As those who read this blog know, I have not always been the biggest supporter of teachers unions and their role in efforts to improve educational opportunity in America.

That's not to say that unions don't have important interests or that workers shouldn't have basic workplace protections or anything of the sort--and of course teachers unions have played absolutely crucial roles in the historic development of schooling in America, in particular in fighting for gender equality within the profession.

So I'm always thrilled when I read about developments like this one, which demonstrate that the teachers unions are not always the enemy of school reform. Far from it, in fact; for if the unions carry out their promise to voluntarily assist school districts in efforts to distribute great teachers more equitably among low-performing and high-performing schools, a lot of children stand to benefit.

First, a description of the problem with how teachers are distributed currently.

We know (at least) two things about teachers generally and what makes some better than others. First, new teachers (as in teachers in their first three years) are generally not as good as veteran teachers. Second, teachers who are teaching "out-of-field"--as in teachers instructing subjects in which they do not have a major or minor--are also less apt to generate appropriate learning gains with their students. (Source: Education Trust research report).

The problem is both kinds of teachers are more heavily concentrated in schools serving low-income and minority populations. As the Education Trust report concludes, students in high poverty and high minority schools (defined as being more than 50% in either category) are roughly twice as likely to be taught by novice teachers as compared to low-poverty and non-minority schools (defined as less than 15% in either category).

The same is true for out-of-field teachers; students in high poverty and high minority schools are disproportionately likely to be taught by teachers without subject matter expertise.

With this in mind, the promises by both the NEA and AFT to "waive any contract language that prohibits staffing high-needs schools with great teachers" are encouraging indeed.

But this promise should be a starting point for discussions of union support for school reform, not the ending point. For as the picture above shows (finally, he explains the photo!), the more important question in teacher quality improvement is not how to divide up the existing pool of good and bad teachers (since that is in many respects a zero sum game), but rather it is how to increase the size of the pie altogether so that every child has a great classroom teacher.

And to do that, the unions are going to have to push the envelope much further, working out agreements on teacher compensation systems (to reward teacher effectiveness and not just certification and experience), alternative certification, and tenure. With any luck, this most recent announcement will represent a step by both unions in that direction.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In many ways, it seems like a backwards question: why should proponents of a federal right to quality public education have to justify such a right; shouldn't it be opponents of such a right who have the 'splainin to do?

Nevertheless, that's the political reality we live in. Children in America are not guaranteed any particular quality of education.

To be sure, each of the 50 states offer schools to children, but in reality the kinds of schools that are available are as wide ranging in quality as one can possibly imagine. Public schools in some wealthy towns are truly first-rate educational institutions; in some neighborhoods (often low-income and minority ones), however, children often stand to receive a quality of education that is nothing short of unconscionable.

Enter the Southern Education Foundation, a venerable advocacy organization that has been fighting to improve educational opportunity for disadvantaged children for well over a century.

Their name would lead you to believe, quite rightly, that they are concerned principally with educational challenges facing children in the Deep South. So the fact that they have taken the lead in sparking a national conversation about the right for a federal education amendment to the Constitution, by issuing this thoughtful report, just serves to underscore the crucial need for making quality education a right for all our children.

Quite simply, the scope of the problems that plague our schools are just too big for individual states and localities to handle--particularly in this economy--and communities need the resources and support of the federal government to make serious headway, regardless of where they are located.

As the report details, gross inequalities in school inputs, processes, and outcomes exist across states, among districts within states, and among schools within districts. But the greatest of these is the disparities among states. One way to see this is to consider how much more money is spent at a high school in a high-spending state (Alaska or New York) compared to a high school in a low spending state (like Tennessee, Utah, or Idaho). SEF found that over a four year period, an Idaho highs school student could have as much as $89 million less spent at their school than an Alaska high schooler.

So why amend the Constitution to add a right to quality education? In the end, it comes down to practical, civic, and moral reasons.

Practically speaking, amending the Constitution would force policy makers to address tough questions that are simply avoided in the present day. It would require policy makers to come up with a baseline for what kinds of opportunities every child should have by expressly describing necessary educational inputs (quality teachers, textbooks, instructional time, etc.). It would also force law makers to identify who is responsible if such inputs are not met so that students and families have a way to get what they deserve--a method of enforcement that is too often lacking today.

