From the blog by "Democracy"
Part 1
I’ve been commenting on this blog for a while, lamenting the
state of “leadership” in pubic education.
The fate of Joshua Starr in Montgomery County, MD is a good
example. Starr was actually trying to bring more equity to the system, he
wanted to de-emphasize testing, he opposed merit pay, and he was collaborative,
generally. A teacher rep said Starr made sure teachers were “included in the
decision-making process for most major decisions.” Still, Starr seemed to favor
the Common Core, and in an interview with NPR he bragged about the county’s
“SAT and AP scores.” Sigh.
Starr’s replacement was to have been Andrew Houlihan of Houston,
who later withdrew his name from consideration.
Houlihan’s dissertation was on the use of data. He has described
himself as “a big data person. I love using data to make decisions.” Except,
apparently, Houlihan never really understood what the “data” said. He bragged
about an Arnold Foundation grant that, he said, was “transforming” the
recruitment of teachers. And he bragged about Houston’s merit pay program –
ASPIRE – that, he said, rewarded “our most effective educators” for
“accelerating student progress.”
The Arnold Foundation is a right-wing organization founded by a
hedge-funder who resists accountability and transparency in derivatives markets
but calls for them in education. Its executive director, Denis Cabrese was
former chief of staff to DIck Armey, the Texas conservative who now heads up
FreedomWorks, the group that helps to pull the Tea Party strings and gets
funding from the billionaire arch-conservative Koch brothers.
Fairfax County recently hired Karen Garza, who was also in
Houston. Garza led the ASPIRE program, a pay plan that was funded (in part) by
the Broad, Gates and Dell foundations, the very same groups that fund
corporate-style “reform” and that support the Common Core. And while
researchers point out the dangers of value-added models, noting that they
“cannot disentangle the many influences on student progress,” Garza said they
were “proven methodology” that are both “valid and reliable.”
Fairfax and Montgomery, by the way, are considered two of the
better school systems, nationally.
Part 2
Meanwhile, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Virginia
Association of School Superintendents (VASS) recently concluded its Spring
conference, titled “Inspiring Leadership for Innovation.” The conference was
focused on “college and career readiness,” “leadership skills essential to
changing school cultures,” and “superintendent success stories.” The featured
speakers were Jean
Claude Brizard and Marc Tucker.
Brizard has been a failure as a superintendent in Rochester and
Chicago. According to a columnist who followed him closely, Brizard “engaged in
gross misrepresentations of data and sometimes outright lied. He made promises
he didn’t keep. He did one thing while saying another.” As to his two failed
superintendencies, Brizard admits that “there were some mistakes made.”
Marc Tucker says that he wants high-stakes tests in grades 4, 8
and 10, and “the last exams would be set at an empirically determined college-
and work-ready standard.” Additionally, “every other off year, the state would
administer tests in English and mathematics beginning in grade 2, and, starting
in middle school, in science too, on a sampling basis. Vulnerable groups would
be oversampled to make sure that populations of such students in the schools
would be accurately measured.” Tucker wants all schools systems to take PISA,
because he thinks that the test scores of 15-year-olds are somehow tied tightly
to economic growth and competitiveness. You know, jobs.
Sigh. Tucker just keeps regurgitating the same-old song, all over
again: college and career “readiness.” To Tucker, that’s why public education
exists. He says nary a word about citizenship.
And what about those jobs? The Bureau of Labor Statistics points
out that most new jobs created in the United States over the next decade will
NOT require postsecondary education. These are jobs like personal care aides,
retail clerks, nursing assistants, janitors and maids, construction laborers,
freight and stock movers, secretaries, carpenters, and fast food preparers.
In addition to its Spring fling, VASS selected its 2016
superintendent of the year. While the award comes from VASS, a VASS-selected
panel –– comprised of the state superintendent of instruction, and the heads of
the Virginia Education Association, state PTA and state school boards
association, the state ASCD, and the directors of the state associations of
secondary and elementary school principals –– picked the winner. In other
words, the top education “leaders” in the state –– those who should be familiar
with research and evidence –– were responsible for choosing the state’s “best”
superintendent.
