Tag Archives: education

Pearson for Profit

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For my summer classes I had to buy several books that left a sting on the old pocketbook. One book, though, really rubbed me the wrong way. The book, Curriculum Development: A Guide to Practice, cost me $134.11! That’s pretty salty for a book that doesn’t even have nice pictures. For that price I would expect the book to read itself. Anyway, what really burned me was when I received the book and found out it was published by Pearson.

If you know anything about Pearson, you know that they have their fingers tightly entwined in the education market. Pearson’s influence in education is widespread from K-12 education through college. Pearson owns Connections Academy, a virtual charter school conglomerate with schools in 24 states. They have a cooperative agreement with the University of Phoenix, the largest for profit post secondary school in the country. They are also “partners” with the CCSSO, one of the so-called creators of the CCSS. The CCSSO works closely with none other than Jeb Bush. The list goes on and on but I need to include that they are also involved in providing assessments for PARCC, GED and SAT. Wow, that’s a lot of influence for one publishing company. How did that come to be?

Well, that is rather simple. Pearson has influenced federal and state government over the last three years to the tune of about $5.5 million. Interesting that greasing the palms of politicians will get you a seat at the front table when contracts are handed out. Interesting that as a new need develops in the realm of education Pearson is there quickly with a solution. Not ready to devise a solution but with a ready made solution.

So, what’s the problem? The problem is this. Education is being construed as a means to make a profit. So called reformers develop reforms and then someone makes a fortune filling the gap created by the reform. The reformers and the hole fillers aren’t even educators. For the most part, they are anti public education. Jeb Bush? Bill Gates? Michelle Rhee? The Walton Foundation? All known associates of Pearson have suggested that public education is failing. But, public education needs Pearson because they conveniently have all the tools required by state and federal guidelines.

Am I going to go broke because I had to buy a $134.11 book? But for a company who sides with the people who believe in free market education, it seems strange that they have cornered the market in so many areas of public education.

Start With One Space

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I’m not usually a New Year’s resolution type of guy. I do use that time of the year as well as my birthday to reflect on what I have done and where I want to go. It helps to keep me focused and to stay in the moment.

This year I made an exception. I made a resolution. Don’t get too excited. It seems pretty simple. This year I resolved to only put one space after an end mark when I type. Tough one write. I read something about why we were taught in school to put two spaces and the logic seemed acceptable to me. With the advent of true type fonts, all letters no longer take up the same amount of space. On a typewrite each strike took up a finite amount of space. The double space was necessary to give the end of a sentence some room.

Anyway, not as easy as it sounds. For four or five weeks I backspaced and fixed every double space at the end of a sentence. Eventually I was doing it less and less until finally I don’t do it at all. 

So, what’s my point.

Habits. I know this is a simple example but it is an example of what it takes to get into the habit of doing something. I’m not talking about quitting smoking or any big deal habits but little, positive habits. For example, writing your blog, being creative, exercising, bettering yourself in some way.

I began reading this book called Manage Your Day-to Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind. It’s a collection of essays by people with creative minds and it gives their perspectives on the tenets of the book. 

In the second essay, Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project writes about the power of frequency. In her essay she talks about how frequency has helped advance her writing career. I won’t give you all the information; you should read it. She does though quote another great writer, Anthony Trollope, “A small daily task, if it really be daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.” 

When I think of leaders and educators in relation to this point, I think of the fact that we become overwhelmed by the big picture, the big ideas and sometimes that freezes us. “We’ll never get kids to think like the CCSS want us to” or “There is no way we will ever get students to be 100% proficient in PSSA.” I know I experience the same thing when I write. “I’ll never be able to write that well” or “I really don’t have anything good to write about today.” So we do nothing.

Doing nothing is easy. Making excuses is easy. Neither one will improve the learning of our students or get us where we want to be. Goals are a great idea but setting goals is only the first step in achieving them. Achieving goals means we have to bite off little bits at a time.

The point is that if we are focused and chip away at it every day, we can. If we make focus a priority and a habit and we do it with frequency, we can. If we take that gargantuan task and make them into minuscule, manageable tasks, we can. Every step forward is a step forward.

If we start with just one space.

Maybe We Should Teach

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If I were to contemplate, like so many other bloggers seem to do today, the failings of today’s education system, all of my thoughts could redirect to on word – small-mindedness (I hyphenated it so it might be two words but not the point).

