Thursday, August 5, 2010

Success from Cradle to Career

Today marked the end of the OSEP Leadership Mega Conference: Collaboration to Achieve Success from Cradle to Career. From the lack of dialogue about education policy, I assume that many of you might find such a conference slightly dull. To be honest, there were a few moments there where a handful of M&Ms were the only thing keeping me awake -

The session that peaked my attention was titled, "Challenges in Linking Special Education Teacher Evaluation to Student Performance." Hmm...teacher evaluation & student performance - an obvious connection, yet one that has many teachers frightened! This, to me, seems odd since it is only right to assume that effective teaching practices lead to increased student performance, right? It's our job to increase student performance! In fact, if we aren't able to show student growth, it stands to reason that we are ineffective and, perhaps, should find a new career. Here's what captured my attention: value-added analysis. There's even a way to use this analysis in a co-teaching model! Teachers need to get educated and get on-board 'cause this is coming your way!

Value-added analysis is a statistical method that helps educators measure the impact schools make on students' academic progress rates from year to year.



Simply put, value-added analysis shows the impact teachers and schools have on students' academic performances. Using this growth metric, teachers, schools and districts can begin interpreting the impact of their curriculum, instruction, programs and practices on student achievement.

Next, Dan Reschly from Vanderbilt University and a personal favorite, laid down the hammer (that expression was for you Ironman!) on Special Education. Why do educators continue to practice in ways that have no impact on students? What is up with our fascination with learning styles when they have NO impact on learning!?!?! And, why are teacher preparation programs still failing to teach the fundamental components of reading? He was articulate, concise and humorous! He takes top seed as my favorite professor from Vanderbilt!

The best news of the day, Ted & Osamudia, is that intelligent people from across the nation are working hard at addressing many of the issues you both raised. What I find most alarming is that teachers and schools - at the local level - aren't engaged in the discussion. The question Osi posed - and one that I think is critical to the discussion - how do we create a more just society? If we believe that education is the key to leveling the field, then we've got to embrace many of the changes that President Obama and the big Arne have proposed. Teachers, especially, need to get educated and lose the resistance - quit being frightened of charter schools or pay-for-performance. Let's embrace some national core standards! Let's get talking about how to make room for charters while simultaneously improving public education! Bring on better evaluation systems, increase pay for teachers, embrace innovation and be open to different ideas! Hey - I'm in support of longer school years and longer work days, but I may be in the minority...


8 comments:

  1. To begin - my knowledge of charter schools is very limited since they were not part of the dialog when I was teaching. It seems to me though that the schools are smaller, the classes are smaller, students who attend want to attend or have parents who want to have them attend, and is it possible that the students wear uniforms and one can move desks around to create learning centers within the room as they are needed. I always thought that would be a wonderful situation in which to teach. It actually sounds like the "perfect win - win" situation for everyone. But, that is not what teachers have to "really" face. We must teach in large buildings with large numbers of students.As public schools we cannot select our student body and must take all the students in the area and consequently, all the parents ( who come with their own set of unique chararcteristics .....Ker, remind me of the story with the foul mouthed parent and the phone call of one evening ( the phone calls which I always made from home in the evening because most of my parents were home then) and things generally always must look orderly ( oh, those rows)in case a chairperson or higher came by. If I was teaching now I would be interested in the changes and want to see how I could incorportate them for I believe that the best teacher is the one who keeps experimenting with new approaches , but I would be wary of some of the rhetoric which is being tossed around as well. I think that things could always be better but I also think that my colleagues did and continue to do a good job with many things which really are out of their control.

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  2. You make a great point about local schools not being involved in the conversation. As you suggest, it does go back to creating our more just society, although it doesn't just have to be about ed policy. My perspective (we'll never get a better school system until we get a better society) seems easy to give up on: "oh heck; I can't change society, but I can change ed policy." But I think that's too easy a response. What would it look like if teachers were involved not just in shaping ed policy, but in shaping social policy? What would it look like if teachers unions created alliances and partnerships with social welfare agencies, or started lobbying congress to improve childcare options for working mothers, or provide universal pre-K, or ensure that EVERY.SINGLE.CHILD had all the healthcare they needed, or insisting that their districts pursue voluntary integration programs? Teachers feel the effects of poor childhood education, or sub par housing, etc. more than anyone else. Why aren't they fighting for the things that would make it so that students are ready to learn when they walk in the door? I am not blaming teachers for what is going on; but I am suggesting that their input is needed on more than just special ed policy. Their participation in creating a more just society, outside of the school system, is sorely needed.

