“Gang signs,” I told him.

He asked, “Should I speak to the kids and ask them if they’re in gangs?”

I discouraged him. “You’d probably be putting kids in danger.”

The inner city gangs of Brownsville or Watts or Detroit or any of the poverty stricken neighborhoods scattered across the nation have much more in common with the Balkans, or Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya than the middle class neighborhoods a short ride away.

Gangs are kinship groups, long embedded in the community culture. They have their own “rules.”

I keep the 40 cal on my side …
Tuck your chain in cause he might rob ya
Got glocks for sale, red tops for sale
Anything that you need, believe me I’m gon’ lace you Yeah
Just dont, whatever you do, snitch
Cause you will get hit, pray, I don’t face you, Yeah

Or, listen to Mac Dre’s “Stop Snitchin” here.

In spite of poverty, crime, foreclosures, health issues kids come to school.  In the early childhood grades teachers are surrogate parents; slowly the streets begin to win out for too many kids. Some kids balance the culture of the inner city and the cultural norms of the wider world and survive, and some prosper. Too many succumb.

If you google “poverty by city by zip code” and superimpose over a map of low achieving schools, guess what?

Either one set of schools, schools in high poverty neighborhoods have less effective school leaders and teachers, or, poverty impacts teaching and learning.

Referring to the DC Value-Added Model, called IMPACT, Sara Garland in the Hechinger Report  asks the essential question,

“Are the best, most experienced D.C. teachers concentrated in the wealthiest schools, while the worst are concentrated in the poorest schools? Or does the statistical model ignore the possibility that it’s more difficult to teach a room full of impoverished children?”

Experts differ, William Sanders, a former University of Tennessee researcher who has been studying value-add methodologies for decades,

“With at least three years of test-score data from different academic subjects, he says he is able to hone in on a good prediction of what a particular student’s progress should look like in a given year–and thus, how much a teacher should be expected to teach the student. Adding demographic factors only muddies the picture, he argues.”

Garland reminds us that value-added models do not take into account the makeup of the students in the class.  Lower achieving students in classes with higher achieving students do better than in classes when all students are lower achieving.

“A large body of research has found that student achievement is affected not only by a student’s individual circumstances at home, but also by the circumstances of other children in the same school and classroom. Studies have found that students surrounded by more advantaged peers tend to score higher on tests than similarly performing students surrounded by less advantaged peers.”

Value-added models simply ignore this research.

Sanders muses, “It becomes a question of where do you want to put your risk,” he said. “Should school districts risk hiding the fact that high-poverty schools tend to get more ineffective teachers, he asked, or risk rating teachers with high numbers of disadvantaged students incorrectly”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have a much more nuanced position. They abhor value-added only approach and advocate a three-prong approach to evaluating teachers.

“Instead, teachers should be assessed based on a combination of classroom observations, student feedback and value-added student achievement gains, according to the Measures of Effective Teaching project’s paper, “Gathering Feedback for Teaching.” Educators should be observed by certified raters through multiple, high-quality observations with clear standards”

The authors of the report spell out detailed requirements in order to accurately assess performance,

The authors provide the following six suggestions for minimum requirements in quality classroom observations:

• Choose an observation      instrument that sets clear expectations
• Require observers to      demonstrate accuracy before they rate teacher practice
• Require multiple observations      prior to high-stakes decisions
• Track system-level reliability      by double-scoring some teachers with impartial observers
• Combine observations with      student achievement gains and student feedback
• Regularly verify that teachers      with stronger observation scores also have stronger student achievement      gains on average

What if teachers with “strong observation scores” do not have “strong student achievement gains”?

John King, the NYS Commissioner would say Value Added student achievement scores trump observation scores.

Let’s be honest: teacher evaluation is wack!

It is more difficult to teach in communities of poverty. Difficult, but not an excuse for poor performance. Blaming teachers or school leaders for generations of neglect is wack.

Revolving doors in the poorest schools, teachers leaving teaching or moving to more effective schools; wide funding disparities between inner city and suburban schools, charter schools that “skim” students with social capital, all mitigate against the success of schools in inner city neighborhoods.

As Talib Kweli raps, for many of our kids their life is, “Just to Get By.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVtpXvzzXiA&noredirect=1)

Discontinuation means termination. The teacher is essentially fired, and, may appeal the rating.

If the teacher appeals a hearing is held in the fall/winter following the end of school year before a tripartite panel. The panel reviews the evidence submitted: lesson observations, letters in the file, etc., listens to the teacher’s testimony, the principal can chose to testify over the phone and can choice to “stand on the record.”

In the pre-Bloomberg era principals had to appear to were subject to cross examination.

