Special Education Results in Corbett, 2010

Last year Corbett's students who qualified for Special Education passed the State Math Assessments at a rate that exceeded the State special education average by 27%.

Last year Corbett's students who qualified for Special Education passed the State Reading Assessments at a rate that exceeded the State special education average by 7.6%.

Last year Corbett's students who qualified for Special Education passed the State Science Assessments at a rate that exceeded the State special education average by 25%.

This is true in spite of the fact that Corbett identified far fewer students, meaning that the students who did qualify had more significant barriers to learning than does the average identified student around the state. But shouldn't that sort of screening have resulted in our general student scores dropping off?

Last year Corbett's Total Population passed the State Math Assessments at a rate that exceeded the State average by 5.6%. (The gap got considerably wider as students got older.)

Last year Corbett's Total Population passed the State Reading Assessments at a rate that exceeded the State average by 6.3%. (The gap got considerably wider as students got older.)

Last year Corbett's Total Population passed the State Science Assessments at a rate that exceeded the State average by 9.7%. (The gap got considerably wider as students got older.)

So who got left behind? Not the Special Education students. Not the general population of students? Makes one wonder who might be left...

A Few of My Favorite Things

Overheard lately:

1. Corbett Schools lack focus and have no identity. (If they did, they could perform like...oops!)
2. Corbett Schools leave students behind.
3. Corbett Schools had a $2,000,000.00 budget for Special Education last year.
4. "I saw it in the budget myself!"
5. "I'm embarrassed that Corbett students pass only 25% of their Advanced Placement exams."

How can one possibly respond to such devastating criticism? I've given it some thought. Here goes:

1. The earth is flat. (Come on. If it's round, why don't we fall off?)
2. The lights in the Middle School are powered by very quick, tiny men wearing nylon pants so that their rapid circular racing around each fixture generates static electricity. The light switches only exist to let them know when lights are needed.
3. The sun revolves around the earth.
4. "I saw it myself". No, really, it started out in the East and traveled West all day. Are you calling me a liar? Or worse?
5. Harvard, Reed, Sarah Lawrence, Vassar, USC, Willamette, George Fox, Baylor, U Penn, Smith, Liberty, U of O, OSU, SOU, EOU, WOU, MHCC University of Portland, Portland State, Linfield, Pacific University don't seem to be embarrassed, and neither are the families who are saving thousands (and years) during hard economic times to get their kids through school.

That last one actually warranted a response, as it was the only one that had any basis in reality. Props for that. But the rest of the story is this...Corbett students are taking college level exams. To imagine that the 25% passing rate is embarrassing is to miss the point. How would we feel about a volleyball team that won 25% of its matches against colleges and universities around the country? Or a football team that won 25% of its games in the Pac 10? Absurd, of course. But academically, that's the league we are playing in. And we are seeing some all-star performances.

It is dazzling to watch, if you are able to follow the game. If, on the other hand, you know schools like I know soccer, it can be a little disorienting. That's why I hardly ever complain about the soccer coach's game plan. "You only scored on 25% of your possessions? What's going on here?!"

What are the odds

that Corbett Schools will be able to maintain their current level of service to students? Looks like two-to-one against, based on last night's election results. No news, really, as it's about the same number that we've seen again and again. Good to see that the extra-curricular politics had no impact on the vote...the community remains solid as a rock.

Congrats to the V-Ball and Soccer teams...all extending their seasons this week. Valiant efforts resulting in very windy wins last night. Nice work.

Do Charter Schools Skim the Best Students?

Once in awhile someone thinks of a clever name to call a rival, and it sticks. So it seems that 'skimming' is a charge that sticks to charter schools...at least among those who don't stop to think about it.

What is skimming? It's the practice of choosing only the most desirable students and screening out the others. Kind of a mean-spirited notion, that there are undesirable students out there whose access to a quality education one might want to limit.

Do Charter Schools skim? What about other, non-charter schools? I suppose it depends to some degree on one's perspective.

