most of his/her academic career focus – in which to be pushed and prodded to think beyond what I have traditionally thought. To be shown connections I would have never imagined. To be dragged down the logical path I would have never wanted to explore. To be reminded that I don’t know how an argument plays out. To come to grips with the complexity that I will all too often gloss over. To think.



In the end, I may walk out of that college classroom with the same beliefs and propensity for actions I had when I first walked in the door. Which is in fact just fine. Because at least now I can better articulate and understand why I do what I do. And that – the self-reflective individual able to contextualize one’s beliefs and actions within a conceptual framework as impinged upon by the realities around us – is at the heart of powerful teaching. It gives me the chance to think about what it means to teach in the type of school I am hired by and with the type of kids sitting in front of me; and it gives me the chance to wonder, deeply and profoundly, whether in fact I want to teach as I was taught. And if I don’t, then how the heck do I want to teach? And why?



Thus what a school of education ultimately offers – beyond the opportunity to learn and the opportunity to practice – is the opportunity to come to grips with what it means to be a teacher today. This experience will never change for new teachers and why we need a school of education.

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Looking Past the Spin: Teach for America

is perhaps the most important single article to date on what has developed from the Princeton Senior Thesis of Wendy Kopp. Authored by Barbara Miner, it appears in the Spring edition of Rethinking Schools, which if you care about the future of public education you should support (while the material is available online, you can consider contributing if you choose not to subscribe). here is the link directly to the article

A PDF version of the article was circulated among similarly thinkers on education a few weeks before the Spring issue was mailed. I have not written about it until now because I wanted to be certain that it was fully accessible to all I might be able to interest in it, and it was not on the web site (which was being migrated) until earlier this week. It was only on Saturday afternoon that I had sufficient time to do the article justice.

I will be happy if you have already decided to go read the entire article (again, here's the link), but in case you have not, let me offer some thoughts that might persuade you.

First, before I go further, let me note that I have permission from Rethinking Schools to quote beyond the normal fair use limitations for the purpose of my reviewing the article, which begins with an italicized statement that alerts you to the focus, Most Teach for America recruits are idealistic and dedicated. But who is behind the organization, and does its approach bolster or hinder urban education reform?

Miner begins describing her thoughts as she is driving towards St. Louis for part of her research on the article, which is when we we encounter her writing

Do people honestly think that sending Ivy League graduates into the St. Louis schools for two years will somehow unlock the academic achievement that is seen as a cornerstone of rebuilding our cities? Can the antidote to educational inequity, urban disinvestment, and neighborhood decay really be so simple?

Let me stop and digress a moment. Teach for America goes beyond the Ivies to other prestigious schools, including my own Alma Mater, Haverford College, which will on occasion brag to its alumni about the participation of its graduates. I have on occasion talked seniors out of applying, which has not endeared me to some on the campus. My argument as a professional educator is simple - unless the person going in is willing to be open about continuing beyond the required 2-year commitment, it is unfair to the students and the school, because it takes a while for any teacher to become effective, and too many of the students they will encounter already have experienced adults who simply pass through their lives.

I have been vocal in my criticism of Teach for America (TFA) over the years, to the point that once a VP of the organization asked for a meeting to persuade me they had addressed many of the things I had criticized, and they even gave me access to their internal web-based materials. While I appreciated the openness, what I saw then, and what I have seen since, has done little to change my skepticism about the entire approach. Reading Miner's article strongly reinforced what I already felt. If that is going to bother you, you can stop reading now and return to Miner, to which I shall also return.

The purpose of Miner's article, as she notes, is supposed to be about the organization and education reform, not about the abandonment of low income communities of color. Yet when she returns to her home base of Milwaukee after 2 weeks of interviews and research, she is troubled. As she writes,

I have come to distinguish between the generally hard-working, smart, and idealistic TFA classroom teachers, and a nation al organization that is as sophisticated, slippery, and media savvy as any group I have ever written about. TFA is perceived as a major player in the education wars over the future of public schools, and a key ally of those who disparage teacher unions and schools of education, and who are enamored of entrepreneurial reforms that bolster the privatization of a once-sacred public responsibility.

But what exactly is TFA’s role in these education wars? Who is directing the organization and to what ends? More importantly, what is TFA’s role in improving urban education?

For many of us who are committed to public education, the question in that brief paragraph immediately above this are key.

