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Friendly Fire
05/12/09
02:53:54 pm, Categories: Announcements [A] I learned a few, not all good, things last week at Teachers College when I was on a panel on the federal role in teacher quality and equity with Susan Neuman of University of Michigan and Sabrina Laine, Director of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality.
The day started with a chat with Michael Rebell, who heads up the Campaign for Educational Equity at TC.
I asked Michael whether there might be ways to bridge the gulf between progressives who increasingly find themselves on opposite sides of school reform battles i.e., to try find common ground on equity issues. Our discussion took my hopes down a notch or two.
Rebell suggested I read his book which admonishes the feds to stop focusing on 100% proficiency for all schoolchildren by 2014 and turn their attention to other things. Setting aside the fact that the cases CEE has worked on are premised in part on providing the resources necessary to ensure that all children have the opportunity to meet state academic standards, I asked if he was aware that the law is designed so that no district or school would ever have to meet 100% proficiency, that in fact, it was mathematically impossible for the AYP bar to ever go that high for any district or school. He said he had "heard something about that."
Traditionally, the federal government has stepped into education policy when two conditions are met:
- a disadvantaged group in society is denied access to the educational opportunities offered to others or is not getting a fair share of resources.
- other levels of government have been unwilling or unable to address the problem.
These are the factors that led to Tile I/ESEA/NCLB in the first place, as well as Pell Grants, IDEA, and other federal education laws.
I don’t think you need to be a rocket scientist, a school finance lawyer, or even an education policy expert to get that the pervasive inequities in the quality of teaching offered to poor and minority children meet both of these criteria. No matter how you measure it, poor and minority children are shortchanged when it comes to teacher experience, licensure, and subject matter competence. Usually this is on the order of a factor of 2 to 3 – they are 2 to 3 times more likely, on average, to have less experienced teachers, teachers teaching out of field, and teachers with less than full licensure. Contrary to popular belief, these factors matter, though of course they don’t explain everything.
Neuman maintained that the Bush Administration was never all that interested in the teacher quality issue. And it shows. Now why is an administration official who admittedly did nothing on teacher equity the spokesperson for continuing to do nothing based on the argument that very little on teacher quality or equity has changed in the last seven years?
Sabrina Laine presented data that showed some progress actually has been made on the teacher "input" variables. But it varies across states. The TQ Center has a wealth of good data (click: here) that both looks back at the spotty, but in some cases better than nothing, implementation of NCLB’s teacher quality and equity provisions, and looks forward to how we might move on to the next hot and challenging topic, measuring teacher "effectiveness."
Rather than setting up the "NCLB was not an unqualified victory on teacher equity, so let’s give up" straw man, I think responsible advocates for children should ask "what are the next steps the federal government can take to raise the quality of teaching and ensure that poor and minority children are not shortchanged?" Because as far as I can tell, states and districts are not systematically doing it. And I have a crazy idea that doesn’t seem to be all that popular in academia: the discussion should be driven by facts and solid research, rather than by anecdotes and disingenuousness dressed up as pollyanna.
The TQ Center is hosting a webcast next week (Thursday, May 21) on strategies for addressing the inequitable distribution of qualified teachers. If you missed last week’s hoedown at TC, I wouldn’t worry. The TQ Center’s webinar looks to be much more informative (and yes, broader and bolder) than what the folks at TC are peddling.
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2 comments
I think I still owe you that blog entry on teacher quality, but we historians are sometimes a bit slow, or maybe ponderous, and I've had a few other things on my mind in the last few months. But it's still on my to-do (to-write) list.
Michigan State U look at "opportunity to
learn" from the perspective of what is
intended to be taught, and what is in fact
(based on teacher report) taught. The big
surprise is the amount of variation by
district (within the same state) in regard
to what is INTENDED to be taught.
In terms of equity--some kids never have a
chance.
http://www.promse.msu.edu/
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