Do private schools 'skim'? Well, the easiest way into many private schools is to have enough money to pay tuition. Many private schools offer tuition assistance, and they might be considered to be skimming if they only give assistance to those students who are deemed 'worthy'...perhaps a good athlete or someone who they are sure won't cause any disruptions, or someone with a good GPA...I have no idea what they do. But I wouldn't call it skimming. I'd call it being private.

Wealthy school districts certainly could be said to skim 'skim', if simply by virtue of the cost of moving into the district! If wealth correlates to achievement (which is what the 'skimmer' epitaph is based on) then real estate costs are probably the most ubiquitous skimming method in the country. And what about the fact that some students are tempted to 'pretend' to live in a wealthy district in order to attend a great school...is that school guilty of skimming?

When schools allow inter-district transfers, students are usually changing districts for a very specific reason. Is that skimming? Is it skimming if a student is allowed an inter-district transfer in order to attend a great dance program?

Some large districts allow transfers among neighborhood schools. Are the more successful schools skimming the best students from the other neighborhoods? When they are all done, do all of the schools exhibit the same demographics and the same achievement levels? Nobody from one of those districts should ever utter the 'sk...' word!

After even limited review, one would have to say that skimming, if that's what it should be called, is rampant. Of course there is skimming going on. Anywhere two schools are within commuting distance of the same house and one is out-performing the other, some amount of 'skimming' is going to happen.

Is this a fair charge to level against charter schools? So far as I can see, charter schools are the only institutions in Oregon in which skimming is effectively eliminated by legal and procedural safeguards. All charter school admissions are determined by lottery! How many other schools do that? Is that how scholarships are granted? Is that how banks decide who can move into what neighborhoods?

Charters don't have a wealthy neighborhood to do the skimming for them, they can't offer tuition breaks as incentives to attract desirable families, and they can't legally screen applicants. If we put name calling aside and just look at the facts, charters are literally the least likely 'skimmers' in the entire system!

Skimmers. Nice piece of rhetoric for those who want to take choices away from parents. Let's not fall for it.

Promises

Life can be unpredictable. Still, we all want and need some degree of stability with regard to the future. So we work together, we build relationships, we make commitments and we keep them. To the degree that we maintain fidelity with one another, we are all stronger. The key to planning a future together? We make promises and we depend on each other to be faithful to our words.

Promises are the stepping stones that we create for one another so that, one day at a time, we can navigate together those circumstances that would be vastly more treacherous were we each to strike out on our own. The more difficult the circumstance, the more essential it is that we can depend on one another.

Promises can be an inconvenience. (That's why they have to be made and kept.) In fact, there is no real virtue in 'keeping' a promise that isn't something of an inconvenience. That's what makes a promise different from a prediction.

The Educator's Alphbet: E

E is for Excellence...NOT!

Excellence is a shibboleth among the movers and shakers in education. Who doesn't love excellence? Who shouldn't strive for it, recognize it, reward it, promote it? Excellence is a lot of things, all of them good...or better, or really, really great. The rub comes when one stops to ask with regard to what? And having answered the question 'with regard to what?', does the notion of excellence really add anything to the conversation?

The source of this tomfoolery with words is that we in education are prone to want to move from worse to better, from lower to higher, from OK to really good, all without every clarifying what it is that we are working toward. Phrases like "A World Class Education" are good, I suppose, but at the end of the day we might want to be specific about what that means. What is education, by the way? Can it be reliably measured, and if so, is that measure the same thing as education or does it just stand in as a surrogate for the real thing? And if education is some 'real thing' beyond the measure, in what does it consist, and how do we know that our measures are, in fact, good surrogates?

Excellence. An empty phrase.

Imaginative Education takes a good run at answering the question. Want to get involved in the conversation? Read The Educated Mind. Join in the conversation. It matters that we be clear about our purposes.

The Educator's Alphabet: D

D is for Detrimental Departments

It doesn't matter which. State Departments of Education, University Education Departments, all departures from the unity of the task at hand are detriments. Departments, divisions, commissions, associations committed to the development of one or another aspect of education as though each may be cultivated in a Petri dish and then grafted back onto the whole: all are distractions. All are industries and occasions for careerism. As such, all are understandable. But none ca be said to contribute to student achievement.

