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The Vision Thing
07/09/09
03:14:25 am, Categories: Announcements [A] Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) shares his views on education, based on his experience as Denver’s Superintendent and his early impressions of the political currents in the Senate, in a Politics Daily piece published Tuesday.
It’s provocative, thoughtful, and outside-the-box. Recommended reading.
A sample:
"We have not updated our theory of human capital, which is a fancy word for saying how do we attract and retain people to public education…
"When you think that between 70 to 80 percent of what we spend on K-12 in this country is spent on compensation and this is the way that we spend it, you need to ask yourself, "Are we providing a set of incentives that actually makes sense?"
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Comment from: john thompson [Visitor] · http://www.thisweekineducation.com
Bennet has obviously thought deeply on education and he correctly writes “It shouldn't be surprising to anybody that in its first iteration the accountability system we came up with was an incredibly crude one.”
He also explains why reformers haven’t been able to replicate successes “the reason why quality of scale has eluded us is that we have all of these obstacles in the way of people being able to unleash their creative potential. ... We've been so prescriptive at every level ... from the federal government to the state government to the school district level ... about what we should and shouldn't do that we've basically disempowered people closest to our kids.”
When describing problem in the age of NCLB Bennet correctly writes in present tense, “If I were able to wave a magic wand, what I would say (is), "Look, one of the problems is that we have is too many standards at every grade level and we're testing too many things. We're exhausting our teachers; we're exhausting our kids."
Most of the problems I have with Bennet is that all his suggestions are in future tense. He has a long list of steps that must be taken for a viable accountability system. But then he repeats a recommendation that has failed with the toughest schools “autonomy but first it has to be earned."
Doesn’t the same "chicken and egg" issue apply equally to accountability hawks; shouldn’t they also have to earn their keep?
I am extremely dis-satisfied by the way that Bennet deals with this issue saying “to me the burden of proof is not on the people who want to change the system, the burden of proof is on people who want to keep it the same.” In my experience the only people who are willing to put up with the “status quo” are people who have been burned too many times by “quick fixes,” that were not subjected to the burden of proof, that just took and horrible system and made it worse.
But, he has a brilliant bottom line, writing “I think the accountability system we have ought to be a way to check right direction/wrong direction. The idea that from Washington we're going to be able to materially inform people's instruction is a little bit of an illusion, and I'm not sure we should be trying to do it anyway. And I think there's usefulness to having some distance between the accountability framework and the tools that people use every day to (give) quality instruction to our kids. It's not a huge distinction, but it is a distinction.”
This sounds like a new iteration of an enduring institution that is essential for educational progress - tenure. I don’t care whether you call it dues process, the sanctity of contracts, tenure or the firewall but education can not prosper without some institutionalized way of maintaining the “distance” between the accountability framework and classroom instruction. If we don’t have quality instruction, and we don’t have enough, the the Toledo Plan like the Denver Plan point the way to improving teacher quality.
And the same logic applies to Comparability. If the CCCR report was correct they should proclaim it from the mountaintops, give us Comparability and guarantee that the rights of teachers to transfer or not transfer, including those governed by seniority. Then, teacher/reformers like Brad Jupp will be empowered.
He also explains why reformers haven’t been able to replicate successes “the reason why quality of scale has eluded us is that we have all of these obstacles in the way of people being able to unleash their creative potential. ... We've been so prescriptive at every level ... from the federal government to the state government to the school district level ... about what we should and shouldn't do that we've basically disempowered people closest to our kids.”
When describing problem in the age of NCLB Bennet correctly writes in present tense, “If I were able to wave a magic wand, what I would say (is), "Look, one of the problems is that we have is too many standards at every grade level and we're testing too many things. We're exhausting our teachers; we're exhausting our kids."
Most of the problems I have with Bennet is that all his suggestions are in future tense. He has a long list of steps that must be taken for a viable accountability system. But then he repeats a recommendation that has failed with the toughest schools “autonomy but first it has to be earned."
Doesn’t the same "chicken and egg" issue apply equally to accountability hawks; shouldn’t they also have to earn their keep?
I am extremely dis-satisfied by the way that Bennet deals with this issue saying “to me the burden of proof is not on the people who want to change the system, the burden of proof is on people who want to keep it the same.” In my experience the only people who are willing to put up with the “status quo” are people who have been burned too many times by “quick fixes,” that were not subjected to the burden of proof, that just took and horrible system and made it worse.
But, he has a brilliant bottom line, writing “I think the accountability system we have ought to be a way to check right direction/wrong direction. The idea that from Washington we're going to be able to materially inform people's instruction is a little bit of an illusion, and I'm not sure we should be trying to do it anyway. And I think there's usefulness to having some distance between the accountability framework and the tools that people use every day to (give) quality instruction to our kids. It's not a huge distinction, but it is a distinction.”
This sounds like a new iteration of an enduring institution that is essential for educational progress - tenure. I don’t care whether you call it dues process, the sanctity of contracts, tenure or the firewall but education can not prosper without some institutionalized way of maintaining the “distance” between the accountability framework and classroom instruction. If we don’t have quality instruction, and we don’t have enough, the the Toledo Plan like the Denver Plan point the way to improving teacher quality.
And the same logic applies to Comparability. If the CCCR report was correct they should proclaim it from the mountaintops, give us Comparability and guarantee that the rights of teachers to transfer or not transfer, including those governed by seniority. Then, teacher/reformers like Brad Jupp will be empowered.
07/09/09 @ 08:51
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