Friends, Teachers, Pundits! Lend me your ears! I come to bury education not to fix it!

I don’t mean that literally. I mean it is time for sweeping change. For goodness sake we need to move on or be left behind. And when I say “we” I mean the education establishment. It’s time to quit looking over our shoulders and trying to stay one step ahead of Big Brother. Or more precisely Big, Rich Brother. We are the people who know children. We are the one’s who can change the system. And we will change the system for one reason: It’s what’s best for kids. 

I remember my parents telling me when I was in college that “sometimes you have to play the game.” Agreed. Sometimes. But not when the game hurts students, when the game keeps us mired in the past, when the game is designed to favor the rich, when the game puts more money in the pockets of millionaires and billionaires, when the game widens the opportunity gap, its time to take our ball and go home (figuratively!).

It is time for us to open up our minds. It is time for us to realize our power. It is time for us to look into the future and see what our students will see. Then we must ready ourselves to prepare them for it. It will not be easy; it will be disruptive. There probably won’t be a canned formula for any student’s success. We will have to be creative. We will have to allow our students to be creative. We will be nurturers and facilitators and cautious bystanders. Dr. Watson to our students’ Sherlock and Mr. Watson to our student Alexander Graham Bell. Charlie to President Bartlett?

Its not for the weak of heart or the small of mind. But do you want to look back and see that you didn’t prepare students for their futures because of someone’s political aspirations? Someone’s padded back account? Because of fear of falling behind internationally? Because of Big, Rich Brother? I think not!

Google “21st Century Skills.” Go ahead, I’ll wait. What did you find? Did it say anything about how standardized testing will prepare children for the future? Where there any sites that said that improving standards would improve student success in the future? Anywhere did it say that the best thing we could do for students is narrow the curriculum even more? 

I didn’t think so.

What it says is we need to teach students to think. We need to teach them to create. We need them to be able to draw a map not follow a map and we need them to tap into their own unique genius. Students will have to navigate devices that haven;t even been invented yet. They will have to collaborate – try to test that! Communication – aside on communication great TED talk on texting as new language – in languages that we aren’t teaching. Communicating in ways that we never thought of (John McWhorter talk above).

My biggest fear in education is that while we fight about what is best for kids, the 21st century is coming and we can’t stop it as hard as we might try. My biggest fear is that while we wait to be told what to do our students are falling further behind. It’s time to stand up, grow a backbone and do what we know is right. 

Whose Ethics Are They Anyway?

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In 2006, I had the unfortunate experience of escorting a friend out of the building. He reminds me of this event every time I see him. I was following orders from my boss. My friend had tendered his resignation and the principal told me to keep an eye on him until he left the building. I guess the administration felt he might steal some pencils or a ream of paper. In hindsight I know they just wanted to degrade him and test my loyalty. People understood that I was doing what I was told. People understood that as a young father, I was in no position to stand up for the man that I considered a friend and risk losing my job.

What makes me relate this story now is a series of blog posts from a gentleman that I follow regularly and generally respect, Bill Ferriter. These blog posts, here and here, talk about standardized testing and the value added portion of teacher evaluation In the first he details the fact that he “wasted” teaching time teaching real world and higher order thinking skills and allowing his students to be inquisitive. He explains that he will have to change the way he teaches to protect his job. In the second, he defends his position claiming that teachers shouldn’t be the scapegoats of poor education policies and that its not worthwhile to lose his job to do the right thing for children.

I wholeheartedly disagree. I know the pain of walking the moral tightrope. I know what it feels like to be the one who compromises their personal ethics to promote the educational policies of the higher ups. I quoted a blogger, Paul Thomas, this week on Twitter. Thomas says, “Now is the time for non-cooperation, not moratoriums, not compromise, and not civility on other people’s terms. Now is the time for non-cooperation so that teachers are not foreigners in their own profession and students are not foreigners in their own classrooms.” He doesn’t say be sure to swim with the other fish. He says to swim against the current.

That is speaking truth. If we are not the one’s to stand up to power than how do we expect our students to speak truth to power. It’s hard. It may have consequences. But wouldn’t you rather be right. Wouldn’t you rather know that when it is all over, you have given students what they need to be successful and not that you were good at following the party line. I know my thinking can be radical but we’ve got to stand up for ourselves and our students before it is too late. Waiting for someone else to stand up while education leaves a generation behind is both unethical and immoral. No paycheck is worth that sacrifice.