To look at just one example: In Oregon, as soon as students are required to receive instruction from highly qualified subject area specialists (generally in 6th or 7th grades) passing rates in reading and math begin to decline. By 10th grade, after several years of departmentalized instruction, 30% of students who met the 5th Grade Math benchmark fail to pass the 10th Grade Assessment. Thirty percent! In Reading, 15% fall by the wayside as the result of departmentalization, and in Science the departmental decline is 23%.

As for those departments of a different sort, those whose primary task is to enforce compliance with policies and procedures that have been proven ineffective, no need to dwell there. Let our motto be: All Departments, Depart Away!

The Educator's Alphabet: B

B is for Bulfinch, Thomas. And for good reason.

First, because Thomas Bulfinch organized and presented Greek mythology in a way that has resonated with generations of new readers. His contribution is immeasurable.

Second, education is fraught with myths and legends that would fill several more volumes but, unlike those of the Greeks, they would illuminate nothing of the human condition. A collection of popular and professional misunderstandings regarding education would be more appropriate to a Reality TV show (America's Dumbest Ideas?) than to a beautifully illustrated, leather-bound volume. They really don't rise to the level of 'myth' except in its most derogatory usage. Still, I didn't have the nerve to suggest that B should be for B.S., so we are stuck with 'myths' and with the shameless exploitation of the first letter of Thomas' last name...

Ten myths that prevent academic achievement in schools.
1. Children come in various types with each type constituting a unique subspecies.
2. All children can learn the same material at the same age and at the same rate.
3. Large schools are more efficient that small schools.
4. Students are happier when they have more choices.
5. Communication is more important than student achievement.
6. Schools should reflect the values of their respective communities.
7. Algebra can only be taught by a math specialist.
8. Math specialists can't be expected to teach English or History.
9. Achievement in the early grades is essential to achievement later in life.
10. Instruction in phonics is necessary to the mastery of reading.

These are just 10 myths, in no particular order. There are dozens more that might have made the list. The pervasiveness of these myths makes school improvement a slow and ponderous process, as efforts are often grounded in one or more myths and too many people are unprepared to call Bulfinch.

The Educator's Alphabet: A

A is for Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of culture. Education is the transmission of culture. Simple. But to say what education IS necessarily implies what education is not. And the bulk of thinking and planning regarding schools is based on profound misunderstanding of the enterprise. The Education-Industrial Complex systematically prepares professionals, produces curricula, proposes policies and writes legislation based upon what education is decidedly NOT.

Education is not the process by which one person at a time learns one concept at a time. Educational psychology is an oxymoron, yet the majority of what is taught to pre-service teachers regarding how learning happens is informed by various 'psychologies of learning'. Most recently this has meant a return to the Behaviorism of B.F. Skinner, though it is rarely acknowledged a such. But whether it is Skinner, Piaget, Maslow or Dewey, psychology has little to add to the conversation. And while the adherents of various psychologies of learning continue to produce brilliant tri-fold brochures and intricately-boxed revolutionary reading programs, they have produced nothing of note with regard to student achievement. Still, it's a lucrative living, so don't expect these folks to go away any time soon!

Education is not business. It fascinates me that educators (particularly administrators) all but wag their tails in anticipation of the next volume of Wisdom Literature' due out from one business guru or another. Granted, these are bright guys (they seem all to be guys, but I don't pay that much attention) who write and speak in sweeping certainties regarding problems that have plagued educators for decades. I understand why someone would hope that they carry stone tablets to pass down from the mountain top from which they have only recently descended. But in the end, it's a new, improved Day Planner rather than the hoped-for stone tablet, and in six months it will be made obsolete by the next, brand-new breakthrough in systemic science. The only consolation for the humiliation of having hoped for something useful is that the next conference is to held in Florida in the off season...not to be missed!

