Thoughts on "Waiting for Superman"

This past week I had the opportunity to see the documentary Waiting for Superman, a thought-provoking film about the current state of American public education. The work, directed by David Guggenheim (of An Inconvenient Truth fame) has received a considerable amount of press. The title is a metaphor for where we seemingly are: waiting for a powerful solution, a "Superman," to rescue us by improving outcomes in our schools, as by all national and international measures, student achievement has been flat for the past 35 years.

The film portrays the stories of elementary and middle school-aged children from New York, Los Angeles, and Washington DC who are in so-so to poor schools. Their prospects are poor at best, as they will be soon transitioning to middle or high schools that Guggenheim terms as "failure factories," schools that are rife with chaos and disengagement. Thus, each of the children's parents enroll their student in a lottery for various charter schools, ones portrayed as remarkable schools where they can beat the odds of failure. Unfortunately there are very few openings versus applications, and as the film climaxes, the viewer knows that very few of these children will actually get into these charter schools.

At least half of the film is dedicated to charter schools that have posted impressive gains in student achievement, most notably the Harlem Promise Academy and the KIPP Academy in New York City. These amazing schools have visionary founders like Geoffrey Canada, a committed educator and reformer who passionately believes that it's great teachers that make all the difference. In fact, the film repeatedly stresses this fact... and eventually segues into an indictment of the systems and structures that impede the removal of ineffective teachers. Here is where the educational bureaucracy and teachers unions take their shots, as Guggenheim shares the most over-the-top stories of adult entitlement and protection of the incompetent.

Being a former charter school director, by no means do I believe that they are a panacea. Trust me, there are plenty of bad charter schools out there. (Guggenheim glosses over very quickly that only 1 in 5 have results superior to traditional public schools.) However, the beauty of their existence is that they offer a new way of doing business- and specifically innovation- for our neediest kids. I have been at charter school lotteries for schools such as Providence's Times2 Academy, where just like the ones in the film, being selected as a student is often a 1 in 50 proposition. When it happens, the students and parents cry tears of joy, as if they have won millions of dollars in an actual state lottery. This is truly bittersweet to observe.

It should be pointed out that successful schools like the Harlem Promise Academy and KIPP are true labors of love, where the staff are deeply committed, going well beyond the parameters of what we typically expect in a school. Students in these schools attend for 8-10 hours per day, and many of their social services needs are tended to. I have personally known teachers at similar schools, and their accessibility to students and their families is great, as contact at home during the evenings and weekends is the norm. In some cases, staff act as parent figures, as they are the most meaningful adults in their students' lives. It is apropos that one of the children featured in Waiting for Superman is attempting to get into Washington DC's The SEED School. The SEED School is a public charter boarding school, as a 24-hour education in academic, life skills, and enrichment is delivered to inner city youth. Like the other schools portrayed in the film, staff at the SEED School are committed to doing what ever it takes so all of their kids may learn at the highest levels.

Am I suggesting that all schools must take such measures? Hardly. However, we must change how we do business- and the film does a great job in driving that point home. So many of our structures in public education are relics of the past, as they were created in the late 1800's or early 1900's, designed to educate children of the industrial age. These children were well-prepared to find jobs in the manufacturing and service industries, with a select few going on to college. This system will no longer work today, where students need to go to college to be competitive in our economy.

Like the featured charter schools, we must always do "whatever it takes." We must be innovative- and use research-based practices that improve student results. We can longer expect that a 180 day, 6 hr. school model will let us be competitive with our global counterparts. We can no longer have a "one size fits all" approach to teaching and learning.

During the film's closing minutes, several tag lines are interspersed with the credits. One reads, "Our education system is broken." Another reads "We know what works in schools."

After a fade to black, it is followed by "We must do it."

Amen.

MA Scores $250 M in Race To The Top.... What Does It Mean?

Last week came the monumental news that the Commonwealth was one of the 12 recipients of the federal government's Race to the Top competition. Largely based upon total student population, Massachusetts was awarded $250 million by the US Department of Education. This is certainly great news.... but to be clear, by no means is this extra money for the operating expenses of cash-strapped districts. Rather, it is an infusion of funds for a four-year period to help accelerate the reforms envisioned by the Obama administration.

As the Massachusetts RTTT application indicates, the vision of the use of the funds is clearly aligned with the RTTT Program priorities: improving standards and assessments, improving teacher and principal quality, improving data systems that support instruction, and support to turn around failing schools. While implementing the four "turnaround" strategies is important for schools with chronic failure as measured by poor MCAS scores, poor graduation & attendance rates, etc., I honestly don't believe that aspect of the grant will affect our world that much in Mansfield. Here are the areas in which I believe it will:

1. Along with 34 other states and the District of Columbia, Massachusetts has adopted the Common Core Standards in English Language Arts and mathematics. This set of rigorous standards will replace the MA Curriculum Frameworks which have been in place since the early 1990's. While the new standards are very closely aligned with the existing MA standards, some curricular adjustments will need to be made in various grade levels. The grant calls for the provision of numerous curriculum maps and resources to help teachers with this change. Also, we can anticipate that the MCAS in ELA and mathematics will change, as a new state assessment (one that is computer-based) will commence in 2014 or 2015. Needless to say, there has been considerable political debate about this potential move.

2. Massachusetts' already rich education data warehouse will become more user-friendly, providing a wealth of information on student performance for teachers. However, accountability will take a quantum leap forward as the Department of Elementary & Secondary Education (DESE) will require all districts to provide student schedules and teacher names for the data warehouse database. The intent is to link student performance and growth on MCAS with individual teachers and classrooms. For teachers who do not teach MCAS-tested subjects, the grant calls for the creation and implementation of benchmark assessments to be given at all grade levels. Similar to MCAS results, student performance on these assessments would be tracked back to individual teachers.

