ASCD Comments on Race to the Top Criteria

In an open letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last week, ASCD submitted comments on the proposed Race to the Top priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria and offered several key recommendations.

Among them are several opportunities to use priorities and selection criteria to drive accountability for education that supports the whole child. For example, selection criteria calling for data systems that support instruction could go beyond reporting student performance data and include annual state assessments of the health, safety, and education of children and families.

And while ASCD is a big fan of the overall ambition of Race to the Top, we've also got a couple concerns about the requirements in the current proposal. In particular, ASCD asks the Education Department to rethink requiring states to adopt common core standards sight unseen and disagrees with prioritizing alternative certification programs over improving current teacher preparation programs and supports.

Our full comments on Race to the Top are available online and summarized as below.

What do you think of the Race to the Top priorities? What selection criteria pose the biggest challenge in your state?

Standards-Based Report Cards Replace Letter Grades

This year report cards at Miles Elementary in northern Kentucky, near Cincinnati, Ohio, will report student progress toward specific standards, instead of letter grades. Teachers collaborated to create rubrics to determine whether students are making no progress, making progress, meeting standards, or above the standards that will help them continue to the next grade level.

So far, it looks like Miles may have learned a few lessons from Prospect Hill Elementary's (Pelham, N.Y.) switch to standards-based grading—parent involvement is playing an important role in the transition from letter grades.

Furthermore, our assessment expert Jim Popham offers this advice to schools adopting standards-based grading:

[T]he quality of your standards-based report card initiative depends on the clarity and rigor of the reporting system you adopt. Standards-based reports that are less than clear will be less than useful. Second, if parents, students, and teachers are obliged to evaluate a student's progress with respect to an excessive number of content standards, such a report card approach is certain to stumble. Standards-based clarity is a good thing. Standards-based clarity about too many standards is a contradiction in terms. The upper-limit number of standards to include in such report cards should be based on what the participants can easily keep in the forefront of their minds—somewhere between 6 and 12 standards. I lean toward the lower end of that range.

Bob Marzano's Classroom Assessment & Grading That Work goes deeper, explicitly outlining the steps for implementing standards-based grading and asking us to consider how our methods for reporting student achievement (letter vs. standards-based grades) make students—and teachers—more capable to improve learning.

What Would Socrates Say?

What Would Socrates Say?

Is Socratic inquiry the life jacket that could save students from drowning in a sea of trivia?

Peter W. Cookson, Jr. ("What Would Socrates Say?") may not think you can Twitter your way to enlightenment, but he does think teachers can blend the best of traditional, intellectual, linear culture with the current digital culture to meet the cognitive and expressive demands of the 21st century.

Specifically, he lays out "four elements of the 21st century mind" as the basis for a Socratic-anchored sea change in education: critical reflection, empirical reasoning, collective intelligence, and metacognition.

Students need the tools to understand the world before they can change it. Cookson's hybrid of Socratic inquiry shaped by immersive technologies dismantles the false dichotomy of learning environments and the "real world."

How do you support 21st century minds in your classroom?

Senator Edward Kennedy, 1932-2009

ASCD has issued a statement on the passing of Senator Kennedy, remembering him as "a powerful spokesman who used his bully pulpit to expose the gross inequities in both our education and health care systems, reaching across the political divide to forge solutions and effect change for the benefit of innumerable youngsters." A summary of Kennedy's decades-long work on education policy is available on his Senate Web site, detailing his work on countless efforts ranging from early childhood to adult education.

Speaking from Martha's Vineyard, President Obama said that "his ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected on millions of lives...on children who know education's promise," and Education Secretary Arne Duncan stated that he "drew inspiration from Senator Kennedy throughout my career, and will miss his voice as a champion of education reform."

Please share your thoughts on Kennedy’s life, legacy, and impact on education, the lives of children, and beyond.

"So You Want To Teach?" Prevents Listlessness

The author of the blog So You Want To Teach finds most education blogs either too dry and academic or filled with too many rants and complaints. Thus, Joel Wagner's blog aims to be accessible, useful, and upbeat.