Schools are not societies, and social engineering doesn't work. I won't bother offending various folks one at a time by listing the acronyms that represent literally dozens of program the have required expensive trainings, materials, and staffing but have not improved student achievement. The acronyms survive by providing their own measures of 'improvement' that are fully aside from achievement, but their evidence is mostly a matter of re-defining reality so that what was once a discipline referral is now called an intervention and, wonder of wonders, the number of 'discipline referrals' is significantly reduced. But again, if a reduction of 'discipline referrals' doesn't result in increased student achievement, what have the results got to do with education?

Why doesn't social engineering work? Because schools are cultures. Take note that I'm not saying that schools 'have' cultures, as though 'school culture' was an attribute of a school, subject to manipulation. The mountains of literature that address school culture in this manner are simply mistaken, and those who have taken the advice of such authors have the lack of results to prove it. Nope. Schools don't 'have' cultures. They ARE cultures. They are dense accumulations of face-to-face interactions, and their various aspects cannot be manipulated independently of the whole. And while social engineering envisions a system in which changing one sort of input can immediately impact a corresponding output, cultures change very gradually, holistically, and much more thoroughly.

I would guess that the vast majority of educators can't name three anthropologists. Many can, on the other hand, name three prominent business theorists. (I have always suspected that this deference to business gurus is grounded in the apparent desire of educators to dress like bankers and in their tendency to look down on those who prefer to dress more like professionals doing field work.) I would also argue that of all of the social sciences, anthropology is easily the most promising for those seeking insights into schools and schooling.

Anthropologists have one habit that educators can hardly abide. They describe cultures as they are without Utopian intent. Educators want Utopia. They want a Utopia of feeling, a Utopia of consensus, of democratic self-congratulations. But to do the hard work of influencing a culture? That's slow work, with no guarantees, no instant gratification, no strategic plan, no sure-fire, teacher-proof, Title I-approved formula. But that's the work. And Anthropology might provide the best clues regarding where to start. It certainly provides sound reasons to predict with some confidence what won't work...meaning that anthropological understanding could have saved Oregon and dozens of its districts hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past few years.

The Educator's Alphabet: C

C is for Conflict.

We all love peace. Educators and school board members are no exception. Board members especially are prone to the utopian belief that if we are all doing our jobs, then there should be no tension, no conflict among our constituents or between constituents and ourselves. If someone is upset, the theory goes, then there must be something wrong. There is danger in this belief. Attempts to put an end to tensions, to ban conflict from the conversation, can lead only to banality. And the conflict will continue in some modified form.

Education is conflict, bred of the tensions between the past and the future, between competing political interests, each with its favored 'history', favored 'science', favorite reality. And those are the good days.

Education is conflict, bred of the tension between a single family's aspirations for its own child(ren) and the need to share.

Education is conflict, bred of the gap between the expert judgment of practitioners and the common wisdom(s) of consumers. This tension is exacerbated by competing 'expert' paradigms and wildly divergent 'wisdoms' among consumers. It reaches critical mass due to the utter certainty with which each expert as well as each consumer holds that his or her private expertise or personal wisdom is uniquely correct.

Education is conflict, bred of the fact that in spite of the expression of myriad varieties of expertise and wisdom, each particular school can only be a compromise among competing perspectives. It can never be anyone's ideal of 'perfect', and it will always reflect the practical reality that some folks will have more influence than will others.

Education is conflict, bred of the tension that when some teacher, somewhere, says 'no' to some student, that student will sometimes respond as though 'no' was an entirely novel concept.

Education is conflict, bred of the tension that results when the word 'student' is replaced by the word 'parent'.

Education is conflict, bred of tension caused when the common core requirements of today are seen as a criticism of the education of previous generations. It is exacerbated by the fact that sometimes this is actually the case.

Education is conflict, bred of the tension created when the daughter of a lawyer, who aspires to be a cowgirl, sits and a calculus class with the son of a fisherman, who wants to be a doctor.

Education is conflict, bred of the tension created by the demand that all children be educated and the fact that little or no thought has been given to what that even means.

Education is conflict, bred of the tension between our best democratic impulses (No Child Left Behind) and the reality that some children are more able than others and that there is (thankfully) no technology for eliminating those differences. (Though the vast majority of schools are currently organized so as to prevent our most able students from fully realizing their potential. At the same time, Title I and Special Education programs are typically designed to prevent our most challenged students from realizing theirs as well).