The panel makes a non-binding recommendation to the chancellor. Under the current administration the rating is never overturned, regardless of the recommendation of the panel.

In the pre-Bloomberg days occasionally a rating was overturned and from time to time a deal was struck, a teacher would agree to extend their probation. The vast majority of adverse ratings were sustained by the panel.

In every civil service job probationary employees are “at will” employees – they can be terminated without cause by their employer. On the surface teachers appear to have greater protections – in reality – they are also “at will” employees while on probation.

In June 2011 38% of teachers who were completing their probationary period had their tenure extended. The reason for the extension in virtually every case was a low value-added score.

Commonly they received satisfactory, in some cases glowing observation reports, to no avail. Low, meaning in the lower half, value-added (i.e., teacher data reports) scores resulted in extended probations. The number of teachers terminated remained about the same.

Tenured teachers receive an Annual Performance Review – an “S” or “U” rating at the end of the school year. The only impact of a “U” rating is the teacher is frozen on their salary step until they receive a satisfactory rating. The number of “U” ratings has doubled under the Bloomberg years from about 1% to 2%.

The “U” rated teacher continues to teach in the same school, and, may choose to appeal the rating. In the fall/winter following the rating the teacher receives a review before a department hearing officer and is represented by a teacher trained by the union. The principal may attend, testify by phone, or “stand on the record.”

In the pre-Bloomberg days the union lost the vast majority of the cases. Sometimes a “deal” was struck – perhaps the rating would be reversed if the teacher received an “S” rating in the subsequent year.

Currently the union wins none of the cases – nada.

In a few cases the actions of the principal were so outrageous that the union took the cases to court and were sustained – the court granted the appeal and overturned the “U” rating.

The new teacher-principal evaluation law raises the ante. The law states,

For purposes of disciplinary proceedings pursuant to sections three
thousand twenty and three thousand twenty-a of this article, a pattern
of ineffective teaching or performance shall be defined to mean two
consecutive annual ineffective ratings received by a classroom teacher
or building principal pursuant to annual professional performance
reviews conducted in accordance with the provisions of this section.

Under the yet to be negotiated implementation regulations we will move from the satisfactory or unsatisfactory rating to a four-tiered rating system.

The law describes the system as follows,

The annual professional performance reviews conducted pursuant
to this section for classroom teachers and building principals shall
differentiate teacher and principal effectiveness using the following
quality rating categories: highly effective, effective, developing and
ineffective, with explicit minimum and maximum scoring ranges for each
category, as prescribed in the regulations of the commissioner. Such
annual professional performance reviews shall result in a single
composite teacher or principal effectiveness score, which incorporates
multiple measures of effectiveness related to the criteria included in
the regulations of the commissioner.

“Ineffective” becomes the new unsatisfactory.

So, we get down to the core issue: if a teacher receives an “ineffective” rating to whom does s/he appeal? The same sham system in which the teacher never wins; or, as the union avers, an impartial arbiter?

Fernanda Santos over at Schoolbook writes,

At issue is the process by which teachers would be able to appeal a poor rating. The city proposed forming a three-person committee consisting of one representative from the city, one from the union and one who would be jointly selected by both to issue an advisory decision to the schools chancellor, who would then make the final call.

If Santos is right we’re down to the cases in which the chancellor chooses not to accept the decision of the three-person panel.

There are weighty unresolved conundrums:

*Can State Ed develop a “valid and reliable” value-added teacher assessment score that will be stable from year to year?

* How do you use “data” for the 70% of teachers who teach classes that do not take the state assessments? The band teacher, the physical education teacher, all high school teachers? Will these yet to be designed assessments also pass the “validity/reliability” test?

* Will the union-State Ed/Governor agree on 20% or 40% use of student data within the assessment? Is 40% of unstable data better than 20%?

* How will 3020 arbitrators be able to determine the validity/reliability of “teacher or principal effectiveness scores, which incorporate multiple measures of effectiveness”?

It is altogether likely that a few years down the road arbitrators and judges will determine the actual implementation of the law, or, maybe, sanity will prevail.

And, BTW, the President in his State of the Union message trashed a “teaching to the test” education, Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. King, Ms Tisch … were you listening?

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The theory assumes senior teachers are less lightly to adopt to change and work in collaborative settings, although I don’t know of any evidence.

The policy: use pupil achievement data per teacher evened out by value-added metrics plus principal assessments to “score” teachers. Purge the system of “low score” teachers regardless of seniority.

The impact: High salary, low value teachers will be eliminated and replaced by lower salary teachers in a continuing cycle.

The fallacies: In spite of the worst unemployment since the Great Depression the 2010 data indicates that 38% of NYC teachers left within their first five years. We don’t know why they left, whether they resumed teaching elsewhere, came back to teaching or left permanently (See Albert Shanker Institute musings here)

The evidence that financial reforms will increase teacher retention is lacking, and, in fact the evidence from many sources does not support the claim.