    As far charter schools, no single study has shown that they do any better at education than the regular K-12 system. Even Canada's Promise Schools have been having trouble overcoming larger societal issues that find their way into the classroom; as I understand it, that's one of the reasons they've pushed out their charter schools to start in pre-K; they needed to get the kids earlier in their life. So, when Reschly critiques continuing to do things that have no impact on students (or worse, have a negative impact on students, as 1/3 of charter schools have been found to do), his critique is more broadly applicable than just special ed.

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  3. But hey--if we're gonna continue to chip away at the edges, yes--some policy improvements are needed. Starting with a K-12 curriculum that is brought into the 21st century, for sure...

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  4. Hi All -

    Kerry - one week left! Are you excited to come back into the warm embrace of the 'Happy Valley'? Will your hair recover from its own personal Bataan Death March? I'm still expecting a signed IEP from someone in the OSEP Office to hang in our school!

    I agree with Osamudia - we do need to work towards a more just society, and schools play only a part in that. Currently, the "Cordoba Mosque" controversy is driving me crazy, especially after having just read the book Zeitoun. If people (particularly those who often claim that "big government is interfering where it shouldn't") can't see that denying people the right to worship in the manner and space that they want to, I have little hope that these people are going to quickly jump upon the "just society" train. (Do you think these people would have opposed Churches being built next to bombed abortion clinics in the 1980's? - the analogy holds.)

    So in the mean time, we chip away at the edges (good metaphor) with a rational ed policy and the end of the horrible system known as Special Ed. In order to do this, teachers are going to have to give up some of the perks they have grown accustomed to, governments (local, state, federal) are going to have to get serious about funding education - or admit that they don't prioritize it, and parents are going to have to become more involved with their students' lives - even if it means inconveniencing their own. As teachers, we can start by offering up the conversation - right now, no one (certainly not Duncan) seems ready to really have it.

    What will we do for ed policy discussion when Kerry leaves D.C.? Will she start an 'Always Becoming - Northampton'? It can be like her own version of CSI!

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  5. OMG; don't even get me thinking about the whole Cordoba issue. I keep thinking that if I ignore it, the whole thing will go away. It seems my country has been hijacked by people who have no understanding of the liberties on which the U.S. was founded. You know, I knew we'd get a whole lot of crazy in response to Obama's election, but I thought it would eventually die down. Who knew that two years later, we'd still be talking to "birthers," passing legalized racial profiling in response to immigration problems, and basically being afraid of anybody who isn't a white, protestant, male. It makes me sad.

    Ted, I'm curious about a few points you raise. First, could you tell me a little bit more about why you want to do away with special ed? And what do you suggest in its place? And Kerry, as a special ed educator, I'm very interested in your thoughts on Ted's perspective. Two, do you really think that parents are not sufficiently involved in their students' lives because it's "inconvenient?" My thoughts have always been that it's the rare parent who really just doesn't give a damn, or can't be bothered. Instead, we have a lot a parents who say they value education, but don't know HOW to give that meaning. I also think it's very hard for some parents to care in the ways we want them to; it's very easy when you're financially stable, in a lovely house in the suburbs, with adequate health care and enough food in the house. But for a lot of people, that just isn't the case...

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  6. Turns out I'm reading this morning about minority children in special education, and I came across this quote:
    “[W]hat has come to be known as the disproportionate representation of minorities in special education programs is the result of a series of social processes that, once set in motion, are interpreted as the inevitable outcomes of real conditions with children. These social processes do not occur by happenstance, or by the good or evil intentions of a few individuals. Rather, they reflect a set of societal beliefs and values, political agendas, and historical events that combine to construct identities that will become the official version of who these children are.” Harry & Klinger, Why Are So Many Minority Students in Special Education? 7 (2006).

    Thoughts?

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  7. No comment on the above, since I am not familiar with Charter schools vs Public Schools. Just about have it made. Will be glad when you can go back home and be with Jeff. Love you....

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