There is no doubt that on some levels TFA, which some critics have labeled as "Teach for Awhile" or "Teach for a Resume," has achieved "success" (although it may not necessarily be on behalf of the students it ostensibly serves). As Miner notes, in 2009 it received over 35,000 applications, including an astonishing 115 of Ivy graduates, and as of the writing of the article it had 7,300 teachers in 35 locations, some of which have

significant teacher turnover and hire large numbers of uncertified teachers.

The article is too rich to fully cover in a posting like this, which is why I will again encourage you to read the entire thing. Let me note a couple of things that caught my attention. TFA now does more training and support of its candidates, including having relationships with a number of schools/colleges of education (which as Miner notes seems to be contrary to the original goal of taking bright graduates and putting them in with little training in the belief that they could still make a difference). What further caught my attention is that some of the training of their candidates is paid for my our tax dollars: members receive tuition towards a masters through Americorp, to the tune of a $4,725 annual educational award. Now, were those receiving that training all committed to remaining in the inner city schools in which they serve I might not object, but for many even this is still but a step on the way to something else, perhaps business school or law school. Of the three members TFA arranged for Miner to interview in St. Louis (out of the total of 183 in public and charter schools), only one was committed to staying beyond the requisite two years, and even she is thinking beyond the classroom: she will spend five years teaching while earning masters in education and educational administration, then go to law school, and then . . .? As this teacher, Melinda Harris, notes

“I can honestly say, what I have learned I could use in another profession: the networking, the time management and organizational skills.”

And of course the ever-present alumni network will help her with whatever goals beyond the classroom she decides to pursue.

One problem with TFA and how it selects its teachers is the mismatch between teachers and students.

In 2008 about 10 percent of corps members nationwide were African American, and about 7.5 percent were Latino; overall, almost 29 percent are people of color. Figures for the TFA staff are similar. TFA classrooms, meanwhile, are about 90 percent African American and Latino.

In theory, there is not necessarily a stumbling block between having white middle class teachers in a predominantly minority school - I and a majority of the teachers in my school are white, while we are a minority majority school. But there are differences. First, while we have students from a variety of economic circumstances, they are still predominantly middle class. Second, our teachers are committed to the school: an art teacher who passed away earlier this week had been there since the building opened in the 1970s. I arrived at the school in 1998, and in my department of 17 teachers there are 5 who were there when I arrived.

Further, 7,500 is a drop in the ocean of millions of teachers. Even if we look at the needs of inner-city and rural schools with high degrees of poverty, we needs hundreds of thousands of teachers. It is not clear to me, or to anyone who has seriously and dispassionately studied TFA, that it provides any kind of useful model for how we serve the millions of children in such schools. The article includes a separate box which has some remarks from Barnett Berry, who coincidentally is co-founder of the Teacher Leaders Network of which I am a member. Barnett acknowledges that a Teach for America Recruit might well be better than the uncertified substitute that a child in an inner city school might otherwise have, and of course we should encourage bright and enthusiastic young people to take on the task of such educational settings. Let me quote 3 paragraphs from that box, so that you get the full impact of Berry's concerns:

“But,” Berry continues, “to suggest that TFA is the solution to the nation’s teaching quality gap is misguided at best.”

Berry likens the TFA recruits to sprinters—talented athletes, but insufficient if one wants to build a well-rounded track team. “TFA gets its recruits ready for a sprint, not a 10K or a marathon,” Berry notes. “They look like they are working harder than the veteran teachers. But the veteran teacher has experience and knows that if you want to make a career of teaching, a sprinting pace will burn you out.”

Because TFA recruits aren’t expected to stay, they have two other advantages: they cost less and they tend to do what they are told. “By and large, they don’t raise questions,” Berry notes.

they don't raise questions - we already have a problem that the voices of teachers are often not part of the discussions about educational policy. Teacher Leaders Network is one attempt to try to change that, and one of my compatriots, Anthony Cody, organized the Letters to the President effort that led to a large Facebook group that is now leading to a conversation with Secretary of Education Duncan. But by and large those of us who are committed to remaining in the classroom have to struggle to get our voices heard. That may explain some of the hostility one experiences from professional educators towards Teach for America - we see those with little teaching experience, sometimes not all that effective, suddenly being turned to as the experts on how to "fix" education when the voices of those whose efforts will be needed for the success of any meaningful reform continue to be excluded.