Additionally teachers move from district to district. Higher value-added teachers move from lower achieving to higher achieving schools and the movement is the greatest away from the most difficult schools.

If we were to superimpose teachers by value-added by school over poverty by zip codes we would find far higher numbers of low value-added teachers in high poverty neighborhoods. We would also find much younger teachers in high poverty areas. Schools in Brownsville, among the highest poverty neighborhoods in the city received “C, “D” and “F” on their Progress Reports while schools in Bayside, among the highest family income area in the city received “A” and “B.” Are the senior, higher salaried teachers in Bayside better than the younger teachers in Brownsville? Or, just maybe, the incredible level of gang violence in Brownsville impacts teaching and learning?

A simple approach: About 2% o fNew York  City teachers received an unsatisfactory rating in the 10-11 school year based solely on principal evaluation. During the Klein-Walcott years the numbers have about doubled. In the pre Klein-Walcott years the vast majority of unsatisfactory ratings were sustained, currently virtually all of the ratings are sustained. Under the new state evaluation system teachers will receive a “score” based on some combination of principal evaluation and pupil achievement data.

I propose that teachers within two standard deviations of the mean are “satisfactory,”(95%) those beyond two standard deviations “exemplary” and those below two standard deviations “unsatisfactory.”

This system would identify about the same percentage of unsatisfactory teachers.

What is important is moving beyond this senseless emphasis on purging teachers and understand that teacher quality depends upon increasing the pool of highly qualified potential teachers, supporting them in their years of growth and creating environments in which they can both learn their craft and participate in a collaborative environment.

An old Sicilian proverb

In McDowell County,West Virginia, in New Haven Connecticut, in Baltimore and school districts across the nation the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), yes, a union, is working together with governors and mayors and superintendents to provide more effective schools and classrooms.

Randi Weingarten sat at theWest Virginia’s governor’s side at his State of the State message. The AFT is part of a public-private partnership working in the poorest country in West Virginia to improve schools and the lives of West Virginia’s neediest.

In New York we’re arguing, lead by the governor and the NYC mayor, about how to fire teachers.

The governor  rails against our schools,  he complains that we lead the nation in per pupil expenditures and our high school graduation rate is near the bottom.

What he failed to tell us is that we’re at the top of the nation in disparity of per pupil funding across the state. Or, that Quality Counts, the Education Week assessment of states places New York State in the top three nationally.

From Albany to Gracie Mansion the whippings continue. The state commissioner decides to punish kids by freezing tens of millions of federal dollars and refusing to attempt to resolve a dispute over teacher evaluation.

The teacher union asks to take the dispute to binding arbitration under the auspices of the state agency, the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB), whose job is to resolve labor disputes.

The mayor refuses and the state commissioner and the state chancellor whine “it’s not my job.”

At the state level the dispute centers on the governor’s attempt to change the law unilaterally. The state union went to court and was sustained and the governor threatens to hold the budget hostage and punish schools by refusing to provide them with a promised increase in school aid.

The essence of the dispute in the city: the mayor insists that if a principal rates a teacher unsatisfactory the teacher has no appeal, no due process rights. The union asks that a mutually agreed upon third party, perhaps a retired principal or teacher, review the case and act as the final arbiter.

The mayor stamps his feet and threatens to close 33 schools and create a chaotic situation that will irrevocably harm thousands of students.

Where will we find highly qualified, experienced teachers and principals to replace the one’s the mayor is firing?

Ask the experts: from Peter Senge to Michael Fullan, look at the nations that shine, the core of educational excellence is the ability of the school community, from classroom teacher to principals to superintendents to union leaders to commissioners to legislators to governors to the private sector to craft and implement and monitor collaborative relationships.

The professional sports unions, the NFL and the NBA, working with management crafted win-win contracts; as Super Bowl Sunday approaches winning teams are praised for working together, yet our elected officials are deaf to the roars of the populace. Enough posturing, enough poll gazing, the fault is not in the classrooms, the fault is with leaders who are too arrogant, too prideful, leaders must put aside the facade of leadership and actually lead.

As we look at our leadership in New York City and New York State it is distressing.

I thought I’d never say this: can’t we be likeWest Virginia?

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New Jersey Senator Menendez refuses to sign a “blue slip” required to appoint an Obama appellate judge (whose significant other subpoenaed Menendez years earlier). Will the Obama administration find some perk to convince Menendez to relent? Or, will the press trash him?