The recent post "25 Free Apps and Web Sites for Tech-Loving Teachers" will likely introduce you to a few new and interesting tools, including sites that help create flash cards and multimedia presentations. The list format is a theme—a few posts later, you’ll find "45 Tasks for Parent Volunteers in the Classroom" and "27 Classroom Management Secret Weapons."

The site is also heavily geared toward keeping teachers motivated, with guest posts from veteran teachers on combating burnout and strategies for finding mentors and developing circles of support in your school. 

Learning Doesn't Stop for the Flu

Yesterday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius presented new recommendations for continuity of learning in cases of students of school closure or student absences due to H1N1 flu. Sebelius stressed that "everyone’s goal should be to keep children healthy and in school. But if they get sick -- and some will -- we have to make sure that they don’t fall behind.”

The recommendations detail steps school leaders can take to ensure learning continues, such as creating and distributing take-home assignments and using the internet to post homework and other school communications. 

For those looking to keep up with H1N1 developments from a wider angle, we recommend the Washington Post Special Section on the flu, full of the latest breaking news updates, detailed infographics, and even how-to videos.

Find these resources and more at ASCD's H1N1 Web page. We'll be regularly updating the site with new resources as they become available.

We'd also like to hear from you: How is your school preparing for the flu—both in terms of preventing its spread and facilitating continuous learning in the case of an outbreak? Share your strategies in the comments; select stories might be highlighted on ASCD's H1N1 Web page.

Highly Effective Teachers: Defining, Rewarding, Supporting, and Expanding Roles

This week, D.C. Schools Chancellor Rhee unveiled the 200-page framework for teaching and learning that will define and guide effective teaching practices in the district.

Rhee's document guides at the granular level, but what are the bones of sound policies for highly effective teaching?

Free, online, and less than eight pages long, the latest ASCD Infobrief covers Highly Effective Teachers: Defining, Rewarding, Supporting, and Expanding Their Roles.

We survey advocacy, research, and policies that drive teacher effectiveness—including which states are building the legislative momentum to align incentives for growing effective teachers (go to the Infobrief site to see a full-screen version of this state-by-state graphic).

What policies (federal, local, or school-based) support highly effective teachers at your school? What policies undermine support?

Meta-Analysis Shows Online Learning Benefits

A recent meta-analysis of research comparing online learning with traditional classroom learning showed that, on average, students performed better in online learning conditions as opposed to exclusively face-to-face instruction. Researchers found this effect was larger in studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face.

Report authors are emphatic that their meta-analysis does not crown online as the superior learning medium. In the studies reviewed, online learning was supported by conditions like extended time on task, supplemental materials, and increased opportunities for collaboration, and it's the combination of these elements that created observed advantages for online learners.

Another caveat: Despite estimates that more than a million K-12 students took online courses in the 2007-08 school year, very little research rigorously compares learning effectiveness in those courses to traditional learning experiences. Only five studies reviewed in the meta-analysis met inclusion criteria.

Although this meta-analysis mainly focuses on postsecondary and adult education experiences, K-12 stakeholders can certainly draw from the recorded benefits of additional time on task, support materials, and opportunities for collaboration that online learning afforded. In addition, researchers found that students benefit from online learning that is not simply a traditional classroom unit presented in an online format. When blending online learning with face-to-face instruction, this research suggests online learning that supports personalization, choice, and reflection.

Broader support for online learning may chip away at traditional, classroom-based instruction, but a short piece about this report in the NY Times claims learning will remain a community-based activity.

My Back Pages: Dropout Forum (1974)

"The Silent Epidemic," the much-discussed 2006 report on dropouts, surveyed students who left high school without graduating and asked them why they did so and what might have kept them in school. The report was powerful not only because of the detailed data it presented but also because of the vivid quotes it presented from dropouts—their opinions, concerns, and regrets. 

