A California teacher asks his students, "Why should I care?" as a group of boys walk out of his room to cut class.

A high school psychology teacher hands out textbooks... and then asks her students to color gingerbread men for a grade. When some of the students ask the teacher to teach them more information, the teacher responds by challenging her students to transfer out of her psychology class if they don't think they're learning anything.

These are just two of many tough, honest stories being shared by students across the state of California at a project called California Right to Learn, which is being run through the terrific youth website www.youthnoise.com. As a judge for a contest they recently held to pick the five best stories submitted by students so far, I was deeply impressed by the degree to which young people care about their schools... and the degree to which they realize that our nation's leaders are all-too-often cheating them out of the high quality education they deserve.

As the co-director of an organization that has engaged over 20,000 youth in an effort to call attention to the problems in our nation's schools, I of course believe in the power of young people to effect change on the problems facing our schools. It is a simple theory of change, really. Our schools suffer from a lack of quality educators, a culture of failure, insufficient resources in many cases, and a dearth of tough, common sense policies to bring about the change we need. And the only way to fix these problems is to call for a sea change of public pressure on politicians to do better.

Make no mistake: the victories that the American people have won to change the direction of our society in the past century have all benefitted from youth leadership. The Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War protests, women's movement and more have all had critical youth elements. Student sit-ins and protests have won victories from East Los Angeles to St. Louis to Boston, on a wide range of issues. I've embedded a video below of a student sit-in that took place in St. Louis just last year.

The challenge facing youth activists who aim to attract public and political will to improve our schools is that there has yet to be a smoking gun image that pushes the movement over the top. For instance, when video footage of Bull Connor sending attack dogs and fire hoses against peaceful protestors in Birmingham made it to TV sets across the country, the Civil Rights Movement took flight. But what is the parallel image in our schools? Crumbling buildings and inept teachers are the norm, but they do not appear to be enough to spark mass action. It may not be until such an image is created and disseminated when youth and other advocates experience the progress they seek.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 06:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week, two Denver public schools took a bold step that may lead to significant change in the way schools are run throughout the country. The two schools, Bruce Randolph Middle School and Manual High School, received approval from the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (the local affiliate of the NEA, the nation's largest teachers union) to break from key parts of their union contract. The union's approval signified a major development in a long legacy of teacher union control over American schools, as both schools will now have newfound freedom in the teacher hiring process, teacher pay, and in altering the length of the school day and year.

Word of the schools' breaking away from key union contract provisions spread rapidly across the nation. Denver's school board, which also has to approve the modified contract, looks poised to approve Manual's changes--especially because they already approved changes in Bruce Randolph weeks ago. The upshot? As many as 18 more Denver schools are now considering similar proposals to break free of teacher union rules that some find restrictive and negative for student achievement.

Some have watched these developments with great excitement, as reducing teacher union control in schools has long been a change sought by elements in the school reform arena--particularly conservative ones. The theory adopted by these reformers is that teachers unions get in the way of what is best for students by protecting bad teachers, stifling creativity and innovation from potentially excellent teachers (since these teachers will not be paid more for their success under union contracts), and by generally being out principally for the best interests of teachers--which may sometimes run counter to what is best for kids. Union supporters, on the other hand, point to the great gains won by unions in workplace regulations and treatment of employees, especially in improving pay and conditions for female employees over time.

The key question to watch for in Denver, however, is not about politics. It's not about whether the two newly freed schools prove anti-union proponents wrong. It's about whether the schools are able to make any substantive changes for their students. In the end, the greatest way that they can do this is to dramatically alter the makeup of their teaching staffs to have as many dedicated, intelligent, and effective teachers as possible. If they can find these kinds of teachers, retain them, and reward them for their excellence, then the idea of increasing individual school autonomy will have gained staem. But if the schools face the same old problems, it will just prove that unions are not the be-all and end-all problem plaguing urban education.

As much as I respect the view points of both camps in this debate, my suspicion from my own experiences in a non-unionized charter school here in St. Louis is that the newly freed Denver schools will quickly realize that the increased autonomy is not a guarantee of any kind of success. Many charter schools already experience the same freedom from union and district bureaucracy as Manual and Randolph have fought for, and it hasn't always done these charter schools good. Better to think about individual school freedom as one of many fences that is needed to cage in the problem of under-performing schools. Reducing union power alone is not a sufficient means to educate every child, but in some cases it may help.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 06:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was very impressed to read this honest op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday, written by a veteran teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia. T.C. Williams is an intriguing high school for many reasons, one of which is because of how it represents an unique cross-section of American diversity. For instance, 43% of the student body at the school is African-American, 25% is Hispanic, 24% is white, and 6% is Asian. 31% of the students at the school are qualified for free or reduced lunch, which means it has more low-income youth than the state average. And it is a fairly large school as well, with 2,100 students split among just three grade levels, 10-12.