Rahm Emmanuel is famous for proffering, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

Mayor Bloomberg, with forethought, caused a crisis. After five months of negotiations he refused to agree upon a method to evaluate teachers, the Commissioner froze $58 million and the Mayor blasted the union in his State of the City address  and threatened a number of policy issues anathema to the union.

The union can “just say no.” Expired contracts remain in effect until a successor contract is negotiated.

The Mayor’s policies require negotiating with the union or are vulnerable to legal challenges. Yes, the Post, the Daily News and the Wall Street Journal will support the Mayor and sharply criticize the union. For the union membership the Mayor is the devil incarnate.

A lame duck Mayor lays out sweeping changes in his 11th and next to the last State of the City message. His tenure is running out and his bold initiatives, while popular with the reformers – are dead on arrival.

The Governor, in his State of the State address  criticizes the failure of the Regents and the unions to resolve their dispute over the state teacher-principal evaluation plan. He announces a Commission to review the plan, and duels with Assembly Speaker Silver.

On Tuesday the Governor will announce his 12-13 budget. The Regent/State Education Department has a number of specific requests: fund the January Regents, ELA exams in grade 9 and 10, more test security measures, reinstate middle school science and math tests. Will the Governor honor the requests of the Regents, deny the requests, or both deny the requests and make deeper cuts?

Does the Governor want to peel away part of the State Education Department and move them to the Office of the Secretary of State: the professions and cultural education?

Will the Governor utilize the teacher evaluation crisis to force a settlement on the unions, or, to increase his power by weakening the Regents?

What appeared like a stunning achievement in the spring of 2010, the Race to the Top victory, a shining example of collaboration has fallen apart.

The hundreds of thousands of teacher voters and their support in a range of other gubernatorial initiatives versus an increasingly discredited Commissioner.

We wait for the budget with anticipation.

Has Andrew Cuomo learned from Rahm Emmanuel?

A year and a half later the plan is adrift.

The domestic dispute began last spring. After months of discussions the 63 member task force, appointed by Commissioner Steiner reached a difficult agreement on implementation regulations. On the eve of the vote by the Regents the new commissioner, John King, perhaps at the behest of the Governor, depending on who you believe, changed the regulations. The original plan called for student achievement data to count as 20% of the multiple measure plan – the King plan upped the 20% to 40%.

The teacher union went to court and was sustained. King appealed and the case of resting with the Appellate Courts.

The current obstacle is process for rating teachers in each school district, implementation details of the plan must be negotiated with the local unions.

The core issue is the question of the appeal procedure for annual teacher evaluations.

Under the law two successive unsatisfactory/ineffective ratings can lead to the preferring of charges that could lead to dismissal.

For purposes of disciplinary proceedings pursuant to sections three
thousand twenty and three thousand twenty-a of this article, a pattern
of ineffective teaching or performance shall be defined to mean two
consecutive annual ineffective ratings received by a classroom teacher or building principal pursuant to annual professional performance reviews conducted in accordance with the provisions of this section.

The statute requires that the school district and the union negotiate procedures for the review of ratings that fall in the “ineffective” (formerly unsatisfactory) or “developing” categories.

An appeals procedure shall be locally established in each school
district by which the evaluated teacher or principal may only challenge the substance of the annual professional performance review, the school district’s or adherence to the standards …. and methodologies required for such reviews…. The specifics of the appeal procedure shall be locally established through negotiations conducted pursuant to article fourteen of the civil service law (PERB). An evaluation which is the subject of an appeal shall not be sought to be offered in evidence or placed in evidence in any proceeding conducted pursuant to either section three thousand twenty-a of this article or any locally negotiated alternate disciplinary procedure, until the appeal process is concluded.

For the last five months in New York City the Department and the union have been negotiating. The Department has steadfastly held to the position that the principal is the final arbiter of the rating while the union proffers that a jointly agreed upon third party shall determine the outcome of appeals.

Currently teachers receive an annual rating, either a satisfactory or unsatisfactory. About 2% of teachers each year are rated unsatisfactory – about 1300 teachers. The Department only pursues charges for dismissal in a handful of cases. Under the contract the process is expedited – from the time charges are presented the process must be concluded in four months.

Appeals of unsatisfactory ratings are currently reviewed by a retired principal, the rating officer, usually the principal, does not have to appear at the hearing and in all the cases, that is correct, all of the cases, the rating is sustained. Regardless of the reason for the rating, example, the failure to improperly change student grade, the rating is sustained.

The mayor’s position is that the principal must be the final determinant and has refused to budge. He brushed aside union evidence of egregious actions by principals. The union has offered to abide by the decision is an arbitrator; the mayor has refused the offer.

On December 30th the Department broke off negotiations and the commissioner froze $58 million in funding to the 33 lowest performing schools in the city.

