New Jersey RTTT status

Interesting post on the state of New Jersey's RTTT application, including a link to how PA is recruiting districts.

SEAs applying to RTTT Round 1

The RTTT competition continues to heat up. According to the US Department of Education website, 36 states have submitted letters of intent for round one. And according to EdWeek's recent and excellent post, there a number of additional states that will apply, including RI (which I heard directly from Commissioner Gist at one of the community forums), North Carolina (not surprising), and Michigan (somewhat surprising, given the recent shift in SEA organization). Maryland is interesting, as one would have expected them to want to apply in round 1, and they recently let an RFP for policy writers and a policy analyst to work on the RTTT application due in January. I think that the role of Gates and the external consultants is particularly important, as a number of states do have what might be perceived as an unfair advantage. It is clear that some states are electing not to apply to Round 1 as a result of not receiving consultant support through Gates (and McKinsey or Bridgespan). Interesting, to say the least.


The 15 states are: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.

States that have submitted letters of intent:
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Utah
Virginia
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Differering view on CMOs

Interesting information on the new Education Sector report on Charter Management Organizations. Seems as if there are differences in how Tom Toch, the original author of the report, interprets information and how the final document as published by Education Sector. Guess who has a more positive spin on Charter Schools?

Check out Russo's This Week In Education.

ARRA sites - Informational

Just some links to ARRA sites in the Northeast:

State Education Agency Recovery Sites

• Connecticut: http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/cwp/view.asp?a=2703&Q=322296
• Maine: http://www.maine.gov/education/recovery/index.html
• Massachusetts: http://www.doe.mass.edu/arra/
• New Hampshire: http://www.ed.state.nh.us/education/recovery/index.htm
• New York: http://uspeny.nysed.gov/arra/
• Rhode Island: http://www.ride.ri.gov/Finance/Funding/ARRA/
• Vermont: http://education.vermont.gov/new/html/dept/recovery_act.html
• Puerto Rico: http://www.buengobiernopr.com/arra/index.html
• U.S. Virgin Islands: http://www.governordejongh.com/recovery/index.html

U.S. Department of Education

http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/index.html

State Recovery Sites

http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/state-local-tribal-and-territorial-resources

Policy to remove principals?

Just a reminder to myself here - I reviewed the Race to the Top guidelines and specifications. Needless to say - they are extremely detailed. Writing to this is going to be easy and hard, in that you know exactly what needs to be in the proposal and the points linked to each section (and subsection), but the key will be in integrating all of the portions of the proposal and the four assurances/priorities.

In looking at the turnaround priority, I noticed that "removing the principal" is required for each option, even transformational. This seems like it could have some unintended consequences - it's a disincentive to principals (and to districts) to start to work in a high-poverty or underperforming school that is approaching the 5 percent of schools that will be identified. Why would a principal - a good principal - even consider going to a low performing school if odds are that he/she will be fired in one or two years if the school doesn't improve?

I need to look into this a bit more and see what's really going on.

Colleges of Education - Part of the Problem?

Rhode Island education chief seeks higher standards for prospective teachers

As a resident of Rhode Island, I love the fact that our new Commissioner is taking a stand to improve teacher quality. What is perhaps most unsettling about this article is the position that Rhode Island College takes in response to Commissioner Gist's efforts to raise standards. Let's start with the facts, as unearthed by Commissioner Gist.

"Currently, Rhode Island’s “cut score” ranks among the lowest in the nation, alongside Mississippi and Guam." In response to this fact, Commissioner Gist proposes raising the cut score on the Praxis I, a test of basic skills for aspiring teacher, from 170 to 179 - one point above Virginia, the state with the highest cut scores. The premise is simple - if you want the best teachers then you recruit the top college graduates to be teachers.

Why does Rhode Island have one of the lowest cut scores? I'm not sure. I can't imagine that the Board of Regents or colleges of education actually want Rhode Island's teachers to be less qualified than teachers in other states. Setting low expectations for aspiring teachers is a disservice to the community, to the future employers of students, to our teachers and the teaching profession, and to our students. If you set low expectations, then you get exactly what you ask for - and this goes for teachers as well as for students.

One might expect that Rhode Island's colleges, or perhaps our local school districts, would have demanded that standards be raised. Not only hasn't this happened, but it seems that Rhode Island College has been complacent in keeping standards low.

“It will disenfranchise too many students,” said Roger G. Eldridge Jr., dean of the School of Education at Rhode Island College, who estimates that 85 percent of RIC’s education students would be unable to reach the higher score and would therefore be barred from the program if it were required next year (ProJo, October 11, 2009).

While Dr. Eldridge Jr. speaks in the best interest of RIC's students (and perhaps the college's finances as well), what his statement really means is that RIC considers it to be perfectly fine to admit students - future teachers in Rhode Island - to its teacher training program that would not be admitted to programs in the majority of states and colleges across the nation. It seems counter intuitive, as one would expect a college of education to want to improve the quality of its applicants and would welcome any effort by the state or by districts to improve teacher quality. It is time to raise the status of teachers and the teaching profession so that our best and smartest college students will truly aspire to be public school teachers.

I would encourage RIC and other colleges of education in Rhode Island to give their full support to Commissioner Gist and the state's efforts to raise standards for educators across the continuum of human capital development. In fact, this could be an opportunity for colleges of education to take a proactive role in developing partnerships with local districts, developing urban teacher residencies, and perhaps sponsoring charter schools and providing model sites for teacher development. We can only hope.