3. The RTTT grant also will provide for a new teacher and principal evaluation framework that will help both have clearer standards of performance. A huge change here is the provision that student performance (as measured by MCAS results, benchmark assesssment results, MCAS growth factor, etc.) should be a significant portion of the criteria by which teacher and principal effectiveness is evaluated. Needless to say, the is an enormous shift!!

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out in the coming year. Of the grant, $125 million is staying at DESE to develop these structures. The other half will be dispersed to the districts who signed on to RTTT vis-a-vis Title I eligibility. This money very much will have strings attached, as the expectation will be to have completed targets in the above strategic areas. To see this work through will take a tremendous amount of time and effort, but I believe that it is the next step in the standards and accountability evolution.

Race to the Top.... What does it all mean?

Last summer the US Department of Education announced that it would release $4.3 billion to states through competitive grants as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Known as Race to the Top, this program essentially is phase two of the federal stimulus monies for public education. There are strings attached to this money, as states applying for the monies must met a very defined set of eligibility and selection criteria. Some of these criteria must already be in place and the applying states must demonstrate they have reform plans in place. The four criteria areas are the following:


1. Standards and Assessments: States must design and implement a set of "internationally benchmarked common standards and assessments that build toward college and career readiness." Massachusetts' well-established Curriculum Frameworks and MCAS system as well as its participation in the national Common Core State Standards Initiative positions the state well in this area.


2. Data Systems to Support Instruction: States must design and implement a comprehensive data system that details student achievement data over time (showing growth, etc.), can communicate with higher education data systems, and can match individual students with teachers. Massachusetts has done a lot of work in this area by establishing the Educational Data Warehouse and its new Student Growth Percentile reporting, but the next step, starting in 2011, will be to match student achievement data (e.g., MCAS results) to individual teachers. This data, according to the RTTT Grant, must be made easily accessible to all stakeholders, including parents, teachers, students, principals, and all district and union leaders.


3. Great Teachers and Leaders: States must provide alternate routes to teacher certification, ones other than traditional teacher prep programs. They must also come up with a plan where teachers and principals are evaluated annually and differentiated by effectiveness, using student achievement data as at least one measure of effectiveness. Data on teacher and principal effectiveness should be used for the purposes of evaluation, compensation and promotion, granting of tenure, and dismissal. Teacher evaluation should be based upon distinct standards of performance and should utilize a multiple rating scale. Additionally, states must have plans in place to increase the number of highly effective teachers in high-need schools (e.g., urban districts) and in shortage subject areas (e.g., math and science). Finally, state plans should also use student data to drive teacher and principal supports such as professional development and common planning time.


4. Turning Around Struggling Schools: States must already have the legal authority to intervene in persistently low-performing schools or districts and also have a statutory framework that is supportive of high-quality charter schools (e.g., no cap on new charters, etc.). States must also develop a plan where superintendents/local educational agencies (LEAs) should have the authority to turn around the state's lowest 5% of schools by using one of three options: 1) reconstitution of the school's leadership and/or professional staff; 2) handover of the school to a charter school or other educational management organization; or 3) outright closing of the school.


There obviously is a lot new here in the RTTT requirements. As it is estimated that Massachusetts' share (if funded) of the RTTT funds is approximately $250 million over the next four years, the state has made some efforts to create plans to support the above reforms. Most notable is the Education Reform Act of 2009, which the MA Senate passsed on November 17 and the House will be debating starting next week (for a summary of this bill, click here). The bill is meant to strengthen the state's RTTT application, as it provides for more authority and autonomy for superintendents to intervene in in underperforming and chronically underperforming schools, lifts the cap on new charter schools, enabling school committees in underperforming districts to establish them, and allows communities to establish "innovation schools," which have increase autonomy and flexibility in all phases of operation. Seeing that the RTTT application is due to the feds by January 19, the bill in some form will likely pass in the House in the next two weeks.

Also to bolster the state's application, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has sent out a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to all 299 of the state's districts. The MOU states that the district is committed to implementing the four above reform areas of RTTT and will support the state's plans to implement the reforms. DESE is asking that each district's superintendent, school committee chair, and teachers' union president sign this MOU and return it by January 13. If a district does not return the MOU, then it will not be eligible for any of the Massachusetts RTTT funds.

It should be noted that 50% of the RTTT funds will be dispersed based upon how much Title I (which is based upon poverty) a district receives. This does not bode well for Mansfield, as our Title I funding is relatively minor.

So much of this represents change- and with that will come a great deal of controversy. I personally believe that there's a great deal of positive reforms in RTTT, such as increased use of data, requirement of benchmarked, teacher-generated assessments, annual evaluations based upon professional teaching standards, and the possibility of rewarding the best teachers through differentiated compensation. These ideas will no doubt cause great dialogue, and their merits should be debated. Educators may love or hate these reforms, but they are here to stay.

The reality of the situation is simple: RTTT has strings attached, and in the worst economic times since the Great Depression, most, if not all districts are cash strapped and need the RTTT funds. The reforms of RTTT are clearly the agenda of US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the Obama administration. They are not leaving us for anytime soon. The way I see it is that we can go "kicking and screaming," or hop on the train, so to speak. My hope is that educators can embrace many of these reforms and shape what they actually look in practice so that kids ultimately benefit.