Common Core: good teaching and "cold reading"

Linking to a thoughtful essay by Jeremiah Chaffee, who teaches English in upstate New York, Richard Day writes:

If this author can be believed, low-ordered thinking skills dictated by Common Core "Exemplars" seem to undermine creative and critical thinking. Will we find ourselves five years from now wondering why such a great idea isn't working?  ...and blaming teachers for the failure?

Since I’m investing many of my waking hours in Common Core implementation, I want to respond in some detail.

Mr. Chaffee’s concerns

Mr. Chaffee writes that his department has been working with an “exemplar” lesson designed to align with the Common Core State Standards, one centered on the Gettysburg Address.  He then shares his concerns, which I hope can be fairly summarized in with this excerpt:

Most of [the lesson] was too scripted. It spelled out what types of questions to ask, what types of questions not to ask, and essentially narrowed any discussion to obvious facts and ideas from the speech. 

*** 

Another problem we found relates to the pedagogical method used in the Gettysburg Address exemplar that the Common Core calls “cold reading.”This gives students a text they have never seen and asks them to read it with no preliminary introduction. This mimics the conditions of a standardized test on which students are asked to read material they have never seen and answer multiple choice questions about the passage. 

Such pedagogy makes school wildly boring. Students are not asked to connect what they read yesterday to what they are reading today, or what they read in English to what they read in science.

I’ve quoted those two concerns, about scripting and cold reading, in the order Mr. Chaffee shares them, but I’ll offer my response in the reverse order.

Cold reading

It is true that standardized tests require students to read texts cold, without teachers coaching them to pull up their other knowledge or connect to other interests.

 

The thing is, life itselfrequires cold reading.  On the job, adults get handed manuals, assembly instructions, and memos, and they don’t always get an experienced colleague to coach them through figuring out what they’re reading and what to do in response.  When studying for a technical certificate or a college degree, older students will be assigned texts and expected to read the assignments on their own.  As citizens, we all need to be able to work our way through articles, editorials, and websites as part of thinking through public issues.

 

Equipping students for cold reading

In some classes, for some topics and some texts, it makes sense for teachers to provide context, help students activate their prior knowledge, review needed vocabulary before students open their books, and otherwise provide a scaffolding that helps students make meaning of the assignment.  All of that makes students’ work easier and all of it can help make it easier for them to engage the substance of what they read.

Still, if every lesson front-loads that kind of support, how do students develop the reading skills they’ll need when they graduate and the support goes away?

Some lessons need to begin with cold reading, to start students on the way to independence. 

Then, after students do their own wrestling, good teaching can include modeling good skills for pulling the text apart and deepening their understanding of what it says.  For example, a teacher might prompt students to identify and wrestle with challenging words, then tricky phrases, and then the overall organization of the piece, before reading it through a second time to think more deeply about how the whole piece fits together. Long-term, students need to be able to summon up those strategies on their own, but part way through their learning process, they may still need to rehearse the steps with a teacher illustrating how to do each one.

As I read Mr. Chaffee’s description of the exemplar lesson, I developed a strong hunch that he was looking at a lesson that specifically designed to model that type of sound teaching: cold reading as the first step, questions to guide students in closer reading as the second round of work.

That is, I suspect that cold reading—meaning independent work to make sense of text without a teacher softening the work—was a central purpose of the exemplar lesson. Understanding the Gettysburg Address wasn't the only goal, and the reading step was not just a teaching method.  On the contrary, independent reading was a capacity being taught both in the "cold" phase and the questioning phrase of the lesson, and the Gettysburg Address, though valuable in itself, was also being used as a vehicle for skill development.

Again, I am not saying that is the only kind of teaching students should receive. I am, though, saying that Mr. Chaffee’s description makes me think that the exemplar is one of the kinds of learning students need. 

Scripting or empowering teachers

The exemplar lesson Mr. Chaffee worked with does not come directly from the Common Core State Standards. I can say that with certainty because the Standards document does not contain any lesson plans.  There are many ideas circulating about how to teach to Common Core, but none of them are required by the Common Core itself, and it’s worth repeating that none of them are mandated by the federal government. 

Given the many different people and jurisdictions involved, it’s certainly possible that some one is dictating scripted lessons for teachers to recite. 