The follow-up to that report, "On the Front Lines of Schools," considers the perspectives of teachers and principals facing the dropout crisis.

And in a webinar this Wednesday, representatives from Louisiana and South Carolina discuss the data systems they've developed to identify potential dropouts before it's too late.

Unfortunately, dropping out has proved to be a timeless issue. In May 1974, Educational Leadership published "Dropout Forum," an article that surveyed two groups of dropouts with whom the authors worked, one from a county adult-education program and one from a state women’s prison. They asked the focus groups what made them leave school, their opinion on student rights, and their general feelings toward education. 

The Role Neighborhoods Play in Social Mobility

Back at the beginning of the month, D.C.-based radio program The Kojo Nnamdi Show explored what role neighborhoods play in social mobility. More specifically, they looked at why children of middle-class black families who stay in urban, often low-income, neighborhoods tend to be worse off economically and socially as adults. For years researchers focused on the effects of the family, but guest Patrick Sharkey's report for the Economic Mobility Project focuses on neighborhood effects.

Neighborhoods and the Black-White Mobility Gap looks at a number of issues that contribute to the downward mobility of black children, including disinvestment in the neighborhood, poor social services, high crime, little political power, and, of course, education.

When Nnamdi brought up a recent Washington Post article that discusses turning around troubled schools in Washington, D.C., and asked if poor-performing schools might play into this problem, I was expecting an in-depth conversation on the topic.

"Yes, you are exactly right," responded Sharkey. "A whole host of social problems and social issues come bundled together in the neighborhood, and school is a major one." To my surprise, that was pretty much it on the topic of education for the rest of the program except mentioning there should be more investment in education, among other services.

 

Did education get short shrift, or do charters and other school choice measures mean urban neighborhoods (and the kids in them) are a lot less bound to their schools?

What Incentives Work for New Teachers in Urban Districts?

Working conditions, in particular principal support, showed a significant influence on job choice in simulations conducted by the researchers and authors of "Recruiting New Teachers to Urban School Districts: What Incentives Will Work?"

The article suggests that instead of offering higher beginning salaries to teachers, urban districts struggling to recruit and retain teachers might be better served by investing in attracting, retaining, and training highly effective principals.

While compensation influences working conditions and the decision to stay at a school, especially over the long run, study participants were, at least initially, more concerned with supports other than salary.

What's your first priority in a teaching placement?

Education Policy's Perfect Storm

"A variety of circumstances have amounted to what could be called education policy's perfect storm," writes ASCD Executive Director Gene Carter in this month's "Is It Good for the Kids?" column. He cites the new president and administration being poised to revise NCLB, schools' and districts' use of stimulus dollars to advance education programs, state competition for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's Race to the Top funds, and a coalition of governors and chief state school officers who are working to establish common standards that could influence what we teach.

In an open letter to educators, Carter makes the case that teachers, principals, superintendents, and other school and district personnel must become active participants in education policy debates, proactively shaping the policies that affect their daily lives. He writes that federal lawmakers "recognize the grave mistake that was made seven years ago in not getting more input from educators" and are eager to hear about what is and isn't working.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education announced that 13 teachers, including ASCD OYEA winner and columnist Deirdra Grode, were selected as Teaching Ambassador Fellows for 2009–2010. The fellows contribute to policy discussions and encourage other educators to share their input to improve education policies at all levels of government.

"Enlisting the support of teachers and other educators is crucial to the success of the national movement to reform American education," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. "I look forward to working with this year's fellows as partners as we discuss how to recognize and reward teachers, professional advancement, high standards, and other key issues."

The good news is that you don't have to be a Teaching Ambassador Fellow to influence policy. Consider attending ASCD’s LEAP Legislative Institute and becoming an ASCD Educator Advocate to make sure policy happens with you, not to you.

Philly School About to Be Bossed Around

Tony Danza is one step away from becoming a high school English teacher in Philadelphia, and he's bringing the cameras along with him. Tomorrow, Philadelphia's School Reform Commission votes on whether "Teach," an A&E reality series starring Danza as 10th grade coteacher at Philadelphia's Northeast High, gets the green light. (Contact the SRC here.)