I for one will continue to support teachers who take risks, who teach 21st Century skills and who feel that their primary obligation is to children and families not politicians and billionaires.

Locally Owned Federally Controlled

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In 1988 President George H.W. Bush famously said, “Read my lips. No new taxes!”

Prior to that and continuing into the present, fellow western Pennsylvanian, Grover Norquist has been holding Republicans feet to the fire to hold the line on taxes. Norquist reaches down into state government also to bully Republicans into signing his “Taxpayer Protection Pledge.”

I know that’s not news but maybe this is.

In an effort to keep federal and state taxes low, taxes are continually being pushed down to the local level. Someone has to pay and its always going to be the same people – us. It just comes from a different revenue stream, local taxation.

This trend is especially evident in education. As state subsidies decreased over the last several years, local taxes have steadily increased. Most school districts are forced to raise taxes at the Act 1 Index every year. That is true at least for the districts who weren’t overtaxing their citizens prior to the election of Tom Corbett. Act 1 limits the amount that taxes can be raised in a school district without a tax referendum. In the 7 years since Act 1 was passed only 1 of 13 tax referendums have passed. 

This would make one think that as the funding for education is pushed to the local level the amount of local control will grow to match the original intent of public education.

Surely you’re not that naive!

No Child Left Behind began the whittling away of local control by forcing states to develop assessments in order to maintain federal funding. Local control was further eroded with the introduction of Race to the Top which required adoption of a set of nationalized Common Core State Standards and the multi measure teacher evaluation process. All necessary components of the application to compete for federal money for education.

Sounds like nationalized education to me! 

I Was a PSSA Apologist

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Back when I first got into administration in 2005, the PSSA debate was beginning to rage. The tests had recently been added to grades 4, 6 and 7 and middle school and intermediate elementary teachers were beginning to lose their autonomy. Since I had recently graduated from graduate school, I believed that the tests were necessary. I would defend the tests by saying that the state just wanted to assure that teachers were teaching what was necessary for students to be successful. They had in effect given us a blueprint of what students should learn and we just needed to follow it. I remember a parent that was making her child cram to do well on the PSSA. The idea made me laugh because I knew that the test was meant to test schools and teachers not students. Even though now that seems very much like using student as pawns, it didn’t occur to me then.

Like the most faithful of religious zealots I drank of the proverbial Kool-Aid.

After eight years of thinking more critically I realize that the PSSA is punishing students in order to determine that public schools are bad. There is way too much more going on here. Companies are getting rich by designing tests and then designing the study guides to help students achieve proficiency. That is not improving education; that is narrowing the curriculum. People with no background in education are influencing not only what students learn but how they are assessed.

I can’t help but believe that the whole convoluted mess is intentionally driving out public education in favor of for profit schools. When you see governments conspiring with lobbyists and billionaires to determine the standards for learning you have to wonder if the standards are set so that students fail. When students fail, schools fail and when public schools fail, charter and for profits are able to flourish.

There is plenty of evidence today that the America that we knew 20 years ago is gone. Everything deemed valuable must be made better through competition and profiteering. The rich will continue to get rich on the backs of the poor. In the case of standardized testing maybe the rich realize the poor have nothing more to give so they are going after their state subsidies. Assure that the poor schools fail – pretty easy because economic background seems to be the most significant indicator of test performance – and then take the money that the state would give to some run down city school and bring the poor kid to a charter.

PSSA is our example here in Pennsylvania but every state has one. Some of them more draconian than others. From the beginning, every state knew that it would not be possible to have 100% of the students be proficient by 2014. Now 2014 is right around the corner and panic has set in. PDE has withdrawn the modified test for special education students assuring that the percentage of students making AYP will decrease. Don’t worry, the charters will take your special education students at a 100% mark up.

I apologize for being a defender of the PSSA. Now people must act.

Educationally Yours

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I wrote this as an assignment for my graduate class. Ignore the parts were I claim to be the superintendent. That was part of the assignment. I’m sure this isn’t what they expect when they ask you to write to your senator about an issue in education.

 

Dear Mr. Corman,

I am writing to you today to request that you introduce a Common Core withdrawal bill in the Pennsylvania Senate. As I will explain, the Pennsylvania Common Core Standards that were tightly adapted from the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) should be withdrawn because they heighten the focus of schools on Math and Reading while marginalizing other subjects, they were developed without input from teachers, and they degrade what local control remains in education.