However, many places, including Kentucky, are following far more empowering strategies.  The Literacy Design Collaborative, for example, calls for teachers to develop robust teaching tasks and then plan instruction that builds students’ reading, thinking, and writing skills on the way to responding to that overall task—giving teachers huge control over the skills to be taught, the order of teaching, and the activities used to build each skill.  Kentucky is sharing that strategy across its Leadership Networks, and I’m part of the design team that has been working to develop LDC for use in other states and on-line.

The bottom line

Almost any sound idea can be undercut by foolish implementation, and nothing built into Common Core prevents that from happening.  If teachers convert to “all cold reading, all the time,” that will be a mistake.  That said, “all scaffolded reading, all the way through senior year” would also be the wrong approach.

The ability to “read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently” is clearly part of what every member of the rising generation will need to be ready for higher education, the jobs of the future, and the challenges of the coming century. In the Common Core State Standards, that ability is listed as Reading Anchor Standard 10, and the part about doing the reading independently-- or cold--is a serious part of the expectation.

American Teacher: A Movie Not To Be Missed!

American Teacher is a fabulous film about the people who teach our children, vividly illustrating the energy required to do this important work well and underlining our failure to reward and honor that energy appropriately.  Having seen it last June, I recommend it heartily.  Check out the trailer here, and then plan to see the whole movie.  The film will be shown across the state next week, and I urge you to sign up for one of the showings listed below.

The movie will be shown at 6:00 p.m. local time  (unless otherwise noted) at all locations and tickets are free. Click the link next to the city nearest you to view locations and register for tickets.

March 27, 2012 Locations

• Bowling Green – www.americanteacherbowlinggreen.eventbrite.com
• Corbin - www.americanteachercorbin.eventbrite.com [Update: the Corbin organizers are considering a switch to March 26.  Please stay tuned.]
• Northern Kentucky - http://americanteachernorthernky.eventbrite.com
• Elizabethtown - www.americanteacherelizabethtown.eventbrite.com
• Louisville - www.americanteacherlouisville.eventbrite.com
• Lexington - www.americanteacherlexington.eventbrite.com
• Morehead - www.americanteachermorehead.eventbrite.com
• Owensboro - www.americanteacherowensboro.eventbrite.com
• Paducah - www.americanteacherpaducah.eventbrite.com 

March 29, 2012, Locations

• Louisville  - http://americanteacherlouisville2.eventbrite.com/

NAEP Exclusion Rates and Kentucky Success

There's been some talk recently about the number of Kentucky students excluded from NAEP participation based on disabilities.   The chart above, drawn from the NAEP "Nation's Report Card" documents for each subject, shows those rates. To me, it offers two clear messages.  

First, Kentucky has been doing something different from the rest of the country with NAEP reading. Or, more exactly, the local decision makers in the districts chosen to participate in NAEP testing have been doing something different than the local decision makers elsewhere. NAEP exclusion is a local decision based on judgment about the individual student's needs.

Second, NAEP science and mathematics have worked differently.  Kentucky's exclusion rate has been a perfect match to the country in science, and it has differed by a single point in mathematics.  

So, what if we look at reading, and leave out students with disabilities for a moment?  (Only for a moment, I promise! Only to make this one point!)  All the excluded students in the chart above above were in the group with disabilities.  Even if the disability exclusion rate made a difference, it wouldn't change the scores for the students without disabilities.  Here's that comparison.

For both grades, Kentucky students scored above the national average by a statistically significant margin in reading.

That is, Kentucky's recent record of relative NAEP success does not, in fact, evaporate when exclusion rates are considered.  In two of three subjects with recent comparisons, exclusion rates line up nicely with the nation. In the remaining subject, Kentucky students without disabilities--and thus unaffected by the exclusion rate--outscore the national average.

Relative NAEP success is, of course, not enough.  The whole nation needs to move student performance substantially higher, Kentucky must be part of that movement, and Kentucky's students with disabilities should receive priority attention to ensure that our whole state moves forward.   Nevertheless, the notion of Kentucky as distinctively weak among the states is one we need to lay to rest.  The right question for our state is not how to catch up with our neighbors,  but how to move faster and faster as we pull ahead.

Teacher growth through teacher feedback

After seeing how valuable peer evaluation is, I think it should be part of every public school personnel system. Dedicating 2 percent of teachers to do this work is a large investment. It can mean raising the average class size by 2 percent or spending 2 percent more money. With budgets as tight as they are, most states will not add extra money for evaluation so we will have to make the case that it is worth the small increase in class size (of fewer than one student per class on average).