Teach for America requires a 2-year commitment. The statistics on those completing the commitment are somewhat inflated by TFA - in 2007 only 87% of those who should have been completing the 2 years actually were, and as Miner notes, the completion rate was lower in earlier years. Further, TFA claims that a survey of its alumni (who are supposed to include only those who completed the 2 years) shows “more than two-thirds of Teach for America alumni are working or studying full-time in the field of education.” The accompanying graph shows 50% of these as teachers. But as Miner notes, only 57% of those defined as alumni responded to the survey, and we have no figures on the 43% who did not. Further,

the field of education is loosely defined to include everything from working with a nonprofit advocacy group to getting a graduate education degree. . . . there is no sense of whether those who responded to the survey tended to be recent alumni, perhaps only a year past their initial commitments and more likely to be in graduate school or teaching for a third year, or older alumni who have moved on to other careers.

This is perhaps an appropriate time to remind those of you still reading of Miner's title, which includes the words Looking Past the Spin. Teach for America has been very successful in gaining favorable coverage from Main Stream Media. I have read the results of the survey to which Miner refers in several major newspapers, both in news stories and opinion pieces, yet I had not before her article seen the details of that survey properly deconstructed and analyzed. The positive spin the organization receives is continued with the reflected glory by its alumni who go on to other challenges that are also often not examined as critically as they should be. Thus we have seen favorable news coverage of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) schools, founded by TFA alums Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, coverage that has now lead to a positive book by Washington Post writer Jay Mathews, who had previously written about Jaime Escalante (full disclosure - I have known Jay since 1998, and consider him a friend, even though I disagree with his evaluation of KIPP), and of course, former TFA'er and now Chancellor of DC Public Schools Michelle Rhee (whose ex-husband and father of her children, Kevin Huffman, is now Executive Vice President of Public Affairs for TFA and, oh by the way, just so happened to win the Washington Post's Next Great Pundit contest.

What concerns many of us committed to public education is the outsized influence and voice TFA and its people have. Let me quote two brief paragraphs from Miner to attempt to illustrate the reasons for my concern.

First,

Twenty years ago, before TFA had placed a single teacher in a single school, there were glowing articles in the New York Times, Newsweek, and Time, and a segment on Good Morning America. The media love-fest with TFA has never stopped, extending to soft publications always eager for a feel-good story, such as Reader’s Digest and Good Housekeeping. When TFA founder Kopp calls Thomas Friedman at the New York Times, he not only answers her call, but also quotes her extensively (see Friedman’s April 22, 2009, column).

And then, this:

Some 27 TFA alumni are currently in office, nine more are running for office, and more than 700 are interested in “pursuing political leadership.” TFA has a goal of 100 elected officials in 2010.

Stop and consider that for a moment. A publicly stated goal of elected officials.

I know teachers who have pursued public office directly from their classrooms - both Tim Walz of MN and Larry Kissell of NC were elected to the US House of Representatives directly from their social studies classrooms. Former Rep. Wayne Gilchrest of MD was, like me, both a former Marine and a social studies teacher. We have had presidents who served as teachers - Lyndon Johnson began his work career teaching poor children (largely Hispanic) in Texas, an experience which certainly shaped his agenda in the Great Society while serving as our Chief Executive.

Still, I would hope that we would be encouraging gifted, bright, enthusiastic people who can teach to remain in schools. I think we should be reshaping the teaching profession so one does not have to leave the classroom to make an adequate living. That SOME may go on to administration, or school boards, or even elective or appointive office is fine, but I question if that should be the goal. I wonder how that actually contributes to making our schools better for the children who so desperately need our help.

It seems as if political power is important to those involved with TFA. This became evident during the putting together of the Obama administration. Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford had been one of the principal advisors on education during the campaign, and had headed up the transition team on education. For many, she was a logical choice for Secretary of Education. She had served as an inner city school teacher, and in her years in academia had participated in many important initiatives about teaching and education. But she was the principal author of a study that had been critical of TFA, and she was vociferously opposed by the TFA network. For what it is worth, one does not have to be a TFA alumni to participate in politics, and living as I do just outside our national capital I take full advantage of proximity to develop relationships. I heard both personally and via the internet of the organized campaign against Darling-Hammond, the roots of which were solidly within TFA and its alumni.

Let me return to Miner's article. I previously mentioned Kevin Huffman. Miner interviewed him. He made clear that the two-year commitment, about which I and so many are critical, is key to TFA's theory of change. Let me quote two relevant paragraphs:

I struggled to remember media references to this “theory of change.” What was this theory? “That we will bring in great people who will have a tremendous impact on the kids they are teaching and who will go on for the rest of their careers to have an impact on root causes that cause the gap in educational outcomes in this country,” Huffman explained.