Even more practically, an effort to amend the constitution would create space for other vital educational reforms even in the case that it fails--see the Equal Rights Amendment and subsequent advances in womens' rights for an example.

As a civic matter, a debate about whether to enshrine quality educational opportunities in our nation's founding document would spark dialogue and thought among ordinary citizens about the importance and meaning of education--a conversation that has been sorely lacking. It would build public consensus and political will to do better by kids as a policy matter, but perhaps also on a family-by-family basis.

Most importantly, however, guaranteeing every child in America a right to quality educational opportunity is just the right thing to do. Our nation is built on the founding principle that everyone has a shot at the American dream if they play by the rules and work hard. The bedrock of that principle is the public school education; if it is inequitably distributed to disadvantaged groups, the very foundation of our country rests on shaky ground.

In other words, fixing that foundation by way of an amendment would do wonders for the long term civic and economic well-being of America, but it's just as important to do it because it's fair and right. Ask even those who are opposed to a federal amendment whether they think in practice every kid in the country should have access to a good school and they will (hopefully) say yes.

So why not put our money where our mouth is and pass a 28th amendment to the US Constitution guaranteeing the right to a quality education?

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First, a disclaimer: I'm borrowing the title of this entry from a very interesting working paper published by the Harvard Business School.

Second, the topic of this week's discussion: an intriguing plan adopted recently by the Virginia State Board of Education that will require all of the state's seventh graders to set academic and career goals for their high school and professional careers.

The goal of the requirement is to push every student to think about their future in the process of engaging in the powerful exercise of visualization and goal-setting. As part of their academic and career plans, the seventh-graders will have to indicate what they plan to study in high school and how their education will help them get into college or find a job. And the board's rule would require teachers and parents to read and sign their support for their students' plans.

In the realm of school reform proposals, the Virginia Board's requirement is truly unique: it is essentially cost-free, is immediately scalable to all students in the state without regard for socio-economic or minority status, and it is something that few interest groups could reasonably propose. With that recipe, one has to wonder why more states haven't yet instituted similar goal-setting requirements.

But the more important question, of course, is what impact the plan will have for the state's youth. Intuitively, the idea is a good one: any student who starts eighth grade without having given serious thought to their life goals--even if only at a surface level--is one who will benefit from the new requirement. Right now, my guess is that low-income and minority children at historically low-performing schools are the ones who have the most to gain from the simple exercise of thinking about one's future life and plans.

To be sure, teachers will need to be effective in their pedagogy around the required plans; that is to say if teachers encourage students to think seriously about their plans and not just write, "I want to be a doctor" and be done with it, the benefits of forward-planning and goal setting may kick in. But if some teachers are allowed to function as just rubber stamps who give their classes thirty minutes to write down whatever comes to mind on a loose leaf piece of paper to turn in to the state, a worthwhile educational opportunity will have been missed.

Incidentally, in looking for a research study or anecdote to point to about the power of goal-setting, the evidence I kept coming across was a 1953 study performed among Yale University students where, allegedly, the 3% of graduating seniors who wrote down their goals for the next twenty years had accumulated more wealth than the other 97% of non-goal-setting graduates combined in that 20 year period.

The only problem is, that study never happened. There are, of course, plenty of theories around the importance of goal-setting (often times found in business school literature), but so too are their counter-veiling papers such as the "Goals Gone Wild" study I mentioned above that point to negative side effects of hyper-drive goal setting machines.

But even those negatives--distorted incentives, reduced intrinsic motivation, narrowed focus against non-goal areas--are ones that don't concern me quite as much in the Virginia plan where students will ostensibly be setting broad, universally positive goals such as, "go to college at X" or "become prepared for a successful career in Y." There's a big difference between those kinds of educational / professional goals and the often abused business goals in earnings forecasts and the like.

All told, it really seems like the Virginia Board has stumbled across a simple, obvious plan that can only help students who are lucky enough to engage in the serious exercise of visualizing their futures. Maybe in twenty years we'll see how much good it actually brought about!

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So much for the President's hidden agenda to brainwash our nation through his Tuesday back-to-school speech, delivered live in Arlington, VA and broadcast to schools across the nation.

Conservative parents and political activists had criticized the President's plan to speak directly to American students about the importance of education, creating a controversy of sorts.

One parent, an engineer from Texas named Brett Curtis, went so far as to say, "The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child... I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.”

