There has been a flurry of activity in the past two weeks about No Child Left Behind reauthorization, with a great deal of attention being paid to something close to my heart right now: Teacher Quality.

As this letter from six big names in education reform, and this written congressional testimony from Amy Wilkins at the Education Trust point out, the single biggest factor preventing students in low-income schools from closing the achievement gap is the quality of teachers in their schools. There are any number of reasons why better teachers teach in the nicer schools (which, of course, serve disproportionate numbers of wealthy and white children), from higher salaries to better professional support, and from safer school environments to greater prestige. But none of these reasons should give us an excuse to continue to allow minority and low-income children to be taught by the least effective and least dedicated professionals. By one research study, poor and minority children are twice as likely to be taught by an inexperienced teacher than their counterparts in nice suburban schools.

As a teacher now two weeks into my first year at an inner-city Saint Louis public school, I can tell you with confidence that a significant number of my teaching colleagues are simply not giving the children the quality of education they deserve. Some of them don't have the passion or desire to do so; others do care about the students but are simply too poorly trained or are incapable of reaching the students. The biggest culprit that prevents teachers in my school (most of whom, like me, are tragically inexperienced) is a deficit of classroom management skills, which I am sure I will write more about as time passes. Several of my colleagues are masterful when it comes to gainin the respect of the students and keeping them on task, but there are far too few of them. And quite frankly, until we can get all of our teachers to have the ability to earn the respect of the students and inspire them to learn, the school will not succeed fully.

There are a couple critical fixes that the US Congress could authorize in NCLB v2.0 to make a dent in this issue, not just in my school but across the country.

The first would be to provide funding to the states to develop and implement systems of data collection to measure how individual teachers are performing with regard to increasing student learning on important, common-sense objectives in reading, math, science, and citizenship. The past decade has seen tremendous progress in value-added measurement systems to determine how much students are learning from one-year to the next; it's time to reward those teachers who consistently inspire the greatest learning gains--and give them powerful incentives to teach where they're needed the most.

The second change would be to close Title I loopholes that allow states and districts to hide how much money is actually being spent in a given school on teacher salaries. Without a transparent system that will let us know whether school Y has been given sufficient money for teacher salaries (or whether that money has actually been siphoned off to a wealthier schol somewhere else in the district or state), there's no way to ever know that Title I dollars are being leveraged in the most powerful way--to increase teacher quality in the least advantaged schools.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's a busy time of the year in school buildings around the country, as students, educators, and parents alike get prepared for the new school year.

As one of two full-time Co-Directors with Our Education over the past twenty-four months, and as a serious follower of major happenings in education policy here in America, I've always looked on at this time with a mixture of excitement and jealousy. Excitement, because of all the new opportunities that the school year brings, and chances for us to do better by our children. And jealousy because for the past two years I've only been able to work with high school students from afar, operating as an outsider who seeks to effect indirect change through slow, steady social movement building.

This year is different. Effective in mid-August, I have stepped down from my permanent post as full-time director with Our Education and am now working with the project on a part-time basis. With my newfound time, I will be teaching 8th grade social studies at a new charter school start-up here in Saint Louis, MO called the Imagine Academy of Careers. As a brand new school, we have already faced (and will surely continue to face) a tremendous number of challenges, communication hiccups, and other logistical nightmares with school busses, scheduling, enrollment rushes, and more. But I can tell you already that in my time in school already just this month that it is an entirely different feeling being inside the system working for change.

I will be blogging regularly each week as I have over the past several months. You may notice a change in the content of some of my entries here on wiretap - there'll be less focus on policy-wonkish happenings in DC and other ed reform hot zones and more of a focus on the day-to-day situations that our students are facing, now that I have some better perspective here in Saint Louis.