Philly Mayor Michael Nutter has given the show his blessing, citing potential boosts to teacher recruitment, as well as production internships for students. "I believe that 'Teach' represents a unique opportunity to highlight many of our city's dedicated teachers and administrators, and the talented students they serve," Nutter said.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky has expressed her displeasure in a scathing column accusing Danza of trying to restart his career at the expense of students.

It's hard to imagine what sort of teacher-quality precedent Danza would set. In fact, why involve Danza at all? If Nutter really means what he says, shouldn't the "stars" be the dedicated and talented real teachers, administrators, and students of public schools?

What to Do About the Flu

Districts and schools across the country are bracing for H1N1 as the new school year begins. The virus took hold in dozens of camps this summer, prompting concerns among school officials that kids will be bringing more than new backpacks and notebooks with them at the start of the school year.

From Nashville to New York, schools seem to be taking to heart new guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designed to curb the spread of the flu while minimizing disruptions to learning. They're educating students about proper hygiene, communicating to parents the importance of keeping their sick children at home at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever, and making preparations to separate ill students and staff or selectively close schools with high-risk populations should the need arise.

What's less apparent from news accounts is how schools are planning to ensure learning continues in the event the virus spreads widely, forcing closures.

NAEP Drafts Tech-Literacy Exam Framework

Last week NAEP released a discussion draft of their framework for a national assessment of technological literacy, a computer-based test to be given to a sample of students in 4th, 8th, and 12th grades in 2012.

The draft defines technology and technological literacy broadly, with the latter being "the capability to use, understand, and evaluate technology as well as to apply technological concepts and processes to solve problems and reach one's goals." Assessment targets will be divided into three major areas of technological literacy: Technology and Society (p. 44), Design and Systems (p.57), and Information and Communication Technology (p. 70). Turn to page 94 for the kinds of practices that articulate the thinking and reasoning used to respond to assessments across these three targets.

This 2012 test would be NAEP's first assessment of technological literacy, and framework authors acknowledge the challenges to getting it right (see page 34 in the draft). Limited time, resources, and the scope of what skills can be measured, not to mention trying to predict and assess future technological innovations, are some of the big hurdles.

Like other NAEP assessments, the test will evaluate technological literacy in the context of relevant social issues (see p.85). Some (see Stephen Krashen's comment on the EdWeek article) wonder how NAEP developers will keep pace with changing technology, not just new tools but unforseen contexts.

What do you think about this draft or the undertaking in general? 

Summer Homework a Growing Trend

More and more schools are assigning homework during summer months to keep students mentally sharp and to prepare them to hit the ground running once classes resume. Teachers assign reading, math, and encourage keeping up with current events. Some schools even have a "welcome back" test to check that students kept up with their assignments. Summer homework naysayers say kids need a break and some schools assign way too much work, while proponents argue that students who do their homework perform better once school resumes.

This article from the Associated Press gives voice to the widely held sentiment that summer reading assignments especially benefits low-income elementary school students. "Poor kids fall behind in literacy two months in the summer, and they do not catch up," said Harvard professor Jimmy Kim. "These losses accumulate over time." Students need choice but some guidance, when selecting summer reading—books they'll want to read, but that also won't be too easy. Summer assignments meant to keep kids mentally active won't mean a thing if kids don't do them, or if they do them just to check off a list.

Did you assign work this summer, and if so, how did you make it meaningful without overburdening kids during their down time? How will summer work be incorporated into the new school year?

EdBlog Watch: The Edge of Tomorrow

Who is Ben Grey, author of the blog The Edge of Tomorrow? "No one of any real consequence," he says. "I’m but another voice amongst the din clamoring for more change in the way we experience education throughout the world." An instructional technology coordinator, Grey may not be a big name, but he has some keen insight into the potential and the pitfalls of ed tech.

