Swift & Change Able - Latest comments

In response to: States' Race to the Top: Where Are They Now? - with Michigan update

Gwen Samuel [Visitor] — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:50:36 +0000

Ditto sentiment "really excellent overview of states"

Transparency and accountability will be key to the success of programs reducing the gap between Black and Brown children and their white peers. I appreciate Arne Duncan holding states accountable for "not playing by the rules".

This is also a great time for "true" parent engagement. The Feds need to "follow the money" for children and family sake.

For many years the voice of parents of color, especially poor parents has been left out of education policy discussions.The time is Now for Connecticut parents to realize their power to make positive change in the lives of their children. As parents and community leaders, we will need to lead a focused, parent-led mobilization effort to improve educational options for students of color.

Great Job Swift and Change Able!

In response to: Reforming Teacher Prep: Let's Keep it Real

Charlie [Member] — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:26:54 +0000

1. Henry Wyman Holmes, the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the 1920's.

see: http://www.holmespartnership.org/

2. Stanley Elam, A Resume' of Performance-Based Teacher Education, American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education: What is the State of the Art? (Washington, D.C.: American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, 1972, p. 3). personal collection, see:

http://swiftandchangeable.org/index.php/2009/09/03/race-to-the-top-state-of-play?blog=2

3. Introduction to the Foundations of American Education, Allyn and Bacon, 1979. personal collection, see:

http://swiftandchangeable.org/index.php/2009/09/03/race-to-the-top-state-of-play?blog=2

4-8. Holmes Group, 1986. The Holmes Group was composed of Deans of Schools of Education from throughout the U.S., including Teachers College, Columbia. Its work was funded by the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation, among others.

http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/2f/4a/71.pdf

9-10 "What Matters Most," 1996, Report by National Commission on Teaching and America's Future.

NCTAF was comprised of education thought leaders from academia and the public sphere, including both major teachers unions. http://www.nctaf.org/documents/WhatMattersMost.pdf

11. Katherine Merseth, Director of Teacher Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education. March 2009, as quoted in the New York Times "Room for Debate":

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/education-degrees-and-teachers-pay/

In response to: States' Race to the Top: Where Are They Now? - with Michigan update

Charlie [Member] — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:25:18 +0000

Jeanne - we told that story back in July here as part of a longer post on RttT action by states:

http://swiftandchangeable.org/index.php/2009/07/07/race-to-the-top-signs-of-the-times?blog=2

But you told it better.

Thanks.

--- Charlie

In response to: States' Race to the Top: Where Are They Now? - with Michigan update

Jeanne Allen [Visitor] — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:51:00 +0000

Really, really excellent overview of states. Keep it up! One slight amendment -- RI didn't race to the top this year. It approved it's Mayoral Academies last year, but this June their funding which had already been a go was suddenly stopped in budget negotiations. Advocates swung into action, asking the first question of Sec Duncan at the nat'l charter conf about what RI was about to do. He said (paraphrasing) states that didn't treat charters equitably would suffer. The advocates blasted that to the legis. and the press, who then blasted it out to the public, and voila, the sausage was re-sewn. Sorry for the detail but it's important to know the full story. Sadly, other states taking similar credit for doing so haven't done much.

In response to: Duncan to NASBE: Balancing Fed, State, and Local Roles in Education Reform

Fred Deutsch [Visitor] — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:06:33 +0000

Just a quick note to say hello and to thank you for your education blog. I read blogs to learn about education in my role as a school board member. I’ve learned plenty from you!

I’ve subscribed to your blog and also have it listed on my site as one the 50 eduction blogs I read nightly.

Thanks again for your work.

Fred Deutsch
Watertown, SD
www.school-of-thought.net

In response to: AASA to After-School Teachers: "You're Fired"

Jacqueline Spates [Visitor] — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:16:09 +0000

All after school programs help counsel as weel as teach our children. Please do not eliminate these valuable programs such as these. There is enough trouble from children and teens who don't have that extra attention given to them when they are out of school. Thanks

In response to: Standardization is Not a Four-Letter Word

john thompson [Visitor] — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:30:18 +0000

I am not pro subjectivity. I am pro good subjectivity.