As the superintendent of the Greenwood School District, I believe that the emphasis on Math and Reading minimizes the importance of other subjects that are not tested. I believe that the components of education that are valuable cannot all be tested. Our school district has developed goals that include achievement in Science and Technology, Environment and Ecology, World Languages, Arts and Humanities, and seven other categories in addition to Math and Reading. We will struggle to meet those goals with an increased emphasis on only two subjects.

From sources that I have read, the writers of the CCSS, while maintaining that they communicated with the states, actually had minimal engagement with the public or classroom teachers. The developers of the CCSS, Achieve, Inc. and the National Governors Association (NGA) were heavily funded by the private sector including the Gates Foundation. As far as I know, the experts on what students are developmentally capable of achieving at each grade level are the people who do it every day. Creating a guidebook for their work without knowing what the know may lead some to suggest that the CCSS were developed to assure that public school falter.

Finally, in 2006 and 2007, I led a group of teachers, parents, and community leaders in developing the following mission statement for the District:

The mission of the Greenwood School District is to provide enriching, educational experiences for each individual student. We believe the foundation of these experiences is a partnership among the family, school and community. The learning environment will develop the skills necessary to produce responsible citizens in a rapidly changing, diverse world.

 

I would highlight for you the second sentence: We believe the foundation of these experiences is a partnership among the family, school and community.  The CCSS continue a trend that began with the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that established No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and began a steady erosion of local control. Our community and our district value local control as evidenced by our mission statement. Creating a national standard for developing curriculum quite possibly will lead to a nationalized curriculum and from there eventually to a national standardized test. At that point the state will have lost control of educating their citizens and what little local control remains will dwindle to nothing.

Interestingly, many reformers of education point to the tremendous gains made by Finland on the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The gains made by Finland are in part contributed to moving away from a nationally centered curriculum to a locally controlled curriculum. While they do have national standards in Finland, they are especially perfunctory.

In closing, I appreciate the time that you take to examine the issues that I have brought forth in this missive. Our children are dependent on people like you to do what is right to ensure them a bright future. Hopefully this future will include locally controlled schools utilizing teacher designed assessments to drive a well rounded curriculum.

 

Educationally yours,

 

Jeffrey A. Kuhns

Superintendent of Schools

Greenwood School District

Trust Me ;)

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“Integrity has no need for rules.” -Albert Camus

This week the graduate program led us to the topic of trust in the workplace. In my estimation there probably couldn’t be a timelier subject for educators. Not sure that it is the same everywhere but trust is no where to be found in the Pennsylvania Department of Education. I had an unfortunate conversation last week with a teacher in our building. Noticing that the implementation of the PA Common Core Standards had been pushed back a year, he wondered if it was due to the new teacher evaluation and PDE thinking it may not be fair to evaluate teachers on an assessment that contained new content. I laughed out loud. I wish I would have held on to some of that naivete that allowed me to think that PDE had the best interest of teachers and schools at heart. I say it was unfortunate because I probably should have held back but I didn’t. I assured him that if PCC was pushed back it had nothing to do with teachers, it probably had to do with money. I had lost my trust in my “employer.” Not that I work directly for the PDE but don’t all of us answer to their mandates?

I don’t believe my distrust is misplaced. Recently the Bureau of Assessment  the long arm of the PSSA, determined that beginning this year, all teachers who administer or proctor the standardized assessment will be trained by a computer module that will be completed online. This job was previously completed by the building principal or school assessment coordinator. Apparently there is no trust in the way that was being completed. (Read: we are all cheaters or at best half-assed at our jobs). In addition we received a communique from PDE telling us exactly how we must discipline our students if they are caught with cell phones during the PSSA or the Keystone Exams. You know, because if they don’t tell us, we don’t have the capacity to use our common sense. They don’t trust the administrators who are responsible for the results.

One more, just for good measure. Currently in New York and California administrators must undergo “calibration” training sessions in order to assure that there is interrater reliability when using the Framework for Teachers. Oh, how I wish I was kidding. It’s coming to Pennsylvania too if it is not already here. You should read the article in the link. I don’t think I can explain it any better.