I noted that TFA’s theory of change sounded top-down and that it left out the voices and perspectives of the communities who were supposed to benefit. I could sense Huffman’s frustration. “I think that misapprehends our theory of change,” he said. This wasn’t just an educational policy initiative, he noted, because TFA hoped that alumni would enter other fields such as medicine and law and make equally important contributions. “We are decidedly nonpartisan and apolitical about what our alumni are pursuing or pushing,” he said. “We have a belief that our alumni have had an experience that will help them make better decisions.”

By now I hope I have convinced you of some of the riches of Barbara Miner's piece. But there is much more. She examines the 501(c)4 that is used in what seems a strange fashion to advance the agenda of TFA. She also talks with people on the political and educational left who raise concerns about TFA, most notably Mike Rose and the late Howard Zinn (who is honored in the same issue as this article in Losing our Favorite Teacher). Zinn's words are important:

“The idea of bringing in ‘great’ people, ‘important’ people, is counter to the idea of a democratic education,” he wrote. “And all the insistence on not taking policy stands, not having an ‘ideology,’ is simply naïve. Not taking policy stands is itself an ideology, and an ideology which reinforces the status quo in education and in society.”

I am firm believer that one function of our schools should be democratic empowerment, especially of those we teach. It is one reason I have explored rethinking (now there's an appropriate word, eh?) how we design, structure, and operate our schools. One might hope that those who teach in public schools would have similar aspirations for our students, and thus might model it themselves. Which is why a recent study from Stanford is quite illuminating. On the question of civic engagement, the study

found that TFA alumni actually had lower rates of civic involvement than those who were accepted by TFA but declined, and also had lower rates than those who dropped out before their two years were completed, according to a summary in the New York Times.

Miner also follows the money - the sources of funding for TFA. I will let you explore this section of the article on your own. She also explores a study of TFA teachers at which she was pointed by a TFA exec, and which was done by Mathematica. I suppose the exec cited the Mathematica piece because it offered some criticism of the study led by Darling-Hammond which caused such hostility towards the Stanford Prof from TFA circles. Let me offer just a snip from that sidebar:

I went to the Mathematica study and, quite frankly, wondered why TFA was promoting it. I imagined how the Onion might summarize the study: “Teach for America goes up against the worst teachers in the country—they’re both awful!”

Let me offer a couple of other snips to give you a sense of the depth of this article.

In a cover story last fall, Business Week put TFA at the number seven spot in its top 10 listing of “The Best Places to Launch a Career,” just after Goldman Sachs and just before Target.

TFA, meanwhile, actively promotes the value of joining its teaching corps, especially for those thinking of graduate school or immediately transitioning to a corporate job. Its website boasts of TFA’s partnership with over 150 graduate schools offering TFA alumni benefits such as two-year deferrals, fellowships, course credits, and waived application fees. The most popular schools for TFA alumni are Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Northwestern, and the University of California-Berkeley—with Harvard the overall top choice.

Its employer partners, which actively recruit TFA alumni, are equally prestigious and include Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, KPMG, Credit Suisse, McKinsey and Company, and Google. TFA partners in its School Leadership Initiative for alumni, meanwhile, include the for-profit Edison Schools. (TFA founder Kopp has nothing but praise for Edison in her memoir. She is also open to the idea of vouchers.)

So, TFA becomes a ticket-punching stop on the way to a more "important" and lucrative career outside of teaching, with the added benefit that the alum can feel as if s/he has done a good deed and is now also an expert on education?

TFA is big business: "TFA had revenues of $159 million in fiscal year 2008 and expenses of $124.5 million." Remember, this is for a total of about 7,500 actually in classrooms. Do the math . . .

TFA is lucrative for its executives:

CEO and founder Wendy Kopp made $265,585, with an additional $17,027 in benefits and deferred compensation. She also made an additional $71,021 in compensation and benefits through the TFA-related organization Teach for All. Seven other TFA staffers are listed as making more than $200,000 in pay and benefits, with another four approaching that amount.

Let's return to Kopp's praise for Edison, Chris Whittle's failed attempt at a for profit chain of schools in the public sector, which lost contracts in multiple cities for failure to perform, whose stock was about to be delisted by NASDAQ when it was propped up when then Governor Jeb Bush of Florida used money from the pension fund of Florida teachers to buy shares and thus prop up the stock price. Kopp just happens to be married to Richard Barth, a former Edison VP (and TFA staffer) who just so happens to be president and CEO of the Kipp foundation. As Miner notes, the joint salary of this new power couple in education is over 600,000/year.

Miner also examines Wendy Kopp's memoir, of which she notes that the only time a school child is mentioned by name is briefly, about 20 pages from the end. I want to react to this.