That's Bill Gates' bold proposal for a big change in how teachers invest their time, moving to a plan where a small but important fraction of the total teacher corps works full time on observing and strengthening the others.  The idea is that the feedback would strengthen their colleagues greatly in ways that, in turn, strengthen what students know and can do across the whole curriculum.   It's central to the education section of his 2012 Annual Letter.

The letter also explains key experience from the Hillsborough County (Tampa, Florida) school system, which is trying that model of feedback under a major grant from the Gates Foundation:

A key element of the agreement between the teachers’ union and the superintendent was to assign 2 percent of the teachers to become peer evaluators. These teachers were trained to observe classroom teaching and provide feedback on 22 different components. The principals have also been trained in this approach. Every teacher gets in-depth feedback from both the principal and the peer evaluator. 

Tampa has been doing this for three years now, and it is already making a big difference. Teachers told us they value having feedback from two different sources—the principal who knows the school the best and the peer who knows the challenges of their specific job. The first round of evaluation revealed that many teachers need help engaging the students to prompt critical thinking and problem solving. The district started to organize its professional development around these findings, and the teachers have seized that opportunity to become more effective in the classroom. 

When Melinda and I met with students, they told us that they had seen a big change during their time at the school. The success here required great work by Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia, Classroom Teachers Association President Jean Clements, and all of the teachers. I was particularly impressed with the peer evaluators. They all said they understood great teaching far better, having done the peer evaluation job. Some of the peer evaluators will go back to teaching and others will go into schools of education to help make sure new teachers have better preparation.

Crucially, this idea of peer evaluation is about strengthening teachers in their craft, and there isn't any good way to use test data in place of this sort of substantive feedback:

Without this investment I don’t think an evaluation system will get enough credibility with the teachers or provide enough specific feedback to help teachers improve. Looking at test scores is also valuable for most subjects, but test score data mostly just identifies who is succeeding—it doesn’t show a teacher what needs to change.

To me, this is a really big idea.  It's too big for any district or state to do it casually.  It's the kind of thing that any system should review and discuss with great care before jumping in --but it also has enough potential benefits to be worth exactly that sort of study.

Kentucky students are not behind Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, or the nation

After receiving questions regarding the Kentuckians Advocating for Reform in Education's television commercials and website text we researched the data, and this post shares our findings.

The information presented by KARE in commercials here and here and website text here invites serious misunderstandings. No matter your position on charter schools, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and the nation are not doing better than Kentucky on the student performance measures KARE presents.

Fourth-Grade Reading
KARE’s commercials cite 2011 NAEP results showing:

• 65% of Kentucky students reading below the proficient level. 

That figure is correct, but Kentucky is not scoring behind the states with charter schools listed in the KARE commercial. Instead, the same assessment shows:

• 67% of Indiana students reading below the proficient level. 
• 66% of Ohio students reading below the proficient level.
• 74% of Tennessee students reading below the proficient level. 
• 68% of students nationwide reading below the proficient level.

Fourth grade reading results do not show Kentucky scoring behind the states listed in the KARE commercial

African-American Eighth Grade Reading 
KARE’s commercials also cite 2011 NAEP results showing:

• 42% of Kentucky African-American students reading below the basic level. 

Again, that does not mean Kentucky students are at a disadvantage compared to the states KARE cites for comparison. The same assessment shows:

• 41% of Indiana African-American students reading below the basic level.
• 42% of Ohio African-American students reading below the basic level.
• 52% of Tennessee African-American students reading below the basic level.
• 42% of African-American students nationwide reading below the basic level. 

Graduation Rates 
KARE’s commercials and website do not give a source for the claim that 25% of Kentucky high school freshmen will not graduate on time. If they add a reference, PrichBlog will be happy to report on how other states compare.

As a first analysis, though, the federal calculations of all states’ average freshman graduation rates estimate that for ninth graders from fall 2005 who should have graduated in 2009:

• 23% of Kentucky freshmen did not graduate on time. 
• 25% of Indiana’s freshmen did not graduate on time.
• 20% of Ohio’s freshmen did not graduate on time.
• 23% of Tennessee’s freshmen did not graduate on time. 
• 24% of freshmen nationwide did not graduate on time. 

Other NAEP Results
KARE’s website shows some additional NAEP results not included in the commercials. In context, those results show Kentucky tied or ahead of the country and the other three states far more often than Kentucky is behind.

Adding Science to the Mix
The KARE site does not share any of Kentucky's 2009 NAEP science results.  Here's an important snapshot of Kentucky students results related to the jurisdictions mentioned in KARE's commercials, further clarifying that Kentucky public schools are not falling behind the comparison group.