The commissioner froze the funds and refused to involve himself in the negotiations.

If the parties are unable to reach a settlement the law calls for PERB, the Public Employees Relations Board to begin a mediation-fact finding process. The commissioner has refused to ask PERB to assist in brokering a settlement.

Furthermore, nothing in this section or in any rule or regulation
promulgated hereunder shall in any way, alter, impair or diminish the
rights of a local collective bargaining representative to negotiate
evaluation procedures in accordance with article fourteen (PERB) of the civil service law with the school district or board of cooperative educational services.

The mayor has virulently refused to alter his position – the principal as the sole determinant and chancellor as the final determinant of competence. The union proffers that the process as currently implemented is a charade and jointly agreed upon hearing officers must be the final arbiters, and, the union is willing to submit the differences to binding arbitration, an offer which the mayor has rejected.

* The neediest students are losing $58 million in funding

* The Race to the Top program is in jeopardy.

* The application for a waiver from No Child Left Behind is threatened.

The Governor, the Chancellor of the Regents and the Commissioner have failed to step forward.

Stay tuned.

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Romney: Show me where in the Book of Mormon, and probably the Bible, unions are even mentioned. Unions are a creation of the lefties to rob the American public. Unions steal money out of the pockets of Americans and into the pockets of their members - they’re anti-American.

Moderator: Don’t you mean into the pockets of the owners of companies?

Paul: Let’s be honest – the whole idea of unions comes from that Marx guy, a foreigner and you know what so-called religion he came from.

Santorum: Mitt may not be familiar with the Bible – I can quote every single line and unions are not mentioned – not once.

Moderator: If Christ returned wouldn’t he be demonstrating with the 99 percenters on Wall Street?

Perry: Be real – Jesus only speaks to a few of us – he has told me that unions are anti-Christian, in fact they are the spawn of the anti-Christ – and you know who he is – he’s in the White House.

Newt: You guys are all men of faith – but are you smart enough to run a country? I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I will: I am. I am a Malthusian and a Darwinian – if you know what that means. Any law or rule that impedes the survival of the fittest impedes natural laws. Unions are creations of man, the creation of left wing.

Moderator: Mr. Gingrich do you oppose laws to help the poor, the disabled, those who can’t survive on their own?

Newt: I am a strong believer in “A Modest Proposal” a brief work written in 1729 by Jonathan Swift.

Moderator: You must be joking – Swift wrote it as a satirical essay. Swift suggested that impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies.This satirical hyperbole mocks heartless attitudes towards the poor. Wouldn’t Swift mock all of you for ignoring the poor and arguing to further enrich the 1% – the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor?

Romney: All of us on the stage are the chosen, we are wealthy and we have power. The scriptures are clear – the chosen will inherit the earth and we are the chosen. We should rule, I mean govern.

Moderator: Are you saying that economic success is a sign; only the chosen are destined for heaven?

Santorum: There is always hope for redemption, with prayer and obedience everyone can be saved – but – a few of us are truly the messengers.

Moderator: Would you impose your religious views: outlawing abortion and making it a capital crime, bringing Christian prayer into schools and the public arena and officially declaring that our nation is a Christian nation?

Santorum: As a beginning, yes. There are lessons to be learned from the Crusades and the pogroms. They may have gone a little too far but I would advocate we investigate a revival of the spirit of the Crusades.

Moderator: Are you saying that anyone who chooses not to follow your view of God will be left behind, will experience worldwide hardships, disasters, famine, war, pain, and suffering, which will wipe out more than 75% of all life on the earth before the Second Coming takes place?

Santorum: of course.

Perry: Yes.

Romney: Yes, although I do have to check the Book of Mormon.

Newt: The chosen are determined by who was given the most brains, and, clearly I am that person.

Moderator: Thank you gentleman, I’m sure the American people have a much clearer view of your positions on the issues confronting America.

Imagine if the captain had listened to sage advice?

For three years Arne Duncan, like the Titanic captain, has ignored sage advice and barreled toward the icebergs.

The Education Secretary has ignored decades of research on the principles of personal and organizational change. A quarter of a century ago Walter Sykes, a social psychologist laid out some basics (Sunrise Seminars, Volume 2, NTL Institute, Arlington, Virginia, 1985),

1. You must know what something is before you try and change it.

A change agent must have a sound, internalized understanding not only of the “facts,” but also the feelings important to the change process.

2. Because all human change takes place in systems or organic units, you cannot change just one isolated element.

Everything in a system is ultimately connected, … one must understand the total impact of the proposed change on all parts of the system so as to reduce the chances of unwanted and unpredicted side effects.

3. People resist punishment.

Change generally generates discomfort … People tend to consider alterations in a system a form of punishment.