For instance, Grey disagrees with the practice of teaching students about new technologies, such as digital video editing, outside of the regular classroom, preferring rather that such training be embedded in the curriculum to ensure that students have common experiences and exposure.

Grey also takes aim at the popular term "Web 2.0," which he feels "does much more to deter understanding than provide any functional enlightenment." Having seen many teachers feel alienated and confused by the term, he suggests using specific terms such as wikis and social networks instead, reasoning that such clarity would help teachers more easily see the value of the tools and understand how to integrate them into their teaching.

Get Clarity on Common Core Standards at LEAP

The work of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA) on their Common Core Standards Initiative has generated a lot of conversation in education circles. The groups' draft English and math college- and career-readiness standards were leaked a couple of weeks ago, and the initial reaction has been mixed.

Some parents and education experts, like ASCD author Yong Zhao, have expressed concerns that the standards drafting process isn't inclusive or transparent enough. CCSSO and NGA seem to be responding to some of these concerns, recently announcing that the next iteration of the standards will be delayed until mid-September to accommodate "a thoughtful and thorough review" of the copious feedback they've received. At that point, the revised public draft of the college- and career-readiness standards will be posted, and a 30-day comment period will begin.

Gene Wilhoit, executive director of CCSSO and a leader of the Common Core project, will talk about the standards work at ASCD's LEAP Legislative Institute, September 13–15. He'll describe what is meant by the goal for "fewer, higher, clearer" standards; outline future steps, including state adoption; discuss the advantages of new assessments aligned with the common core standards; comment on the need for modifications to professional development; and generally talk about what it all means for educators.

Register today for LEAP to learn more about the most significant progress toward developing a common set of academic standards in more than two decades and what it means for Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's reform priorities, Race to the Top funding, and the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. View the full conference program.

What would you ask Gene Wilhoit about the Common Core project if you had the opportunity? As educators, what hopes or concerns do you have about the standards?

The Problem with Common Core Standards

Post submitted by Yong Zhao, author of the upcoming ASCD book Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization.

On Friday, Missouri became the latest state to join the common core standards initiative led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. It now seems inevitable that all states (except Alaska, Texas, and South Carolina) will have common standards for English language arts and mathematics. My concern is that this push for state standards is just the first break in the dam before the eventual acceptance of a national curriculum and national testing for these subjects.

For me, the problem is these standards arrive without open discussion. After Education Week's Sean Cavanagh wrote about the lack of transparency, the group released a preliminary draft of the standards (PDF) to the public late last week. But without a proper channel for such discussion, I am wary of the outcomes. Those groups leading the charge are nonprofit organizations, not government agencies, so they do not have to be held publicly accountable. As such, they do not have to accept any feedback on either the process or content of the standards. Although it seems that the project plans to invite public input, whether such input will be taken seriously is completely up to the project team.

The Obama administration, the nation's governors and top education officials in 50 states and territories are wagering that, for now, a standardized focus on math and English language arts will make American children globally competitive. Given the significance of such standards, the American people—whose children will be living the consequences—deserve to have some serious input. And the millions of educators who will be held accountable for implementing these standards should be involved in the process and be providing feedback along the way.

Yong Zhao is a university distinguished professor at Michigan State University. His book will be available in late September 2009.

My Back Pages: ASCD Book Banned (1948)

"No school adequately trains for American citizenship unless it helps students develop skills in dealing with controversial issues," Kimball Wiles argues in the article "Building America: A Case in Point," from the November 1948 Educational Leadership. Yet for a California legislative committee and grand jury, the books in the Building America series, owned by ASCD, were too controversial for classrooms and school libraries.

Read the article: Building America: A Case in Point (PDF)

Why were the books inappropriate? Among the reasons were that they used pictures supplied by Sovfoto, a stock photography company specializing in images from Eastern Europe and China that the California Investigating Committee called "the official Soviet propaganda agency"; they included cartoons critical of presidents Lincoln and Jefferson; and the authors included in the text were allegedly "affiliated with Communist front organizations," according to their critics.