Education is conflict, bred of the fact that even in a democratic society, there are no democratic means by which to resolve a single one of these conflicts.

Education is conflict. Always has been. But it is not war. In education, nobody wins. Not decisively. Not finally. There may be battles, and there may be lulls. There may even be celebrations by 'victors'. But the tensions persist, even if they are below the surface for time. The tensions are the nature of the enterprise, and they are irresolvable. They are the framework within which all schools must operate, and they are ignored or denied at the expense of the mission.

New National Standards

For those who want defer accountability for another generation, the New (Shiny!) National Standards are just the thing. We can spend months just determining, as State Board Chair Duncan Wyse recommends, whether these standards are appropriate for Oregon's children. (What would that mean, exactly? Would we compare the proposed National Standards to the Oregon standards? Or would we look at the National Standards without reference to the Oregon standards and assume that their appropriateness was unrelated to our own work of the past 20-or-so years? One has to assume that the new National Standards, in order to be appropriate for Oregon, would have to bear a striking resemblance to the Oregon standards...in which case, tell me again why there need to be National Standards? And if there truly do need to be National Standards, why are we bothering to determine whether they are appropriate to Oregon? Who is Oregon to stand in the way of this new national necessity?)

Fun with words. And that's all any standards are. O.K. That's not all they are. They are also a colossal waste of time and money. O.K. They are more than that. They also buy time for those who, for whatever reason, wish to keep the target moving so that education will be in a constant state of retooling toward a new, re-envisioned definition of always-receding, eventual, someday success. And moments before we fail, we will shift the target again, as we did with the 10th grade math benchmarks and the now-defunct Math Problem Solving Assessment.

This is all eerily similar to Orwell's vision in 1984, in which a constant state of war,though with ever-revolving enemies, was necessary for the economy. Some purpose is served, it seems, by keeping education in a constant state of crisis but with regard to an ever-shifting threat...economic failure, social inequity, athlete's foot...

National Standards. A new measure against which to declare our utter failure (watch while ODE declares the silver lining is that we have now shined a light on the problem!), resulting in the need to convene committees, hire consultants, race to various tops, scramble for money, break large schools into small ones, combine small schools into large ones, put our right feet in, put our right feet out...

Can we not get serious? Does this game of 'shuffle the money' ever get boring? Does it get embarrassing, after awhile, to continue to pretend to know the way forward while chasing after every shiny object that catches our eyes?

National Standards. I know it's a joke, I'm just not sure who's in on it and who are its victims. I will say one thing without hesitation, though, in all seriousness. Not a single student will receive a better education as the result of our attention to this nonsense. Not one. And there is no evidence to the contrary, anywhere.

First, we take Manhattan

A dear friend, having heard just today of my new direction, made an unexpected allusion to a favorite artist:

"They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom,
For trying to change the system from within.
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them..."

You know the rest.

Untitled

"The soul...never reasons, never proves, it simply perceives; it is vision."
Emerson

2010 6th Graders

This is a shout out to the members of the 'The Scores are Falling!' quintet.

I remember my delight, as a youngster, at the Chicken Little story. Her sense of urgency, her belief that she must save the farm from impending doom, the obviousness of her mistake, which was painfully evident to everyone but her...I just howled. But only recently have I pondered what the story might feel like from the perspective of our heroine. Bummer.

In 2007, Corbett's 3rd Graders got a bad rap. They showed up poorly on the State of Oregon Assessments. Their 52% passing rate in 3rd grade math was particularly irksome to the few people who noticed. I was one of the few, and I was asked by teachers and board members what we were going to do about it. "Nothing." Of course. Wouldn't you just know it?

And what should we have done? A new math program? Pull the kids out of recess to have them do extra math? Take away their music until they learned their fractions? (No, wait, music is a GREAT place to learn fractions, so that won't work...). Add an extra hour of math at the expense of P.E.? (Don't laugh. There are schools where this is common practice!)

What did we do? We trusted our teachers. We trusted our practice. We trusted our past decisions. We trusted that fact that cohort ahead of them had passed at over 95% in 2006 before the benchmark was changed. We didn't panic.