I know what you’re thinking: “What’s so bad about making sure that everyone is seeing the same thing?” Well, the problem is that we do this everyday. We have a vision for our school and believe it or not we work hard to make sure that we have the best schools that we can have. We definitely don’t need a non educator telling us how it should be. Bill Gates is an extremely intelligent guy but he never spent a day with 30 teacher and 500 kids. He is the hero of calibration. And we feel like the trust is gone. 

I could go on. Tom Corbett’s assault on PSERS not to mention education funding in general. Michelle Rhee’s, another non educator, report card for public schools. Jeb Bush’s Cheifs for Change, Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top and his RESPECT Project. Corbett is the only teacher in the group and the knew pretty early that he couldn’t do the job. There’s not even any indication on the PDE website indicating that Secretary of Education Ron Tomalis ever taught. But why does that matter, Arne Duncan never taught.

Trust? Trust who? It does make sense to rebuild education from the outside. I would want a lawyer telling my doctor how to improve my health and the doctor would be a great help in expanding the mechanical capacity of my mechanic. I think the dentist should critique the local cop during a ride along or may he can go with the fire company. 

Like my grandfather used to say, “You can trust a dog to watch your house but you can’t trust him to watch your sandwich.”

Screwed Again!

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Welcome to Tom Corbett’s Pennsylvania! The state where people who don’t cause the problem are nonetheless punished.

If you are a public employee in Pennsylvania, you had better listen to the pension reform proposal released today because you will be bailing out the people who didn’t pay their fair share over the last decade. You know that little retirement contribution that they take out of our checks on a biweekly basis? Well, to my knowledge they never gave me a vacation from paying that in the last 23 years that I have been in education. Seven point five percent every check. Bet most of you didn’t know that there were years that the state and the school districts didn’t pay anything. In the years from 2001 to 2010 the school districts and the state combined to contribute an average of 4% while teachers were paying themselves and average of 7 percent. The handshake with state employees required that all three parties pay equal shares. So what happened? Someone didn’t understand that you can’t beat the stock market forever. They should have bought Nate Silver’s book.

Now, the pension system is over 40 billion dollars underfunded. So Mr. Corbett’s plan is to put that on the backs of the people who were paying their fair share all along. You can keep your 2.5 multiplier if you pay more or you can pay the same and work seven and half more years to get the same benefit. And of course, the employers’ (state and district) contribution won’t change fast enough to make up the difference. With a cap of 2.25% increase per year, it is still less in one year than it will cost state employees.

There are some other gems in there too as we again cut into the people who serve our state, the Corbett administration plans to cut corporate income taxes as well as raise the cap on the amount of loss a corporation may claim in a year.

My guess is that this is another cog in the Administration’s machine that will eventually privatize education in Pennsylvania. In my graduate class we have failed to mention yet when educators and state employees became the dregs of the earth.

Prisoners of Bureaucracy

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I started graduate school this week so the posts may get thin over the next several weeks. The advantage is that I’ve found a lot of inspiration from my reading so I’ll have ideas built up when I have time to write.

This week I ran across a quote about being an educational leader today is akin to waking up in a maximum security prison and saying, “What am I going to do today?” The comparison is simple, if you are a prisoner you have two choices: follow the rules or be punished. Similarly it seems that school leaders – teachers, principals, superintendents – have them same choices: follow the mandates or be punished. On a larger scale, schools and entire districts are also prisoners of the test-well system.

I’ve written about it before and I will probably write about it again. In a system where the only thing that matters is how you score on one standardized test is the standard that determines excellence, educators must decide whether they will teach to the test or whether they will choose to expand the knowledge of their students by instilling the desire to learn. These are not the same thing. I’ve told teachers for several years that I could guarantee we could be 100% proficient in two years. I know how to do that. We have all the tools: great teachers, great kids, supportive parents, better than average socioeconomic standing, etc. The trade off that we would have to make is whether we want to solely “teach to the test” or do we want to continue to do the things that have brought us to the level of success that we have already achieved? Our school believes it has the ability to transform from a good school to a great school but we also believe that the measuring stick of greatness is not a percentage of proficiency determined by someone other that us.

One of my large projects for my graduate class is to come up with a plan to address improving student achievement using the Getting Results Template. The Getting Results Template is what schools in school improvement are required to complete as part of their school improvement plan. I think I may blow someone away. I can right an excellent plan for improving but I think at the end I will tell them how I really feel. Like a prisoner of bureaucracy.