To restate the main point, whatever the merits of charter schools, Kentucky students are not being left behind the students of Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and the nation.

Source Notes: NAEP data downloaded from the Data Explorer on January 24, 2012.  AFGR results downloaded from the National Center for Education Statistics on January 24, 2012.

SEEK and the Governor's Budget

Here's a quick overview of how Governor Beshear's proposed budget for the next two years addresses the SEEK base guarantee.

The SEEK base guarantee per pupil will go down:

• $3,903 was the original SEEK base guarantee per pupil for 2011-12
• $3,850 is the average guarantee that has actually been possible for 2011-12: schools turned out have more students than the budget expected and funding for each child had to be reduced as a result.
• $3,833 is the proposed base guarantee for 2012-13.
• $3,827 is the proposed base guarantee for 2013-14.

The total funding for the SEEK base will be flat:

• $2.9 billion was the budget line item for 2011-12.
• $2.9 billion is the proposed budget line item for 2012-13.
• $2.9 billion is the proposed budget line item for 2013-14.

Why will the per pupil will go down while the total funding remains flat?  Primarily, because the number of students in average daily attendance is expected to rise:

• 596,858 was the final figure used for 2011-12 SEEK allocations.
• 600,662 is the budget assumption for 2012-13.
• 603,523 is the budget assumption for 2013-14.

It is also important to note that though the local contribution of SEEK is expected to rise again, that growth is much smaller than in most past years:

• $856 million of the guarantee was contributed by the local 30¢ tax rate for 2011-12.
• $866 million of the guarantee is expected to be the local 30¢ contribution for 2012-13.
• $881 million of the guarantee is expected to be the local 30¢ contribution for 2013-14.

(The SEEK guarantee is really funded by a combination of state and local dollars. In years past, growing local property values contributed a lot to Kentucky's ability to afford a growing SEEK guarantee.  Local growth is still expected to contribute, but now it works to limit how much the guarantee will go down.)

To put these SEEK numbers in further context, do note that federal funding is dropping rapidly, from $1,215 million last year to $878 million this year, and to an estimated $782 million in 2012-13.  State funding to specific categorical programs beyond SEEK will also drop, and we can also expect inflation to further reduce the buying power of school dollars from all sources.

Sparkly!

"Sparkly People Loving Data" is a headline I couldn't possibly ignore. Brennan McMahon at the SCORE  Sheet blog reports:

This afternoon in Washington, DC, people who are instrumental to the conversations around education reform in this country—including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Tennessee’s own Governor Phil Bredesen, and neighboring Kentucky Education Commissioner, Terry Holliday—will gather to talk about the imperative of implementing and using data effectively to change student learning for the better. I am referring to the Data Quality Campaign’s “Day of Data,” during which we highlight the annual progress of the states in implementing longitudinal data systems to improve student learning and set the agenda for the coming year.  

You may have noted in my title my reference to “sparkly people”—this in no way has anything to do with the Twilight saga. Sparkly people, like Duncan, Rhee, Bredesen, and Holliday are those who get people’s attention; they galvanize people—move them to action, to excitement, perhaps even to anger.

I'm delighted to see Dr. Holliday as a marquee name, and even more delighted by McMahon's closing push to broaden data engagement:

These days anyone can be part of the changing conversations around data and education in their state, and the country as a whole. You don’t have to be sparkly—just willing to nag, ask questions, push back, and beg for more—to help effect change. Of course, the more you do that, the more people will pay attention . . . and eventually you might just be sparkly too!

I may never give another presentation in Kentucky without that quote!

[Hat tip: Myrdin Thompson]

Why Kentucky School Funding Is A Huge Concern (For This Year And The Future)

From 2007-08 to 2010-11, added federal dollars almost made up for state and local declines in funding for Kentucky schools. Add in other revenue, which is tiny in most districts and big in a few each year, and funding grew an average of $63 per pupil over those years after adjusting for inflation.

For 2011-12, we know the added federal revenue has dried up, and after several years of using federal dollars to fund the state SEEK formula, Kentucky is struggling to resume full responsibility for SEEK and unable to replace the other federal resources.  Estimating from Budget of the Commonwealth figures, the federal decline this year is likely to be more than $600 and the state increase closer to $60 per pupil after inflation.