I need permission to use the names or identifying information of my current students, or students who were minors at the time they were in my classroom. Yet if I think about the times I write about education here or elsewhere, it is not at all unusual for me to mention one or more specific students in a piece of 2,500 words or less. After all, as a teacher I believe my focus is the individual student before me: that is where I must start and that should be the standard by which my effectiveness should be measured. It bothers me that Kopp can opine as an expert on education with little reference to individual students. Perhaps that is because the focus of her organization seems to be on the teachers/future alumni more than it is on the children they should be serving. I admit it, that bothers me.

Barbara Miner is a very effective writer. And an effective writer best skewers a target using that target's own words. I believe the conclusion to Miner's piece properly frames, using Wendy Kopp's own words, what is wrong with the TFA model, which requires only a 2-year commitment to teaching.

So let me conclude using Miner's words, and in advance wish you my final salutation:

Peace.

But what if one accepts TFA’s assumptions—that its purpose is purely to address educational inequity by recruiting the best and the brightest, training them briefly, and having them teach for two years in a low-income school? And that its model trumps the value of recruiting accredited teachers who view teaching as a career?

Given that the revolving door of unqualified teachers is a key factor in the poor performance of many low-income schools, what are the repercussions of those assumptions? Is TFA aggravating a problem that it claims to be solving?

It is Kopp herself who perhaps best answers that question. Speaking in a 2007 commencement speech at Mt. Holyoke College, Kopp said:

What I have come to appreciate is that things that matter take time. We live in an era when it is rare to meet people in their 20s and 30s who have stayed with something for more than a few years. And certainly, in some cases the right thing is to experiment and move on. But in many cases, the right thing is to stay with something, internalize tough lessons, and push yourself to new levels of knowledge and responsibility. Deep and widespread change comes from sticking with things.

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Faculty at WSU College of Education Weigh in on WA Governor's Proposal

When Gov. Chris Gregoire proposed a major overhaul of the state’s education programs last week, I needed some expert input in order to have an informed opinion. I’m still learning what I can. So far, most educators I’ve asked agree on the need for change, but have reservations about the governor’s approach. Or they like her proposal, but doubt it will get past the political hurdles.

Here are some of the comments I’ve received from my best source of information, the College of Education faculty:

Darcy Miller: It is a long overdue change. Folks involved with education from preschool to graduate school need to work together. As it is, their efforts are fragmented and disjointed. One group requires one thing, and another group mandates something else. While the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) sees its job as working only with K-12 schools, we in college teacher education programs must work with OSPI. It is involved with our accreditation, impacts the quality of our programs, and influences many aspects of teacher education. We need that office to view colleges of education as partners in preparing teachers.

Chad Lochmiller: There are two elements in the proposal that could, if implemented and funded, result in serious reforms. First, the governor’s idea of consolidation is good, except that she’s consolidating the wrong elements of the system. It makes more sense to consolidate the Department of Early Learning, OSPI, and the State Board for Community & Technical Colleges into one seamless system while leaving the university system independent. This would mean that the state is responsible for early learning through an associate’s degree. My belief is that we need to think in terms of a P-14 public education system. Every child should graduate with the skills and knowledge that comes with an associate’s degree and have access to the job market that the associate’s degree creates. Second, I like the creation of launch year for high school seniors — a concept that could work if OSPI and SBCTC were consolidated. Allowing students to begin exploring their professional interests in high school makes sense. We’re making a big mistake to route every child onto a college/university path. For some kids, that’s not what they want to do.

Leslie Hall: A new Department of Education is a great idea for several reasons. First, the state’s biggest expense after personnel is education. As the executive officer of the state, the governor needs to know what is going on in all areas of education. In addition, the current bureaucracy does not make it easy for K-12 educators, OSPI, or higher ed and their multiple committees to talk about the common goal of educating students. My hope is that a Secretary of Education would facilitate conversations so that efforts would not be duplicated and a common vision for P-20+ students would inform all who work in Washington’s education arenas.

Janet Frost: In my experiences related to the Riverpoint Advanced Mathematics Project, I strongly agree that the educational system is fractured. For example, although a uniform college mathematics placement test was developed for use by all institutions of higher education, it is not being enacted because of those very divisions. Likewise, education funding is often split up in a way that limits projects like ours. For example, we cannot be funded to provide professional development for college math faculty, only for high school math teachers, thereby losing an opportunity to strengthen teaching at both levels so that students can make the transition successfully.