Organizations of the Future and Disruptive Ideas

An interesting post from Education Innovation on combining the concept of "disruptive" ideas with the Ken Burns effect. I was particularly interested in the five capabilities for the organization of the future, as described by Ulrich and Smallwood. The capabilities include:

1. Talent- the ability to attract, retain, and deploy human capital, to assure competence and knowledge of the workforce.

2. Leadership-the ability to build future leaders as an organization capability, to turn customer expectations into employee actions and to increase leadership brand.

3. Agility- the ability to respond quickly, change, be flexible, learn, and transform.

4. An outside-in-connection-the ability to turn outside expectations from customers, investors, and communities into internal organization focus.

5. Strategic Unity-the ability to create a shared point of view and common behaviors in an increasingly diverse work setting.

Latest on Strategic Teacher Recruitment and Training

Just recently I've been getting up to speed on the latest research and policy related to teacher recruitment and development. At one level, I've always known that there is a serious lack of alignment between IHE teacher education programs and what district and schools really need - the training for the supply doesn't meet the demand qualifications, while at the same time creating a surplus of partially trained and "eligible" candidates. And obviously, there is a preponderance of evidence that good teaching directly relates to learning (or more specifically, that poor instruction dramatically impacts students' learning).

However, I guess that I did think that districts, and for that matter states, have been working strategically to address this supply/demand issue, both in terms of the quality of the supply and ongoing training for teachers. But it seems that (some) districts and states have only recently started to take a truly strategic approach to this multi-faceted issue. I found a couple of articles to be particularly informative:


How the world's best performing school systems come out on top

Strategic Management of Human Capital: Making Smart Investments in Teachers and Principals

On the Road to Fascism

Well - I never promised that this would be just about education.

I found this article on AlterNet to be just what I've been thinking over the past few years. Fascism is rearing its ugly head in our own country. The sad fact is that it seems to have taken way too long for folks - anyone - to realize what is happening. But perhaps that is just what happens when fascism takes hold. It isn't seen or recognized for what it is. I also wonder if all of the right-wing hard core folks realize that what they are doing is leading us down the road to fascism of if they actually believe that democracy can be enforced. But again, it may be part of the recipe that those on the right actually believe that they are working to support democracy and don't realize that they are actually moving the country away from what makes us thrive.

The post provides an excellent overview of the historical research on fascism and how the US is closely approaching the point of no return. It doesn't seem like we are at this point, but just like the frog in a pot of boiling water, or the folks that go suckered into years of Madoff's lying, the truth is always in front of one's face - it just takes a different perspective to see that truth.

Roll call votes

For reference:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/index.asp

roll call votes

Pop Icon dead

Not that I was ever much of a fan, in the true sense of the word - but I did find this article to be quite excellent. It will be interesting to see how the story unfolds in the coming days.

Charters - third way or third strike?

It seems quite strange that it would take until 2009 for our elected officials, and especially our appointed officials, to finally come to terms with fact that charter schools have never truly been held accountable. So we now have Arne Duncan's "third way"? Does this mean that traditional accountability wasn't enough, and that there needs to be a "third way" accountability. What got me going was this article and excerpt from Education Sector, which seems to lean right but always has interesting things to say;

"That's why Duncan's third way charter strategy could prove so pivotal to changing the politics of charter schools. By supporting the expansion of charter schooling with more federal dollars and rewarding states that are charter school leaders while at the same time forcing action on charter school quality, Duncan can take the charter concept to the next level.

Jonathan Schnur, a former Duncan aide who helped design the new policy, explains that Duncan, who closed three failing charters during his tenure as Chicago schools chief, wants to "drive real accountability" for all charters while pushing states to pave the way for more high-performing charters. Therefore, it's reasonable to ask how many charters were closed over the past three years."

Let's be clear here - the next level of charter schools should have happened 10 years ago. The original concept - the foundation of the charter school movement - was autonomy for accountability. This "axiom" failed on multiple accounts. First states and the charter authorizers in states failed to hold charter schools accountable. The deal was - you have 5 years to meet stated objectives, or you are closed. Either charters were granted with objective too low, or they are not being held accountable. And Second, the responsibility doesn't just fall in the laps of state officials. In reality, all charter school operators should be holding themselves accountable - the internal accountability that Elmore speaks of. If the charter school doesn't meet its goals, it should close or start over. But ask yourself - how many charter schools realized that they weren't working and voluntarily closed? Upon reflection, it is easy to see that charter schools were a good idea and definitely promoted innovation, but flexibility with no expectations is a recipe for variable quality at best, and chronic failure at its worst.

Perhaps the charter school founders really did know what was going to happen - I can picture the founders thinking "We'll ask for flexibility and autonomy and promise results, but once the SEA takes control of the process, there is no way they will be able to hold us accountable".

The reality is that there is no "third way" charter strategy - the real strategy is to hold all schools, the school boards, the communities, the district officials, and the state officials, accountable for the lives and education of the students of today. There is no political will to hold schools accountable - public schools or public charter schools. Accountability is relational - it is as much about sanctions as it is about collective responsibility.

Missing ingredient?

Interesting article by Dennis Shirley and Andy Hargreaves of Boston College, entitled "The Persistence of Presentism". Interestingly enough, in their study of 300 improving schools, they found that teachers tended to focus on what some might consider to be "quick fixes", even though they were more collegial and had more opportunities for collaboration within schools and as part of a network. Nice video that gives a quick synopsis of the article (with an advertisement at the end!).