Core point of this post: when we say that revenue per pupil grew slightly through last year, counting the temporary federal increases that are now gone, that means we know that the trend for this year and beyond will be decline unless state leaders step up in the current legislative session. We also know those funding losses will pose a grave danger to Kentucky's bold commitment to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in higher education and in the job markets of the future.

Here's a closer look at those trends for 2007-08 to 2010-11.

State funding per pupil, adjusted for inflation, declined an average of $726 from 2007-08 to 2010-11.

Local funding per pupil, adjusted for inflation, declined an average of $13 over the same years.

Federal funding per pupil, adjusted for inflation, grew an average of $615 over those years. That growth, of course, was not enough to replace the buying power of the shrinking local and state dollars.

Other revenue, adjusted for inflation, grew an average of $187 per pupil. Averages for other revenue need to be treated with care, because most districts receive very little from other sources, and a few receive quite a lot.

Combining those four categories, Kentucky schools received a total revenue increase of $63 per pupil after inflation from 2007-08 through 2010-11.

Again, looking to the current year and the future, we know our schools are now working with a federal decline and a state increase that is nowhere near enough to make up those losses. We also have reason to worry about local funding.  The newest report on state revenue says that July to December state property tax collections in 2011 dropped more than 9% from the 2010 level.  If local tax receipts show a similar trend, the results could be disastrous.  It's too early to know that will happen, but definitely time to be very concerned that it might.

The core point here is important enough to repeat: when we say that revenue per pupil grew slightly through last year, counting the temporary federal increases that are now gone, that means we know that the trend for this year and beyond will be decline unless state leaders step up in the current legislative session.  We also know those funding losses will pose a grave danger to Kentucky's bold commitment to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in higher education and in the job markets of the future.

Source notes: the main data for this analysis comes from Annual Financial Receipts and Expenditure reports per district, available here, with 2010-11 using the unaudited reports now available. Per pupil figures were calculated using December 1 preschool counts (from June 2010 and August 2011 Kentucky Board of Education briefing materials) plus K-12 average daily attendance plus growth (from SEEK files), and inflation adjustments were developed with this inflation calculator to reflect changes in what districts can buy with the money they receive.

AYP results for managed schools (including virtual options)

An education management organization (EMO) is a "private organization or firm that manages public schools, including district and charter public schools." Last year, 296 EMOs managed 1,928 schools across the United States.  The chart above shows data on their student results from a new edition of Profiles of For-Profit and Nonprofit Education Management Organizations. Some key findings:

• The weakest reported results come from for-profit virtual schools that deliver their curriculum and provide instruction through the Internet and using electronic communication.  Just 27 percent of those schools made AYP last year.

• The next weakest results come from large for-profit EMOs running 10 or more schools, with 43 percent of those schools making AYP.

• The strongest results, with 63 percent of schools making AYP are shown by for-profit EMOs that run three or fewer schools and by nonprofits that run four to nine schools.

I don't want to overstate the implications of these numbers.  The report rightly calls these AYP results a "crude" measure.  I'd love to see comparisons using NAEP or another consistent assessment, and I'd love to see scores that include a full curriculum of subjects, and I'd love to see scores that give partial credit for partial student success, rather than making an "all or nothing" proficiency judgment.

On the other hand, numbers like these do invite further exploration, with two issues looking especially important:

• What are the right steps to ensure that virtual learning options are strong options?  Teaching quality doesn't develop without work in any school  That 27 percent is a good reminder that quality isn't guaranteed on-line either.

• How can EMOs take effective school approaches to a large scale?  Can what works at one, two, or five schools be reliably repeated in a dozen or a hundred schools?  Maybe, someday, school improvement will be as replicable as the taste of a Big Mac.  The 43% shown above suggests that "scalability" like that is not --or not-yet-- a reliable option, at least as a for-profit strategy.

Source note: The report discussed above is Profiles of For-Profit and Nonprofit Education Management Organizations: Thirteenth Annual Report 2010-11, with a hat tip to the Detroit Free Press by way of EdWeek.

Growing their craft, growing their culture

Toni Konz at the Courier-Journal has a great story up on teachers at Atkinson Elementary pursuing National Board Certification. Seven teachers have already completed the extensive process of study, reflection, expert feedback, and peer review that leads to recognition as a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT), and they are now mentoring two more colleagues working through the same process.

Leila Smith, one of the teachers working toward NBCT now, is quoted as saying “It’s been pretty stressful... but this is something I decided to do because I want to grow as a teacher. It’s important for me to be the very best teacher that I can be for my students.”