Gene Sharatt: There is no question that overlapping and conflicting commissions, committees and boards of directors often impede improvements in educational attainment for our students. However, it is unclear how one secretary of education would streamline the efficiencies of these organizations, because it would be essential for the new secretary to form advisory committees for sound counsel. More importantly, maintaining public accountability is critical and the highest form of public accountability is the general election. Maintaining independent bodies to ensure checks and balances is preferable to appointed leadership under one party.

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Ed Links Brain Stuff Edition (II)

Brain Mechanisms Of Social Conformity

New research reveals the brain activity that underlies our tendency to "follow the crowd." The study provides intriguing insight into how human behavior can be guided by the perceived behavior of other individuals.

Evolution Of New Brain Area Enables Complex Movements

A new area of the cerebral cortex has evolved to enable man and higher primates to pick up small objects and deftly use tools. The brain's primary motor cortex turns out to have neighboring "old" and "new" parts. In most animals, including cats, rats and some monkeys, the old primary motor cortex controls movement indirectly through the circuitry of the spinal cord.

Spotless Mind? Unwanted Memories Might Be Erasable Without Harming Other Brain Functions

A molecule known to preserve memories -- PKMzeta -- specifically stores complex, high-quality memories that provide detailed information about an animal's location, fears and actions, but does not control the ability to process or express this information. This finding suggests that PKMzeta erasure that is designed to target specific debilitating memories could be effective against the offending memory while sparing the computational function of brain.

How Mirror Neurons Allow Us To Learn And Socialize By Going Through The Motions In The Head

The old adage that we can only learn how to do something by trying it ourselves may have to be revised in the light of recent discoveries in neuroscience. It turns out that humans, primates, some birds, and possibly other higher animals have mirror neurons that fire in the same pattern whether performing or just observing a task. These mirror neurons clearly play an important role in learning motor tasks involving hand eye coordination, and possibly also acquisition of language skills, as well as being required for social skills, but the exact processes involved are only just being discovered.

How The Brain Thinks About Crime And Punishment

A new study reveals that humans use different neural mechanisms for determining criminal responsibility and assigning an appropriate punishment. The research, published in the journal Neuron, provides fascinating insight into brain systems that may explain how thousands of years of reliance on human sanctions to enforce social norms gave rise to our current criminal justice system.

Unlocking The Mysteries Of Memory

Stop and think for a moment. What do you remember about your breakfast this morning? One part of your brain will recall the smell of coffee brewing, while another will remember your partner's smile while walking out the door. How does the brain weave together these fragments, and how does it bring them back to conscious life?

Poor Children's Brain Activity Resembles That Of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows

Prefrontal cortex activity in children from low socioeconomic levels is lower than in similar children from well-off families. The brain differences, documented through EEGs, are dramatic: the prefrontal cortexes of poor kids 9 and 10 years of age react to novel stimuli in the same way as the brain of a stroke victim. The researchers believe this is fixable, however.

Poor Children's Brain Activity Resembles That Of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows

Prefrontal cortex activity in children from low socioeconomic levels is lower than in similar children from well-off families. The brain differences, documented through EEGs, are dramatic: the prefrontal cortexes of poor kids 9 and 10 years of age react to novel stimuli in the same way as the brain of a stroke victim. The researchers believe this is fixable, however.

'Wiring' In The Brain Influences Personality

Some people are constantly seeking a new kick; some prefer to stick to tried and tested things. Which group you belong to seems to be connected, inter alia, with the 'wiring' of specific centers of the brain. This was discovered by scientists at the University of Bonn using a new method. Even how much acceptance people seek is apparently also determined by nerve fibers in the brain.

Evolution Of The Visual System Is Key To Abstract Art

Famous works of abstract art achieve popularity by using shapes that resonate with the neural mechanisms in the brain linked to visual information, a psychologist has discovered.

Forgotten But Not Gone: How The Brain Re-learns

Thanks to our ability to learn and to remember, we can perform tasks that other living things can not even dream of. However, we are only just beginning to get the gist of what really goes on in the brain when it learns or forgets something. What we do know is that changes in the contacts between nerve cells play an important role. But can these structural changes account for that well-known phenomenon that it is much easier to re-learn something that was forgotten than to learn something completely new?

Seeing A Brain As It Learns To See

A brain isn't born fully organized. It builds its abilities through experience, making physical connections between neurons and organizing circuits to store and retrieve information in milliseconds for years afterwards. Now that process has been caught in the act for the first time by a research team that watched a naïve brain organize itself to interpret images of motion.

Been There, Done That: Brain Mechanism Predicts Ability To Generalize

A new study reveals how the brain can connect discrete but overlapping experiences to provide a rich integrated history that extends far beyond individually experienced events and may help to direct future choices.