Seriously, exercises like Reeves and Lynn Canady’s are valuable in forcing teachers to look anew at their cherished grading systems and recognizing the infinite number of contingencies that none of us can adjust for. The purpose is to make sure that no teacher “ever sees grading in the same way again.” In other words, the purpose of the exercise is not necessarily to root out subjectivity, but to foster a more informed, more open-minded, and more just subjectivity. Too many teachers are just as wedded to their zeros and formulas as you are to standardization. If standardization is a lousy idea (and I think it’s the worst of all possible worlds) the Reeves and Canady surveys do not add any credence to it. In fact, the call for mindful and meaningful grading could actually increase subjectivity by puncturing teachers’ most deeply held ideologies.

That is why attending a lecture by Canady (I don’t know Reeves) is doubly valuable. I don’t care what the subject is. Attend a lecture by Canady on any subject and you walk out seeing the world with new eyes.

Regarding your previous post, you may not believe it but I’m just as skeptical of localism as you are. But this may be a place where the unions understand the value of localism. Take for instance the issue of forced transfers. Other than a very few administrators in the biggest districts I can’t understand why reformers still want that issue and don’t explicitly repudiate it. Force a transfer of an effective teacher from an effective school to a failing school and in almost every case you will damage both schools. That would be doubly true of a place trying to implement what Arlene Ackerman claims she is trying to do. Transfer an unwilling teacher into a team that wants to turnaround a school and almost certainly you’ve poisoned the well.

I suspect the idea of forced transfers haven’t been explicitly repudiated because this is a classic area where the interests of the administrator and that of the district are contradictory. The district won’t benefit, but an individual administrator who is stymied in pushing his or her agenda wants to keep that option open for the benefit of his or own career.

The trickier issue is layoffs and turnarounds. As you know, I’m not opposed to negotiating provisions that are not dis-similar to layoffs and bankruptcy in industry. The problem is the issue of good faith. My problem with Duncan’s turnaround guidelines is not that he keeps all options open but that he favors the most disruptive approaches that could be the most damaging to unions. Rip up collective bargaining agreements in 2000 schools and you can get to the point where the expectation in the rule of law is the exception, not the rule.

The worst scenario is D.C. I don’t pretend to know the law in that unique situation. But did the editors of the Post ask questions about the legality of Rhee layoff procedures? They implied they’d support Rhee regardless.

So getting back to localism, local unions ought to be able to waive provisions where they see credible opportunities to achieve equity while protecting the integrity of contracts. But no national union is going to ask their local to give the benefit of the doubt to someone like Rhee who puts her own morality over the rule of law.

And that gets us back to subjectivity. Subjectivity in grading may have annoyed us, but we weren’t hurt by it. The problem comes with the new challenge of educating kids who have been excluded historically. To address this challenge where none of us has solutions, we need more handshake agreements not less. We need more good-faith collaboration not more coercion. We need more mindful inquiry and less mindless standardization and top-down directives.

In response to: Standardization is Not a Four-Letter Word

Steve Peha [Visitor] — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:28:13 +0000

I would suggest the following when it comes to evaluating grading:

1. Research warns against assigning individual grades to individual assignments because averaging distorts accuracy.

2. The research you're looking at here is not nearly as thorough as the research in Robert Marzano's "Transforming Classroom Grading." Check it out. It's very short and very readable. And it covers 100 years of research on grading.

3. US grading expert Thomas Guskey says this: "Teachers do not need grades to teach. Students do not grades to learn. So we must come to some conclusion as to the real purpose of grading."

Finally, here's a research-based grading system that many people have used all over the country:

www.ttms.org/a_new_approach_to_grading_packet.pdf

This approach follows much of the work of Marzano and Guskey and limits the effects of subjectivity by multi-rater feedback.

Cheerfully,

Steve Peha
President, Teaching That Makes Sense
www.ttms.org