What stands out most in this story, though, isn't that wonderful individual push to develop deeper skills, but the team approach to changing a profession and a building in ways that work for kids.

Atkinson is moving toward a culture where NBCT-style excellence moves from being a rarity to being a familiar part of a professional career. It won't ever be a step that everyone on the faculty has to take, but it may well become a part that everyone will consider taking.

The Atkinson team is also using that team work as a direct response to the school-wide challenge of historically rapid teacher turnover.  It's a high-poverty school where it has long been common for teachers to transfer out after two or three years.  Supporting NBCT work is a way to make the school a better place to work and a more appealing place to stay.

Expectations Up, Resources Down

Kentucky’s new goal is for all students to graduate from high school and be ready for college and career. As a state, we've committed to much higher expectations, but state funding per student has declined in program after program.

The Kentucky Education Action Team, bringing together the state's key education stakeholder groups, held a press conference this morning to call attention to those losses.  The official press release is here, and added KEAT information is here.  For this post, I'd like to share the numbers themselves.

The graphs below show the key declines in per pupil funding, adjusted for inflation, and they are painful news.

First, the state contribution to SEEK base funding is down.  It's true that the SEEK base guarantee has gone up, but each year the state has counted on local districts to fund more of that guarantee. Plus, the state  budgets for 2010-11 and 2011-12 underestimated the number of pupils who would need to be funded, and the state has handled that decline by cutting funding to below the guaranteed amount.

Preschool has taken even deeper damage, with rising enrollments meaning fewer dollars for every student needing that vital preparation for school success.

And then, each of the categorical programs that supports specific student and teacher needs has been reduced, removing essential supports for meeting Kentucky's ambitious goals for all students.

The one bright spot in this sad story is the unity of Kentucky education leaders around the need to move forward on Kentucky's goals and provide the funding to make those goals a reality. KEAT includes the Kentucky Association of School Administrators, the Kentucky Association of School Councils, the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents, the Kentucky Education Association, the Kentucky School Boards Association, the Kentucky PTA, and the Prichard Committee, and leaders from all seven groups stood together this morning in favor of delivering what Kentucky's children need.

Race to the Top success!

Kentucky will receive $17 million in federal funding for innovative work to raise student achievement under the Race to the Top program, including investments in the ongoing CIITS and AdvanceKentucky efforts.

CIITS is short for the Continuous Instructions Improvement Technology System, a major integrated approach to supporting Kentucky teachers, personalizing students' learning and educators' professional growth, and coordinating school and district planning.  With the federal funding, Kentucky will implement planned CIITS components that organize educator effectiveness ratings, integrate new models for measuring effective teaching, and support formative assessment.

AdvanceKentucky expands student access to rigorous Advanced Placement coursework, with heavy emphasis on science and mathematics classes and participation in AP testing as a measure of results.

For more information on this exciting news, you can check out:

• The Department press release
• EdWeek coverage, including a link to overviews of each winning state's proposal
• Courier-Journal reporting with thought from Dr. Holliday about the work we'll be able to move forward more quickly with this federal support.

Accountability and beyond: Adding the collaboration

In yesterday's post, I argued that accountability is not enough: success for students requires sustained, focused collaboration for teachers. Today, I want to flag some key ways we can get that done.

First, let's note that in many places in Kentucky, important parts of that work is getting done.  That kind of collaboration is what sets our high performance, high poverty schools apart.  It's what makes our most exciting districts so exciting.  I believe it's what has moved our students above national average in NAEP science and reading, and to national average in mathematics.

From a state perspective, the question is how we can get that to happen in many more places--in 174 districts and more than 1,200 schools--and how we can get it to happen faster.

Here are some things I think Kentucky is doing well to build that implementation:

• Networks. As we implement our new standards, the state model for capacity building is built on sustained collaboration.  In regional networks, small groups of teachers from each district are coming together to explore the standards, plan ways to apply teaching strategies that can bring the standards to life, try them out, and then gather again to discuss the results, refine the approaches, and then try them again.

• Intervention. We've long had an accountability approach to low-performing schools that worked in most places, so that most schools placed in state assistance improved their work enough not to need it after two years or sometimes four.    For the smaller set of persistently low-achieving schools, we've recently changes our approach.  The Department has moved to more intensive assistance, focused on much deeper work with the teachers in those schools.  Along with the assistance, state leaders have also dramatically increased public pressure on those schools and their districts, so that local efforts have also intensified.  So far, I think we're seeing good early results from this stronger approach.