Blindsight: How Brain Sees What You Do Not See

Blindsight is a phenomenon in which patients with damage in the primary visual cortex of the brain can tell where an object is although they claim they cannot see it. Scientists now provide compelling evidence that blindsight occurs because visual information is conveyed bypassing the primary visual cortex.

How Memories Are Made, And Recalled

What makes a memory? Single cells in the brain, for one thing. For the first time, scientists have recorded individual brain cells in the act of calling up a memory, thus revealing where in the brain a specific memory is stored and how the brain is able to recreate it.

Scientists Watch As Listener's Brain Predicts Speaker's Words

Scientists have shown for the first time that our brains automatically consider many possible words and their meanings before we've even heard the final sound of the word.

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A Super Start to Our Film Series

reposted from my dean's blog, originally published 1/31/11

A.G. Rud

Sponsoring a film series is a bit of an experiment for our college. Based on the first presentation, I predict it will be a success. Our goal is to address educational issues affecting children, families, schools and communities.

“Waiting for Superman” was screened Sunday at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre in Moscow, launching the three-part series, Rethinking Education, that we’re co-sponsoring with our colleagues at the University of Idaho College of Education. We had a large crowd, filling the first floor of the theater and part of the balcony. A special thanks to Amy Cox of our development staff and UI faculty member Melissa Saul for organizing the Sunday program.

“Waiting for Superman” revolves around five children whose futures depend upon winning a lottery to attend a charter school. The discussion that followed Sunday’s showing was led by Cori Mantle-Bromley, dean of the University of Idaho’s College of Education. The eight panelists included WSU faculty members Kristin Huggins, who came over from Vancouver, Paula Groves Price, and Xyanthe Neider. Cori asked them to consider some of the ironies of the film as well as their reactions to the portrayals.


Our film series opened in Moscow
Kristin, who has conducted research on professional learning communities, noted shortcomings in the film, such as a focus upon elementary and middle schools but not high schools, no mention of special needs students, and a concentration on only the good news about charter schools. For example, there was no mention of the corporate funding that helps support many of these schools, money that isn’t available to other public schools. Xyan spoke about her son and his struggles with schooling and how some parts of the film resonated with her experiences. Paula said that her reaction to the film was powerful and unexpected. While calling it overly simplistic, she noted that she is the parent of a young child and wants the best for her daughter as do the parents in “Superman.” (You can see Paula’s response in this YouTube clip.)

My own reaction

I found the film powerful, disturbing, and frankly a mishmash of many narratives and explanations. The recounting of recent school reforms, such as No Child Left Behind and the embattled tenure of Washington, D.C., school chief Michelle Rhee, was fascinating. The tale of the triumphs of charter schools ignored studies that point to less stellar achievement and to some of the colossal failures of charters over the past decade. We cannot say unequivocally that public schools are doing a weak job of educating students or charters are one of the best solutions, as was implied by this film.

I was also struck by the sheer insensitivity of the charter selection process, the famous “lottery” held in a public setting as if it were a game show, with triumphant “winners” and many more disconsolate “losers.” This is perhaps the most poignant part of the film – you see the children whose stories you have followed for the past 90 minutes wait expectantly for the roll of the dice. It is profoundly saddening to think that education is reduced to such a spectacle.

Finally, I was dismayed by the drumbeat of emphasis put upon a college education by many in the film. It was not even any post secondary path they trumpeted, it was a “four-year college.”

Certainly many of our children are ill equipped for college, and for those who seek such an education we must do better. But to assert that a bachelor’s degree is necessary for a good life is foolish and biased. I did well in school, and hence became college educated, and now work in a university. But I don’t know much at all about how to take apart a motor, or build a house, or service a broken furnace. I admire those who have these skills, and I know I value them when my car won’t start. Why engage in idolatry about a college education? It is not for everyone, and it is particularly galling to see this emphasized in the film when President Obama is supporting community college degrees and post-secondary training.

More to come

The films and panel discussions in our series are free and open to the public. The other two documentaries will be shown on the WSU campus. “The Lottery” will be screened at 7 p.m. March 9 in Todd Hall 116. In the words of its creators, the film “uncovers the failures of the traditional public school system and reveals that hundreds of thousands of parents attempt to flee the system every year.” Kelly Ward, the interim chair of our Department of Educational Leadership and Counseling Psychology, will moderate that panel.

I will lead the discussion after “The Race to Nowhere,” set for 6 p.m. April 14 in the CUB auditorium. The film features “the heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren’t developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what’s best for their kids.”