4. People are reluctant to undergo temporary discomfort for long-term gain.

Learning a new skill, whether it is technical or behavioral, at the least causes one to undergo the pain of feeling incompetent for a time … we prefer to polish, refine and rely on familiar behaviors and already mastered skills than to develop new, possibly better skills.

5. Change generates stress.

Change induces stress and the change we feel we cannot control is the most stressful.

6. Participation reduces resistance.

Probably no principle of social psychology has been studied or confirmed more fully than the concept that one may increase people’s acceptance of an innovation by getting them involved in setting goals and devising strategies for achieving these goals.

7. Behavioral change usually comes in small steps.

Few individuals or organizations are willing or able to make dramatic, sweeping changes in a hurry …. Realistically, we must realize that abrupt changes in behaviors are rare – and probably even unhealthy – and that we must allow adequate time for change to take place.

From the halls of Washington to the corridors of state education departments to school districts to schools these principles have been flouted.

The specifics of the changes may or may not be worthy, the heavy-handed imposition of the changes have alienated the three million workers, the classroom teachers, who are expected to be the point of the spear.

When the leading expert on leadership and change in education takes aim at the Duncan administration, perhaps, just perhaps, the captain of the ship should listen.

Michael Fullan is the education change guru, every leadership class assigns Fullan’s works (see list of latest works here).

In April, 2011, in an obscure Australian journal Fullan took on the Duncan administration in an article, “Choosing the wrong drivers for whole system reform.”

Fullan is blunt. “‘Whole system reform’ is the name of the game and ‘drivers’ are those policies and strategy levers that have the least and the best chance of driving successful reform” As “advance organisers” he sees four criteria that should act in concert.

1. foster intrinsic motivation of teachers and students;

2. engage educators and students in continuous improvement of instruction and learning;

3. inspire collective or team work; and

4. affect all teachers and students – 100 per cent?

For Fullan ”intrinsic motivation, instructional improvement, teamwork and ‘allness’” are the key elements for whole system reform.

He discusses “wrong drivers,” that are compelling on the surface and have “face-value appeal” for people with urgent problems and will be hard to dislodge.

The culprits, Fullan’s term, are,

1. accountability: using test results, and teacher appraisal, to reward or punish teachers and schools vs capacity building;

2, individual teacher and leadership quality: promoting individual versus group solutions;

3. technology: investing in and assuming that the wonders of the digital world will carry the day vs instruction;

4. fragmented strategies vs integrated or systemic strategies.

Slowly, carefully, Fullan shreds the reform strategies in both the USA and Australia.

He sees multiple benefits from “focused collaborative practice, mobilise and customise knowledge in the system, enabling teachers to know what other teachers do and to learn from them;” he calls these “social capital-based strategies.”

For Fullam peer power is a key driver. “…it is the collaborative group that accelerates performance, including squeezing out poor performers as teaching becomes less private and more collaborative.”

Too many reformers only learn and apply pieces of the puzzle, upgrading the quality of entering teachers and school leaders will not change outcomes in a “punitive, highly charged accountability system,” an essential element is “teacher ownership.”

“The new lesson is ‘teacher engagement in education reform’ which essentially concludes that you cannot get there without widespread teacher ownership.”

Fullan warns policy-makers that “…because you involve some teachers in key deliberations that you have involved the profession.”

The core of whole system success is “continuous instructional improvement closely linked to student engagement and success, again for all students.”

Fullan, after shredding current efforts, points to what he calls the “heart of the matter,” four systemically related “big drivers” that work.

1. The learning-instruction-assessment nexus.

The relentless development of capacity-building – to make learning more exciting, more engaging, and more linked to assessment feedback loops around the achievement of higher order thinking skills.

2. Social capital to build the profession.

Building collaborative structures across and within schools – if the development of individuals is not surrounded by a culture of developing social capital it will fail.

3. Pedagogy matches technology.

We must power new pedagogical innovations with technology … in a word, technology makes education easier and more absorbing. Learning and life become more seamless.

4. Systemic synergy.

Drivers must be conceived as a coherent whole.The right pieces do not a system make.

Fullan concludes,

Replace the juggernaut of wrong drivers with lead drivers that are known to work …. Jettison blatant merit pay, reduce excessive testing, don’t depend on teacher appraisal as a driver, and don’t treat world class standards as a panacea. Instead, make the instruction-assessment nexus the core driver, and back this up with a system that mobilises the masses to make the moral imperative a reality. Change the very culture of the teaching profession.

I fear that in Washington, Albany and Tweed “damn the icebergs, full steam ahead” continues to be the driver. If your audience doesn’t agree with you – speak louder and slower – maybe they will! And, in Albany, the Commissioner remains the marionette, jumping as Washington pulls the strings.