Check out the speech yourself below to see if you think Mr. Curtis had just cause for concern.

Most observers who watched the speech on Tuesday, including conservatives such as Newt Gingrich, saw through the partisan spin and recognized the President's words for what they truly were: an example of executive leadership--motivational and inspirational--at its finest. Mr. Gingrich even wondered, perhaps with good reason, whether the President might have had more success in his health care proposals had he adopted a similar tone in his conversations with lawmakers and the American public.

It's amazing to think about it, but the last time a president spoke directly to American youth to try and inspire them to stay in school and work hard was eighteen years ago, when President George Herbert Walker Bush spoke to students during a space science symposium.

The most famous moment of that speech was when a child asked President Bush whether there would be "drugs and crime" in outer space. President Bush candidly responded, "No, there would be no room for drug use in space. The life that [an astronaut] described for you and you've heard about from La Porte, Texas, today, is too complex: One person's life depends on another. And you can't have any kind of thing like drug use in space."

Try as I might, however, I haven't found any evidence of Democrats criticizing President Bush for talking with students in 1991 to indoctrinate them with his conservative philosophies. Maybe that's because people then recognized what any sensible onlooker would see from President Obama's speech yesterday: there is something remarkably powerful about the President of the United States talking to children about how they can achieve their dreams with hard work, dedication, and by refusing to give up in the face of challenges. It's all the more believable coming from this president because he and the first lady have had no shortage of obstacles of their own to overcome.

My favorite line from the speech was when the President plainly told students, "Don't ever give up on yourself, because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country." About time our leaders started talking to young people about how important their personal decisions are to not just themselves but to the world at large. I know if I was still teaching I would have loved for my students to see the President talking to them, on their level. Too bad thousands of students didn't get to watch the speech because their schools or parents decided it was too "political"...

Posted by Aaron Tang at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's a question that stirs the blood of many educators: should our reading and language arts classrooms focus on teaching classic novels like To Kill A Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Scarlet Letter, or should students be allowed to read novels of their choosing since doing so may help students develop a greater interest in reading?

Despite a growing focus on standardized test scores in classrooms throughout the nation, a recent New York Times article describes an emerging movement within reading instruction that answers the question in favor of student choice, even if it means our kids will never know that Moby Dick is a whale.

The new form of reading instruction, known as "reading workshop," is raising some eyebrows among more conservative, traditional educators. Chief among the opponents of reading workshop, which the opponents themselves would derive as "dumbed down," is the Core Knowledge Foundation, which published this witty parody to respond to the New York Times story (it's worth a quick skim if you have a moment).

The argument between the two camps basically boils down to a simple lesser-of-two-evils. In the modern day where youth have so many dynamic forms of media that command their attention, the thrill of digging into the next chapter of Huck Finn just might not be, well, quite as thrilling as it used to be. The reading work shop school of thought responds by saying, what kids read is less important than that kids read at all, and so we should let them choose books that excite them (within reasonable limits of course). In other words, it's the process of learning how to read that matters more than the actual content.

The Core Knowledge folks respond by saying the debate isn't that easy. True literacy, both in the reading and the cultural sense, demands more than the ability to recognize words on a page--it demands an ability to recognize common cultural references and social norms, many of which derive from classic novels. In this view, letting kids read Twilight and other contemporary novels is not just inadequate, it's unfair, since the approach is most commonly suggested for disadvantaged students who otherwise show less interest in reading.

Which camp is more persuasive?

It's hard to say, and I have to confess to being truly torn between the two views. On the one hand, I think reading--more so than Chemistry or US Government--is a subject in which the process of developing a skill is set is at least as important as the content itself (allowing students to read novels of their choosing is far more reasonable than letting children learn about the government of any country instead of the US, for example). Writing is the same way--we want students to get comfortable with writing, and we commonly let them decide what paper topics to write about.

On the other hand, to the extent that society is dominated by cultured references to certain books and to the extent that the classics exemplify the kinds of literary motifs we want students to learn, it does seem better for students to get familiar with John Steinbeck than John Grisham. Nothing should stop students from reading more books of their choosing in their own time, the Core Knowledge group would say, but school is for a commonly agreed upon set of important works.

I'm curious, though. What do you think? Do you see one approach that is clearly better than the other, in your view? I'd love to hear which one and why.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)