But the most intriguing thing about T.C. Williams is that it is one of the highest spending schools in the country. In a state where the average per student expenditure is just under $9,000--close to the national average--T.C. Williams spends a staggering $15,000 per student per year. As the op-ed points out, all of this money has been spent on a luxurious set of facilities, including a new $98 million school building, a universal laptop initiative that began three years ago and that provides every student in the school with a free laptop computer, and countless other technologically advanced instructional devices. If you're looking for a state-of-the-art high school, 30-year English teacher Patrick Welsh suggests that you'll be hard pressed to find one more advanced than TC Williams.

But what has the return been on this incredible investment? If student test scores are one measure, not much. Out of the eleven subjects tested at the school as part of Virginia's Standards of Learning proficiency exams, Williams outscores the statewide average in just two subjects: chemistry and algebra II. In the other 9 subjects, the school's students perform below state averages.

Why hasn't the school been able to get more bang for its buck, so to speak? Mr. Welsh suggests that the school's administration has been overwhelmed by the "technology bug" - a tendency among school leaders to lose sight of the most important objective (student achievement) in lieu of headline grabbing technology purchases. Mr. Welsh gives the example of a $40,000 expense to buy 77 "school pads" for $500 a piece. The school pads are supposed to make teachers jobs easier, except many of the teachers in the building had expressed no interest in using them. One teacher even said that the $40,000 investment seemed to be little more than a refurbished version of this old toy that was popular twenty years ago.

From my vantage point in a school where education technology is a laughable luxury (one teacher who asked if we might be able to buy security cameras to watch over areas where students were vandalizing, bringing in weapons, or even engaging in inappropriate sexual activity with other students was literally sneered at for the idea), it's hard to imagine that Williams teachers are actually up in arms over administrative requirements to utilize technology in their classrooms. I would give anything for a computer system that could track attendance throughout the building, let alone a tv and dvd player in each room. But the TC Williams example makes this much perfectly clear: throwing money at the problems in our schools will not alone solve anything. Without clear direction as to what purchases will and will not have a significant impact on our schools, too many administrators are just making blind guesses as to what will work best.

If you ask me, Williams would go a lot farther towards helping students if it used a healthy chunk of its resources to identify, hire, and reward excellent teachers... and replace those who are not delivering results with the children. In the end, a good teacher with a chalkboard will do more for her children than a poor teacher with a $20,000 smart board and accompanying magna-doodle.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Three separate events--one research paper, one op-ed in a prominent daily, and one clever pop culture reference--all discussed different sides of a compelling systemic school reform idea within the past week. The multi-faceted appearance of these three pieces seems to show a growing momentum behind the idea of paying important school stakeholders--students and teachers--for success.

The first item that was released this week was a research piece commissioned by the National Governors Association on the prominence of pay-for-performance system in virtually every other profession. The report finds from cross-sector analysis (i.e. looking at how people are paid in the business sector, other public sector fields, and so on) that there is hardly any evidence of a pay system failing to improve employee productivity when the pay system rewards those who are adding greater value to the company's end goal. In other words, when you reward the best people in your company, it brings the whole company up because: 1.) the people already within the company all strive to be the best, and 2.) people outside the company see the direct benefits of working hard at this company and want to work there too.

The researchers, Emily and Bryan Hassel, suggest that the conclusion policy makers should arrive upon is that there should no longer be debates over whether to pay teachers based on how much they are able to increase their students' learning. Instead, the debate should be over how to switch to this pay system. On this front, they suggest a couple lessons learned from other careers, namely that paying teachers with performance bonuses is more effective than bumping up their salaries and that pay bonuses must be significant enough to actually change employee incentives and behavior.

The second article is an op-ed from the Washington Post that talks about a Baltimore City Schools plan to spend over $1 million on paying students for performance. Although a much less refined idea than teacher performance pay in that few districts have implemented substantial pay plans for student success, this is an outside-the-box idea that has great potential for success, particularly in low-income rural and urban schools where junior and high school students face greater pressures to leave school. It will be fascinating to see how Baltimore's plan works in the coming years and whether the end result is higher graduation rates, college going rates, etc.

Lastly, a New York Daily News column from a respected education expert Kevin Carey draws a clever parallel between the current teacher pay debate and a debate that happened within professional baseball a decade ago. Fans of the book Moneyball will recall the book's protagonist, Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, and his at-the-time heretical idea of eschewing scouting reports in favor of hard data on young prospects. Beane's premise is that subjective and qualitative evaluations of baseball players was only a very rough predictor of future performance and that statistical data was a much stronger indicator. This is the same idea that pay-for-performance fans are suggesting: let's stop basing teacher pay on superficial and input-oriented measures, and start paying those who are getting on base and show good plate discipline (i.e. increasing reading and math scores the most)!!

Posted by Aaron Tang at 07:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)