Still, we need to do more, and here are some of the most important challenges to keep the implementation building:

• Expansion. The regional networks reach a few teachers, but then depend on local leaders to find ways to spread the same opportunities more widely.  At the Prichard Committee's fall meeting, we heard that some districts are doing that very well, but others are doing weaker work.  We need additional ways to get all educators strong opportunities to build their skills.

• Time. Collaboration needs time, and time costs money.  In the current fiscal situation, that's going to require courage all around.  At the local level, it means doing more with less and doing the most important things first--and I believe that teacher growth is the most important priority for creating student growth. At the state level, it means restoring funding already cut, and moving beyond that to provide truly adequate funding for what we've asked teaches to do.  

• Culture.  We must move to a shared and intense agreement that professional learning communities are   truly essential to effective educational practice.  By professional learning communities, I mean the full definition: sustained shared effort that analyzes student work in relation to standards, plans effective instructional improvements, implements them, and repeats in an ongoing cycle of collaborative improvement.

Those pieces, combined over a sustained period, can turn goals we've set into goals we meet.

That's why, to close the loop from yesterday's post, consequential accountability is both important and not enough.  The central element we are working add, with some good progress and plenty more to go,  is teacher implementation of sound strategies, built through sustained collaboration with colleagues.

Accountability is not enough

The Fordham Institute is planning a major discussion of the question "Has Accountability Run Its Course?"  The announcement for the January 4 event says:

Ten years ago, George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, the law that has dominated U.S. education—and the education policy debate—for the entire decade. While lawmakers are struggling to update that measure, experts across the political spectrum are struggling to make sense of its impact and legacy. Did NCLB, and the consequential accountability movement it embodied, succeed? And with near-stagnant national test scores of late, is there reason to think that this approach to school reform is exhausted? If not “consequential accountability,” what could take the U.S. to the next level of student achievement?

Here's my answer: accountability plus teacher implementation of sound strategies, built through sustained collaboration with colleagues.

Some accountability plans assume that teachers already know what to do and how to do it.  If that were true, then carrots and sticks would be very likely to work.  Nationally, I think No Child Left Behind has been a huge trial of that theory, producing some progress but nowhere near enough.

Some other accountability plans assume that teachers may not know how to do it yet, but they can quickly figure it out.  It looks me like that was the KERA theory.  The Department would create guidance documents and brief district leaders, district leaders would brief teachers, Regional Service Centers would provide back up support, and four professional development days (or maybe nine for just a few years) would be plenty of time to get the strategies up and running.  We got some important improvement from that approach, but we, too, did not get the full scale of change we wanted and expected.

From accountability efforts to date, I believe we should learn that the teaching strategies that can make the biggest difference are not, in fact, obvious and easy for teachers to implement.  Instead, understanding and applying them requires long cycles of learning: exploring a key idea, applying it in practice, reflecting on what happens, applying it in practice with some new insight, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. Further, even if a teacher develops tremendous skill at using that idea with most kids, every group of student will include a few that need a variant approach, so there will always be more to learn and more to puzzle out.  That means teachers will always need one another, and the collaborative learning process will always need to be a central part of how strong schools do strong work.

Winning at basketball requires a scoreboard--but it also requires practice, coaching, and teamwork to develop winning skills.  Winning in education requires matching elements: first goals, assessments, and consequences, and then also sustained, focused collaboration among teachers to develop the deep skills that will move all students to success.

(Tomorrow: some thoughts on how Kentucky can build and sustain that collaboration.)

Kentucky assessments: which subjects, which grades

The chart above offers a quick overview of how Kentucky students will be assessed under Kentucky's new accountability system, starting in the current school year.   

I take great pride in Kentucky's commitment to assessing that rich array of subjects, something that sets us apart from most other states.  We've done small and large adjustments to our standards and small and 

large adjustments to our assessments over the last two decades, but the key idea that we set standards, measure results, and value performance in a broad set of subjects is still a strong value for our state.

 When I think about our rising science NAEP scores, I think science accountability has to have helped us make that growth. Similarly, when I think about our NAEP reading scores, I think accountability for science and social studies is likely to have helped there as well.  

Like many others, I'm watching closely for developments in arts & humanities, practical living/career studies, and the kind of sustained writing that is included in writing portfolios.  We no longer assess student performance in those subjects, but instead use program reviews to check that schools provide robust learning opportunities in those content areas. 