Today we still have the third grade assessment results for 47 of our current sixth graders. Some are now in the Charter School, others are in Corbett Middle School. Of those 47, 23 failed to reach the 3rd grade math benchmark in 2007. That's a 51% passing rate. Today, 17 of the 23 (74%) have met the 6th grade math benchmark. Why is that number familiar? Oh, of course, it's very close to the State passing rate for 6th grade math last year, which was 73%. And our 74% mark counts only those student who DIDN'T meet the 3rd grade benchmark. What about our entire cohort of 47 students?

This year, taking all 47 cohort members (including those who did meet in 3rd grade) into account, their passing rate in math is 87%. Say it again: 87%! They are, in fact, out-performing those students who have since joined us and for whom we have no 3rd grade results. (Private schools, of course, don't administer the assessments.)

The class ahead of them? The one that had a 95% passing rate in 3rd grade? Last year they posted an 86% rate on the 6th grade math assessment. And this year they are running at over 80% in 7th grade math. And so it goes on.

This year, Corbett Middle School (grades 6 through 8) has passed 80% of all of the tests taken in Reading, Math and Science combined. The class with the highest passing rate among all three cohorts? The Sixth Grade! These kids are knocking it out of the park.

So in the spirit of free speech, I say that we let Chicken Little be Chicken Little. (I'm certainly not going to be the one to explain what is really falling on her head!) But fair warning, CL, denying reality is an uphill battle in most circles.

"The Research Says..."

IN EDUCATION, RESEARCH IS NOTHING. RESULTS ARE EVERYTHING.

I suppose I'm to the point in my career where it's OK to say what those who know me best have long understood. When someone says the words 'education research' to me, I lose all interest in whatever they might have to say next. Educational research is good for a laugh among the people who are informed enough to get the joke, but that's about all it's good for.

RESEARCH IS WHERE RED-FACED ADMINISTRATORS HIDE WHEN THEIR EFFORTS PRODUCE NO RESULTS. ("GEE, WE DID IT JUST LIKE THE DIRECTIONS ON THE BOX SAID, BUT THE WHEELS ON MY NEW SUPER-SONIC BIKE STILL DON'T POINT THE SAME DIRECTION!")

RESEARCH IS FOR WINNING ARGUMENTS WHEN NEITHER REASON NOR COMMON SENSE NOR PAST PERFORMANCE ARE ADEQUATE TO JUSTIFY ONE'S POSITION.

RESEARCH IS FOR INTIMIDATING THOSE WHO MIGHT BE NAIVE ENOUGH TO FALL FOR IT AND WHO HAVEN'T READ THE RESEARCH THEMSELVES.

Of course it isn't always appropriate to laugh out loud, but then I'm not always limited in my responses to only those that are deemed appropriate. And sometimes it's just too funny. But not always.

Sometimes there is a kind of sadness associated with conversations about research. When the person is earnest. When that person does something related to education for a living. Perhaps it's a person with a lot of experience (or with one year's experience 20 times over, because nothing of significance seems to accumulate over time). When that person makes an appeal to research, it's truly sad. Especially if they do it in public. I try not to be in the room on such occasions. But even then, colleagues who don't see the tragedy find it humorous to pass relate the event...and of course I laugh along, and they never notice the sadness just around the edges of my eyes...

There's no research, for example, that 'proves' that multi-age practice increases student achievement. Still, it does. Why do I think so? Corbett's 10th graders who qualify as 'Economically Disadvantaged' have had an average passing rate of 81% in Reading over the past three years. They have never been as low as, say, 67%. And they have averaged 64% in 10th grade math, with their lowest year being 50%. They've never dropped as low as 45% in all that time. Why? They have come up through the grades in multi-age classrooms. And someone who wants to argue otherwise has a challenge that is greater than just Googling multi-age. They have to overcome the facts on the ground. (Maybe they could claim it's the self-contained 9th grade classrooms...which absolutely no research supports!)

Research is nothing. Research in the hands of those who have never produced any results is less. And it's sad. But in a funny way.