In New York City I believe the leadership is conflicted. The geppetto at Gracie Mansion pulls Chancellor Walcott’s strings, not to improve education, but to gain some sort of political advantage or position himself for his next job, or, just plain ordinary orneriness.

On the education side of Tweed the leadership appears to be inching in the right direction. CEO Suransky proffers,

From our collaborative inquiry work over the past several years we have learned how much teachers learn from each other, and it is critical that you find the time—for yourself and other school leaders to spend more time in classrooms, and for teachers to meet in teams to examine student work and one another’s practice. Many of you build this time into your schedules already.

Unfortunately the system is still committed to a key “wrong” driver, the incessant drive to punitive accountability. Teachers and principals are pitted against each other. The recent extension of probation for 38% of applicants, the Sword of Damocles hanging over schools – the Progress Report and Quality Reviews, all mitigate against the “right” drivers that Fullan espouses.

The refusal of Bloomberg/Walcott to accept third party review to resolve the current teacher evaluation dispute is evidence of the wrong-headed, punitive attitude. Destroying tenure and due process, eliminating seniority and ultimately weakening the union is the key driver of policy.

For too many self anointed education leaders, the Duncans and Kings and Walcotts, the lesson is never learned: the icebergs always win.

For decades students in one elementary grade and one middle school grade were tested in English and Mathematics and high school students either by an exit exam or graduation rates.

It all changed in 2002.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a federal statute, required testing in grades 3-8 each year. States set goals called Adequate Yearly Progress (See US Dept of Ed guidelines here) and failure to reach AYP goals results in Schools in Need of Improvement (SINI) status and eventually direct state intervention.

The carrot (or, according to your politics, pieces of silver) dangled billions in the Race to the Top competition and forced states to institute teacher evaluation regulations that required the use of student achievement data – ignoring the growing research that student achievement data massaged by a value-added algorithm is a flawed system for teacher assessment.. (See Linda Darling-Hammond and others researchers here)

After a testing schedule kerfuffle that resulted in the firing of the NYS Director of Testing the State Education Department released new testing dates and hours of testing. Test days were increased from five to six and the testing time increased for each day. The additional questions are required to validate test items for future exams, not for student assessment.

Two or so years down the road the 24-state coalition, Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) assessmentswill  replace current state assessments. New York State belongs to the consortium that will administer four, that right four tests a year in grades 3-11 in the range of content areas (see chart detailing plans here)

As test mania engulfs our education system the highest functioning education systems in the world – Finland and South Korea and Singapore give scant attention to testing, except as a gateway to post secondary education.(See descriptions of the Finnish education system here and here). And, BTW, Finnish teachers are wholly unionized and have a 200-page contract – longer than the UFT contract.

The PARCC website  lauds the upcoming testing regimen,

PARCC is a 24-state consortium working together to develop next-generation K-12 assessments in English and math. PARCC benefits:

Students who will know if they are on track to graduate ready for college and careers

Teachers with regular results available to guide learning and instruction

Parents with clear and timely information about the progress of their children

States with valid results that are comparable across the member states

The nation as it is based on college- and career-ready, internationally-benchmarked CCSS.

With Acuity  the McGraw-Hill interim testing tool and other predictive assessments teachers are overwhelmed with data – data that tells them what they already know. Some students struggle – what Acuity or the PARCC assessments don’t divine is how you make Juan and Mary do their homework, read at home, pay attention and make progress. PARCC assessments won’t make parents more involved in their children’s education.

In June, 2006 Senator Obama said,

“There’s a saying in Illinois I learned when I was down in a lot of rural communities. They said, ‘Just weighing a pig doesn’t fatten it.’ You can weigh it all the time, but it’s not making the hog fatter.

“So the point being, if all we’re doing is testing and then teaching to the test, that doesn’t assure that we’re actually improving educational outcomes.

“We do need to have accountability, however. We do need to measure progress with our kids.

“Maybe it’s just one standardized test, plus portfolios of work that kids are doing, plus observing the classroom.

Unfortunately President Obama didn’t listen to Senator Obama.

Test mania is running wild.

Although the PARCC website is silent on the question of the use of new assessments to evaluate and remunerate teachers you better bet that testing is irrevocably tied to teacher assessment. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t plotting against you!!

Have hope.

Somewhere in some laboratory a wonky scientist is finishing up work on a knowledge chip that can be stapled into a kid’s earlobe and download learnings day by day and some venture capitalist is figuring out how to monetize the chip.

Or, maybe, just maybe, we’ll learn from the Finns.

The justification for the closing/opening policy was sharply rising state test scores, wrong, Chancellor Tisch destroyed the claims of the city when she exposed the state test score fiasco, the tests had been “dumbed down.”