Enrollment, staffing, and a possible option for teacher learning time

In the fall of 2008, Kentucky enrolled 1.35 percent of all students enrolled in public schools nationwide in pre-kindergarten through grade 12.

Our share of public school staff was at or below that 1.35 percent level in three categories, with Kentucky having:

• 1.05 percent of student support staff nationwide
• 1.28 percent of instruction coordinators
• 1.34 percent of administrative support staff
• 1.35 percent of teachers

 Our share of public school staff was above the nationwide level in the other categories, including:

• 1.36 percent of guidance counselors nationwide
• 1.50 percent of officials and administrators
• 1.91 percent of principals and assistant principals
• 1.92 percent of instructional aides
• 2.03 percent of other support services staff
• 2.08 percent of librarians
• 2.13 percent of school and library support staff

If instead, Kentucky schools and districts had consistently had 1.39 percent of each kind of staff, we would have had:

• 771 additional student support staff
•  51 additional instruction coordinators
•  31 additional administrative support staff
•  62 additional teachers
•  4 fewer guidance counselors
•  92 fewer officials and administrators
•  889 fewer principals and assistant principals
• 
  
•  393 fewer librarians
•  2,212 fewer school and library support staff
•  4,155 fewer instructional aides
•  7,990 fewer other support services staff
• 14,819 fewer total p-12 employees

Back in March 2009, I posted a similar analysis using Fall 2005 data. As I wrote then:

I’m not arguing that Kentucky should staff schools to those averages. There may be important benefits to what we do differently, and our students may have different needs. I do think, though, that this is an interesting mirror to look in, inviting us to think about how we currently staff public education.

Later that year, after updating with Fall 2006 numbers, I added a question I still think is important: 

To build teaching quality, we should want every teacher involved in professional learning community work as part of every workweek. Could we change these numbers, either adding teachers or lengthening teachers’ workdays, to make that collaborative time easier to find?

(Source note: the data for this analysis comes from the Digest of Education Statistics 2010, using tables 38 and 85. The staff analysis is based on full-time equivalents.)

College costs get White House attention

Rapid growth in college tuition will get some new attention Monday.  Inside Higher Ed reports that:

President Obama has invited the presidents or chancellors of 10 colleges or state university systems to a meeting at the White House on Monday to discuss affordability and productivity in higher education. The move is highly unusual: While administration events often feature college leaders in various roles, a meeting called on such short notice, with the president himself in attendance, is rare.

Berea President Larry Shinn is the one invitee going from a Kentucky institution, and there's a second Kentucky connection in F. King Alexander, currently president of California State University at Long Beach, who led Murray State from 2001 to 2005.

Common Core QuickNotes

While Kentucky moves forward rapidly with Common Core implementation, the Common Core now has large growing support, seasoned by smaller but also growing opposition, around the country. Here's some of what's happening elsewhere:

•  Chicago's Perez Elementary School was very successful on older assessments and moved last year into pilot work with Common Core. The results were a blunt wake up call: roughly one third of elementary and one quarter of middle school students could meet the new expectations. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard see the Perez results as signals about what global competition will require and why the new standards are important. 

• Montana's state board agreed November 4 to become a Common Core state.  Only Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia are still insisting on their single-state approaches

• Alabama's Governor, Robert Bentley wants Common Core repealed for his state, but the state board voted 6-3 to reject a resolution to that effect on November 11. 

• An American Legislative Exchange Council task force voted December 1 to move forward with model legislation "opposing adoption or implementation of common standards." ALEC develops legislative proposals it sees as supporting free-market and libertarian approaches.Supporters of the drafting work argue that Common Core is an undue federal intrusion. Opponents, including Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, argued strongly that their states made their own local choice to be part of Common Core, but did not prevail in the Task Force vote. The ALEC board of directors will make the final decision

Common Core support from the Chamber

"We believe these more rigorous standards represent the change that employers advocate.”

Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Dave Adkisson shared that judgment with a Paducah audience Thursday, providing a ringing endorsement of the Common Core as a statement of what students need to be career-ready as well as college-ready.

Expect more of that strong backing in coming months. KyChamberBlog reports that Adkisson's appearance along with Commissioner Holliday

marked the beginning of an initiative that will emphasize the importance of business support for improving Kentucky students’ preparation to succeed in college and the workplace. The Kentucky Chamber Foundation is spearheading the effort, which is being conducted in partnership with the Department of Education and the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.