I have been refraining from commenting about Obama's recent remarks on education and schools, because to do so will be to offer criticism and I did not want to do anything to undercut his campaign. But when I checked various papers online this morning I found his remarks being used by the Boston Globe to pummel Governor Deval Patrick. I decided I should offer a relatively brief (for me) explanation of what bothers me about his remarks and his approach to education in general. All that will be below the fold, where I will begin by noting several things of importance to provide a broader context.
- Obama is committed to public education. For all my concerns about some of his advisors on education, they are also committed to public schools. This contrasts favorably with McCain's heavy reliance on Lisa Graham Keegan, who not only tried to undercut public schools while heading education in Arizona, but was forced out of her position heading the right-wing Education Leaders Council. She would be worse than Rod Paige (whom she advised).
- Obama has made strong commitments to Early Childhood Education and to addressing the summer learning loss of lower-income (primarily minority) children
- at least rhetorically, Obama acknowledges that we have to go beyond math and reading and support music and poetry and art and other subjects.
All that is good. It is also insufficient. And there are things that trouble me.
My first concern is rhetorical. Obama often makes use of the rhetoric of how we are slipping on international comparisons. The problem is that those international comparisons are often very flawed. I have done some research on this in a course taught by one of the experts on the subject, Iris Rotberg, a research professor at George Washington (with whom I am a co-author along with another former student of a monograph on No Child LEft Behind while it was a proposal and not yet a law). I have also continued to read on the subject, particularly the detailed criticisms of such comparisons made by Gerald Bracey, who writes the research column for the professional publication Phi Delt Kappan. International comparisons are the current genre of bogeyman. In 1983 we were being told that our economic future put our nation at risk because of the quality of education. In the interim we have been beaten over the head with the number of people being trained as engineers in China compared to the US. But no one ever seems to look below the surface of such "statistics." And one important thing is that American companies only reason for wanting more technicians and engineers is to keep their labor costs lower without having to export jobs. Companies whose important figures, like Bill Gates of Microsoft (yes, I know he is no longer directly involved in running the corporation, but he is appearing in ads for them with Jerry Seinfeld) are playing both sides of the deck by simultaneously asking for more H1B visas to have a compliant labor force that does not cost them as much as proper wages for American workers, many of whom cannot find jobs appropriate to their training and experience in technical fields.
As to the comparisons themselves, we are often comparing apples and oranges. In some cases, we do not test equivalent samples of the populations of the country. In other cases, such as on TIMSS(Third International Math and Science Study) other nations (a) did not test people who were not native speakers of the majority language; (b) altered or replaced some questions because of geographic considerations (Hungary, lacking a coastline, justified not asking questions on coastal biology, even though they are closer to a coastline than are for example American students in Nebraska). In my examination of TIMSS I found one question on which American students blew away the competition in "high" scoring nations. It had to do with the stopping distance of an automobile, and clearly the responses to that question were influenced by Americans of all backgrounds having ready access to and experience with private automobiles at a rate few other nations even approach.
Next, I have concerns about some of the advisors upon whom Obama is depending. There are some whose expertise I value, especially Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford's School of Education, formerly of Teachers' College at Columbia. But I see far too many people coming from the environments of Teach for America (for example, former National Teacher of the Year Jason Kamras) and New Leaders for New Schools (Jon Schnur). Many people rave about TFA, and there is no doubt that attracting people from elite colleges to teach in schools serving the under privileged is a noble idea. I have concerns, which I have expressed to people in TFA's national office. While I am open to the idea of alternative methods of certifying teachers, I am reluctant to sign on to a model for which applicants only have to commit to a limited time (2 year requirement), even if the retention rate were to exceed 50% (it does not). It is my experience and what I draw from professional leadership that meaningful change occurs with continuity, and for all the enthusiasm such well-meaning young people represent, it does not offset the discontinuity they can cause in a school serving the underprivileged. While TFA only requires a 2.5 undergraduate average, they like to brag that those they select have a median GPA of close to 4.0. One's own academic performance is not an indication of an ability to make sense of a content area for those less gifted than oneself. Please remember that many of the best managers and coaches in sports were not themselves necessarily the superstars, but were those who studied how to succeed. I have seen this with one of my own student teachers who had a 4.0 average, and was a junior Phi Beta Kappa, but could not adjust to the students for which he was to be responsible not being as passionate about his subject as he was. While I encourage multiple methods of recruiting and training teachers, I am concerned that Obama has an overreliance upon people like Kamras, which seems to distort the understanding of what is really possible with the pool of teachers upon whom most schools have to rely. Also, too many of the programs that have flowed from TFA, such as the KIPP academies, while they may raise test scores, have not as yet demonstrated that there is long-term retention of learning (there is some contradictory data), and they depend upon teachers basically giving up a personal life. As one for whom 14 hour days are not at all unusual, I know that I am able to do this only because I do not have children of my own, and to attempt to "fix" our schools by reliance upon that level of commitment by teachers, no matter how much we might pay them, is not something sustainable.