We look forward to seeing you there!

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Reading and Action Meet in the Brain

A new brain-imaging study is shedding light on what it means to "get lost" in a good book — suggesting that readers create vivid mental simulations of the sounds, sights, tastes and movements described in a textual narrative while simultaneously activating brain regions used to process similar experiences in real life.
"Psychologists and neuroscientists are increasingly coming to the conclusion that when we read a story and really understand it, we create a mental simulation of the events described by the story," said Jeffrey M. Zacks . . . .

The study, forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science, is one of a series in which Zacks and colleagues use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track real-time brain activity as study participants read and process individual words and short stories.
. . .[F]indings demonstrate that reading is by no means a passive exercise. Rather, readers mentally simulate each new situation encountered in a narrative. Details about actions and sensations are captured from the text and integrated with personal knowledge from past experiences. These data are then run through mental simulations using brain regions that closely mirror those involved when people perform, imagine or observe similar real-world activities. . . .
Changes in characters' locations (e.g., "went through the front door into the kitchen") were associated with increases in regions in the temporal lobes that are selectively activated when people view pictures of spatial scenes.

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Save Our Schools March - who we are, part 1.

Last Sunday, January 23, I introduced you to Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action, where I told you that

For the future of our children,
we demand the following . . .

* Equitable funding for all public school communities

* An end to high stakes testing for student, teacher, and school evaluation

* Teacher and community leadership in forming public education policies

and that the date of the event was July 28-31, 2011.

Starting today, I will begin to introduce you to some of the key people organizing the event, and explain why we are committing our time and energy to this important effort to save our schools.

Today I would like you to meet Katherine Cox.

From our About page you can learn that

Katherine McBride Cox, who grew up in Louisiana, initially began her career as a college English instructor. She recently retired after 35 years as an educator in Arizona where she was a classroom teacher, an elementary principal, and a high school principal. She developed a nationally recognized career education program for 5th and 6th graders called Window on the World. She taught self-contained gifted students for eight years and later worked with at-risk middle school students. She also served as an instructional coach, coaching other teachers. She serves on the Information Coordination Committee and the Blogging/Social Networking Sub-Committee.

I asked Katherine why she was volunteering in this effort. She told me the following:

When No Child Left Behind was passed, I was not as wise as others.

Arizona is one of the most poorly funded states in the nation as far as K-12 education goes. I was glad that we would be getting additional monies.

It took me awhile to see that we had made a pact with the devil. Standards actually were lowered because the state had to make the new state tests easier year after year in order to get enough students to graduate. The tests became meaningless, yet schools were ranked according to their test scores.

In order to get the excelling label, principals were telling teachers to drill and kill on the subjects tested – reading, math and writing – and to neglect science, social studies, p.e. and the arts. In the past, at least 75% of our students were on grade level or better. Now I could see that the top 75% of our students were getting a worse education than these students had received before NCLB.

As a high school principal, I could see a train wreck heading down the track. If freshmen had not had 4th grade geology – the rock cycle, including sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rock or 5th grade human body systems -- were we supposed to introduce these concepts for the first time to freshmen in biology and physical science classes?

Learning became tedious for students and teachers alike. No longer were we attempting to ignite fires in the minds of our students. I ended up retiring in December of 2009 and set up my website, In the Trenches with School Reform.

I began following teacherken on Daily Kos, as well as bloggers such as Anthony Cody, Nancy Flanagan, and Valerie Strauss. I continually said in my blog – I’m tired of talk. Others like me have been talking and explaining for years. It’s time to take action.

Anthony Cody and Victoria Young made contact with me and eventually I was asked to join this group. I was delighted to be asked to help.

I had spent 35 years as a teacher and principal trying to make our schools better and better. For a long time, I believe I succeeded. After NCLB came along, it seemed that my life’s work had been for nothing. Everything I had helped build was dismantled. For what? I knew that we had fallen into the rabbit hole where everything is upside down and nothing makes sense.

I’m in this battle to take our schools back and make them better. But first we must wrestle them away from the likes of the Michelle Rhees and Bill Gates of the world – and the grip of the federal government.

Katherine is just one those dedicated to the well-being our our students and health of our public schools who has stepped up to the challenges we face.

We ask that you join us in supporting Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action, July 28-31.

You can see who has endorsed us (and there you can find out how YOU can endorse us)

You can contribute to help us.

See how YOU can help us in this effort.


Thanks for reading.

Please consider helping let others know about this effort.

Help us Save Our Schools.

Peace.

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