A few years back, this recently-named “superintendent of the
year” forced a test-score-tracking software program called SchoolNet on
teachers. She was advised against it because of its problems, but she went
ahead anyway. It ended up being a $2 million-plus failure. SchoolNet was later
bought by Pearson. The superintendent is still withholding 268
SchoolNet-related emails from public scrutiny, claiming they are “exempt” from
the Freedom of Information Act.
Part 3
This VASS-award-winner’s school division sent out what it called
a “leadership” survey several years back. It was a skewed-question survey
designed to produce pre-determined results. But it did allow for comments. And
they were instructive. They included comments such as “..this is the worst
leadership the county has ever had,” and “Honesty, integrity and fairness are
lacking,” and “…teachers have very little voice, and “…the system does not care
about me or most other employees as individuals, and “county schools leaders
seem to be increasingly inept and far-removed from the day-to-day realities of
public education.” Again and again and again, commenters said these things
about the top “leadership:”
“does not listen to teachers…”
“does not ask what
people think before it accepts major policies…”
* “…teachers are not
listened to…our opinions have been requested and ignored…”
* “…when I offer my
opinion, i has been dismissed.”
* “l..leaders seek
input, but then usually, disregard the opinions of those not in agreement with
the administration…decisions are made top-down before input is received.”
* “decision making is so
top-down — stakeholders are seldom consulted…”
* “…decisions have
already been made…”
* “…teachers feel that
their professional judgment is not valued…”
* “most administrator
are arrogant…and remove themselves with any type of collaborative dialogue with
teachers.”
* “…they do not want to
hear complaints, or you are labeled as a troublemaker…”
* “the county asks its
employees for input but these requests are superficial…the decision have
already been made by the people ‘downtown’…”
* “you ask people to
think critically but we must toe the party line…”
* “We are not asked what
we think…it is common knowledge here that you are not allowed to address
concerns that may be negative…”
“I see few examples of
teachers being involved in decision making.”
A blue ribbon resources utilization committee recommended a
climate survey of the schools years earlier, noting that one had been done
repeatedly in county government. Teachers asked for a climate survey in the
schools too, and even offered to help write one. A climate survey still hasn’t
been offered.
This “superintendent of the year” forced STEM (science,
technology, engineering, math) “academies” on all of the county high schools.
The original claim was that research showed a STEM “crisis” in America, and
that this move was “visionary.” Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin –
which has laid of thousands of STEM workers – was invited to the schools to
make his STEM spiel. When asked for the “research,” the superintendent couldn’t
produce any. There’s a reason for that. The research shows there is no
“crisis,” no “shortage.” In fact, there’s a glut.
“Leading experts on the STEM workforce, have said for years that
the US produces ample numbers of excellent science students. In fact, according
to the National Science Board’s authoritative publication Science and
Engineering Indicators 2008, the country turns out three times as many STEM
degrees as the economy can absorb into jobs related to their majors.”
When VASS selected this “superintendent of the year” for 2016,
it noted certain “indicators of success.” What were they? It cited an increase
in the “number of students enrolled in AP courses” and SAT scores that were
higher than the state average. Never mind that the SAT is not tied to the
school curriculum and that this school division is one of the most affluent in
the state. There is no better predictor of SAT score than family income.
The research on SAT – and ACT – and AP courses finds that they
are mostly hype. The SAT and ACT just don’t do a good job of predicting success
in college or life. Moreover, research finds that when demographic
characteristics are controlled for, the oft-made claims made for AP disappear.
In the ‘ToolBox Revisited’ (2006), a statistical analysis of the factors
contributing to the earning of a bachelor’s degree, Adelman found that Advanced
Placement did not reach the “threshold level of significance.” Other research
finds that while “students see AP courses on their transcripts as the ticket
ensuring entry into the college of their choice…there is a shortage of evidence
about the efficacy, cost, and value of these programs.”
This is the current state of public education’s “leadership.”
Unlike
the Allstate commercial, I don’t think we’re in ‘good hands.’
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