As to New Leaders for New Schools, it is a notable effort to try to change - and shorten - the process of preparing principals. In theory, through this program the normal 2-3 year period of preparing for certification as a principal can be shortened to one year, and one undergoes an intensive mentorship with a cooperating principal. This is a program about which I know a great deal, as last fall I was an applicant for DC public schools, until I removed my name from consideration after my first round of interviews (I do not know, but believe I was going to be passed on to the final round, and already knew that my first principal, who was about to start a charter, very much wanted to mentor me). My concern about this program is the overreliance upon test data. It is a question I raised numerous times. There is, as Nichols and Berliner clearly demonstrated in a recent book, and strong tendency that the more emphasis we put on test scores the greater the distortion of the educational process. I have written about this before. And I worry that using NLNS as a model rather than as one example among several might have the unfortunate tendency of perpetuating this overreliance.
My third concern is about charter schools. Here let me note that I am NOT opposed to charter schools per se. In fact, I think that properly used they can provide alternative methods of schooling that can reach students who are not succeeding in traditional educational institutions. Thus I can applaud the effort of Jared Polis, soon to be a Congressman from Colorado, who while serving on his state board of education also funded a charter dedicated to serving an English Language Learner population. Similarly, some people I know established a school with a focus on peace studies in Philadelphia, and there was a performance consortium using methods of assessment other than mass produced tests in New York. But I have to offer cautions.
- We have seen for profit organizations attempt to use chartering laws to clone models of schools whose academic success has not been demonstrated
- Some of those running charter schools have attempted to use the flexibility charter rules are supposed to give as a means of removing any job protection for teachers
- in some states, there has been insistence upon measuring the performance of charter schools by the same tests imposed upon traditional public schools. There are multiple problems with this. First, such assessment might lead to the same kinds of distortion noted above. Second, this leads some charter operators to be selective in who they admit in order to improve their scores. Third, we sometimes see unfair comparisons of overall performance when the charter operator does not have to address issues of limited english proficiency or special education yet his scores are compared with those of traditional schools that must include such students. Finally, if we allow a charter school to operate on a different educational philosophy, might it not be distorting of that school's educational mission to insist that it cannot use methods of assessment that are embedded in instruction (Portfolios and performance assessment, for example) rather than requiring them to assess their students in ways contrary to their instruction? This became an issue in New York with the schools I have already mentioned.
I have real concerns about relying upon anything coming out of the Chicago Public Schools. Perhaps it is that I know too much of what has happened there over the past more than a decade. I do not think mayoral control is necessarily the answer, and certainly do not agree that it has improved Chicago Public Schools. There has been an under the radar triage approach that has severely hurt many schools and even more students. The schools are now probably more politicized than before Richie Daley took control. We have seen Paul Vallas go from Chicago to Philadelphia to New Orleans. I am not sure that is a record of achievement. And Arne Duncan is yet another example of someone without a background in education who comes in and attempts to fix public schools. It bothers me that he is considered an example of how to fix schools. I am not alone in my concern. yes,John Stanford was a retired general who did a wonderful job in his all too brief time in Seattle, but Julius Becton was one of a series of disasters in DC public schools.
These are a few of my concerns about Obama on education. While I am speaking only for myself, I know many in the educational policy community who share these concerns as well as offer additional ones. There is a reason that many in education preferred Dodd or Edwards or Clinton to Obama.
And I do not see in Obama's approach a willingness to really step back and totally examine the basically flawed premises on which American public schooling is based. Those who have read my work over the years know I believe our entire approach needs to be rethought, starting with the idea that students should be moving through content in cohorts in lockstep.
I will give him some credit. While he may be from the narrow experience of TFA, at least Kamras has recent experience as a classroom teacher. It is rare to see politicians who are willing to listen to people who are on the ground of our educational crisis. I have been fortunate - through my writing on line and my location near the nation['s Capital I have had access to a number of political figures, both national and state, who have been willing to listen to what I have to offer. I do not claim that my own perception is sufficient, but what I and people like me, those who are still in the classroom (which,btw, Kamras is not) can bring to the discussion is an important perspective too often missing when matters of educational policy are decided.
I strongly support Obama. I remain somewhat critical of his approach to education. It is far superior to McCain. My complaints are more about the limited number of voices, too many of whom represent a vision that cannot be very broadly applied, and - most of all - a willingness to use what I consider rhetoric that is far too similar to those on the right who want to disestablish public schools.
Peace.