In particular I'll be eager to report on my impressions of the charter-school trend in school reform, and how much different (and for better or worse) the legal structure of a charter school is than a traditional public school. For instance, I can tell you already that two observations that are commonly made about the charter school vs. traditional public school debate are true: 1.) for all the talk of competition, innovation, and choice, charter schools look quite similar to traditional public schools in the day-to-day look of what a student experiences; and 2.) there is indeed some degree of public school backlash against charter schools, though rumors of full-scale war between traditional school employees and charter school employees seem to be blown out of proportion. On this second front, for example, I can report that multiple parents whom I spoke with during our school's enrollment period were in fact employees of Saint Louis Public Schools, and when they heard about my school they were immediately upset and defensive. One parent who taught elementary school at a local city school even told me, "the last person I want to talk with is a teacher at your charter school!"

To be fair to this Saint Louis city teacher, I don't think there's anything wrong with placing the burden of proof on new school start ups like the Imagine Academy of Careers to show that they are indeed offering strong educational opportunities to children. But I would submit that the same burden be carried by the traditional schools as well!

Posted by Aaron Tang at 05:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Democrats and Republicans in both houses of the Congress showed a rare moment of bi-partisanship late last week, passing a bill to increase American competitiveness in math and science education.

The bill, which passed in the House by a vote of 367-57, and in the Senate unanimously, would cost slightly over $14 billion a year for each of the next three years if fully funded, though much of that money would be spent on research programs in technology, energy, and other areas and not on K-12 or college students directly. That portion which is targeted at students is set aside mostly for expanding existing programs such as the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program, which provides grants to college students majoring in math and science who agree to teach in high-need areas upon graduation. The bill also contains significant recommendations to fund some new programs aimed at recruiting low-income and minority students to enter the math and science fields.

Members from both parties fully anticipate the president to sign the bill, which has been titled the "21st Century Competitiveness Act". It should be noted that while the bill authorizes new spending on new federal math and science programs, the money to pay for those programs will only actually come if it is appropriated during the budgeting process. If the law were to be fully funded, two new programs that would receive support are a $150 million program to encourage more undergraduates to pursue degrees in math and science and a $125 million investment in a similar program aimed at expanding masters degrees in both fields.

The strong support across both parties on the bill is in marked contrast to what is anticipated to be a very contentious process for re-authorizing No Child Left Behind, the President's signature education law. The reason why the competitiveness act was passed with such ease owes largely to two basic causes. First, the law is not perceived as a major federal intrusion into the way local districts and states run schools (instead it issues block grants to universities and scholarships to individual college-going students). As such, local and states rights proponents haven't risen with any objections. Second, the notion of international competitiveness seems to be very much en vogue right now, as has occurred in cyclical pattern throughout American history. Only time will tell if there is enough political will--and money--for our nation's leaders to renew their focus on educational equity as well when NCLB comes to the table.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 04:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A flurry of activity from the big papers this past week has occured over the question of whether the major presidential candidates have been willing to tackle tough questions in K-12 education reform. This article from the Boston Globe suggests that the two leading Democratic hopefuls, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have been more or less beholden to the nation's two large teachers unions, and as a result focusing more on traditional union favorite proposals like increasing school funding, teacher salaries, and reducing class size. And, but for this one unique Barack Obama moment at last month's NEA convention, the Globe is pretty spot on in its analysis.

Just a few days earlier, USA Today's Richard Whitmire had an op-ed published in the Florida Sentinel challenging the major candidates in both parties to say something substantive about national level education policies nothing that, in his words, "there appears to be little acknowledgement from the candidates that local education issues have a strong national flavor."

Are these articles--and public interest groups like the recently launched Ed in 08 campaign correct? If the Presidential debates over the past few months are any measure, yes. The first question asked in any of the numerous debates was asked in last month's YouTube debate when the candidates were asked whether they'd scrap NCLB, revise it, or keep it. An important question... except that CNN's Anderson Cooper directed it to Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Joe Biden, and Sen. Chris Dodd. It would be much more interesting to put the major candidates on the spot to answer that.

What's more, none of the major candidates have released serious or comprehensive education reform plans on critical issues such as increasing teacher quality, national vs. state standards, and improving assessment capabilities to truly measure student learning growth. Until these issues and other substantive, real, and impactful policy challenges are tackled--even if they are unpopular--the candidates will only be paying lip-service to our nation's youth.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)