For decades the New York City high school graduation rate was about 50% – kids left schools because the economy was replete with semi-skilled jobs, not necessarily jobs requiring academic skills. A shop teacher in my school taught a small motor repair course, with a 100% school dropout rate! The kids got jobs working in local boatyards for $30-40 an hour.

Now low/semi-skilled jobs have migrated off shore and even auto mechanic jobs require computer skills. The State Education Department licenses 48 professions  – ranging from acupuncture to veterinary medicine and the New York Department of State’s Division of Licensing Services (DLS), oversees the licensure, registration, and regulation of 29 occupations throughout the state. DLS licenses over 800,000 individuals including real estate brokers, notaries, private investigators, and appearance enhancement professionals. High school diplomas are crucial and post secondary education essential.

While the NYC Department of Education lauds rising graduation rates these rates are highly questionable. Credit recovery, a euphemism for the handing out of credits for no or little effort, teachers marking the papers of kids they teach and “softer” state standards have all degraded the value of a diploma.

Check out a June, 1953 American History Regents Exam here  and an August, 2011 US History Exam here. – What happened to the rigor of Regents exams?

The State Ed guys and gals provide scoring guides for each Regents exam with “anchor essays,” student essays with grades assigned by the state. I sat around with a group of teachers who all graded the anchor essays lower than the grades assigned by the state.

Double and triple remediation is commonplace for students entering community college and the percent of students deemed college ready is appalling.

The current inflated rates are probably closer to the decades-old 50% rate.

Opponents of the current administration at times seem joyful – there is nothing to applaud.

A Gingrich presidency would argue for a voucher alternative to public schools.

In a handful of schools kids thrive – exemplary teachers and school leaders can “best the odds,” In a small high school with which I am familiar the teachers designed a rigorous, Common Core-based curriculum – with 90- minute English blocks for the first two years. Kids enter at the 2.2 proficiency level and graduation rates are in the mid-80 percent range. And, BTW, they do almost no Regents review!

You cannot clone highly effective school leaders or smart, creative collaborative teachers. The current system abjures real collaboration, the core driver is threats: threats of school closings, of poor Quality Review grades, of “D’s” and F’s” on Progress Reports and soon to be inaugurated teacher numeric grades based on student achievement (value-added) and Danielson-driven observations.

Urban school systems have failed to adjust to the changing world that surrounds them. David Rogers in his 110 Livingston Street: Politics and Bureaucracy in the New York City Schools (1968) described a massive bureaucracy that failed to respond to external pressures, and, self-destructed.

In 1970 the new “magic bullet,” the Holy Grail was decentralization – derogate decision-making to locally elected school boards – empower communities. The result was a Gresham’s Law of Education – the worst, most corrupt school districts drove out the effective school districts.

Mayoral control, lauded as tying the success of the mayor to the success of schools has been disaster in New York and Chicago – mayors and teachers and communities at each others’ throats.

David Tyack and Larry Cuban in Tinkering Toward Utopia are on target,

… the ahistorical nature of most current reform proposals magnifies defects and understates the difficulty of changing the system. Policy talk has alternated between lamentation and overconfidence …. reformers today need to focus on ways to help teachers improve instruction from the inside out instead of decreeing change by remote control, and that reformers must also keep in mind the democratic purposes that guide public education.

I increasingly hear teachers and critics of Tweedom whine, “Let’s wait until we get a new mayor in 2013, s/he will straighten things out.”

We may not have time.

The right wing ideologues argue why not have a market-driven school system – grant every parent a voucher and let them use it to “buy” education,  whether public or charter or private school?

The clock may be ticking: what can we do to move past mayoral control?

Symbolic Actions from Tweed and the Union:

The Department can abandon the ATR pool and the Union can negotiate the implementation of the new teacher evaluation law. If all teachers are evaluated by a management-union agreed upon system excessed teachers can be assigned to new schools as in the past. “Bad” teachers will be weeded out by the evaluation system.

Supporting Not Closing Schools:

The early identification of struggling schools and the placement of these schools in a Chancellor-like district with strong supports would be far more sensible. Yes, the result may be the closing of some schools, but, the decision would be at the end of a transparent process.

Labor-Management Collaboration:

The Chancellor’s District was a labor-management collaboration. Union staff worked with Board staff – they were invited to principal meetings, they had a seat at the table. Teacher Centers, the education arm of the Union provided professional development.

Trust has to be at the core of labor-management relationships.

For the union the fight is for short term survival- the work is for long term survival.

For management a realization that in the eyes of the public the message chiseled above the entrance to Tweed harkens back to Dante, “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate“, or “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”

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