Results? They trump research. To produce results is to hold the trump card. Holding the trump card, always, is like always being 20 steps ahead...

Oregon's New K-12 Literacy Framework

Did you know that it is important that high school teachers understand just why primary teachers teach primary students the names and sounds of the letters of the alphabet?

It comes as a shock to me, but so claims Oregon's new K-12 Literacy Framework! This claim is troubling for a number of reasons, the most onerous of which is that it is clearly written to mislead those who don't know anything about the sounds associated with the letters of the alphabet! The implication that there is some sort of simple, direct relationship between letters of the alphabet and the sounds of the spoken language is just silly...especially to those who are learning to read. They quickly learn that almost no letters make the same sound under all circumstances, almost no sounds are always made by the same letter or combination of letters, and many letters and letter combinations hold no clue to the sounds they make until a person already knows how to pronounce words like though, through, enough, bough...

There are a number of other reasons not to greet the publication of the New K-12 Literacy Framework as good news.

My primary concern is that it reflects a thorough misunderstanding of how children learn to read. It drags out the National Reading Panel report and seems to accept it as other than the political enterprise that it was. Perhaps the most influential claim of the National Reading Panel, which drives much of the Literacy Framework, is that the panel identified the "Five Pillars" of reading instruction. These five 'essentials' have been uncritically published, cut and pasted into virtually every official document regarding literacy since the publication of the report. The five 'essentials' have, however, no firm basis research...ironic for a publication that places all of its eggs in a deeply flawed research basket! This 'research' generates a lot of business, and where it has been faithfully implemented, there is no conspicuous surge in reading achievement.

The K-12 Literacy Framework includes no minority report. There is no room for thinking...only for implementation. Nothing from Richard Allington, Frank Smith, Nancie Atwell, Mem Fox, Stephen Krashen, Joanne Yatvin (who sat on the National Reading Panel and carefully articulated her concerns regarding its final report). Educators are expected simply to accept and implement this framework based, evidently, in the credentials of its authors...no, wait, that would be an argument ad hominem, that can't be right.

Is there someone in the state who really believes that this framework will improve reading achievement? Those who want to believe so face a decidedly steep climb. Because while the document is all dressed up in scientific fashion (or, if you prefer, fad) there is no scientific evidence to support its claim that implementation of the framework will improve reading achievement for a single student. None. Zero.

So what's the scoop? Why publish these 200-plus pages? Is it a political document? A budget document? An attempt to beef up Oregon's next federal grant application? Whatever it is, serious practitioners should consider letting the politicians make of the framework what they will while focusing their own energies on educating children. Take a break from teaching reading and let the kids read awhile. Read along with them. Giant win-win. And doesn't require a 200-page rational(e)(-ism).

Great Schooling is Simple

Bad schooling is extremely complex. And legislative attempts to limit the damage done by really bad schooling can make the administration of good schools fairly complex. But at its core, good schooling is simple. Not many moving parts.

Good schools have good teachers. Those teachers are well educated, well housed, well supplied, clear about the purpose of the school and trusted to do their jobs. Simple doesn't mean easy. Good teachers work hard. But they know where they are going and they work without getting sidetracked by every shiny object that comes into their field of vision.

Fostering this sort of simplicity in a society that suffers debilitating addictions to both complexity and immediate gratification is sometimes a challenge. Citizens want systems, programs, acronyms, committees, specialists, guarantees, progress measured on the quarter hour, and frequent numeric representations of the superiority of one child over another. They sometimes take comfort in needing a 'program' in order to know the 'players'. They expect to walk through the door and to see the newest thing. And then the next. And the next.

We are committed to keeping schooling simple. And excellent. We hope for the patience of those who are otherwise inclined.

What Makes Corbett Charter School Unique?

Multi-age practice is so self-evidently the smart way to organize elementary and middle schools that to do otherwise is simply wasteful. It is inefficient both educationally and fiscally. It puts equity at risk. Multiage practice is better for kids. And we do it. But it's not unique.

Imaginative Education is a monumental breakthrough that Kieran Egan began expounding some 30 years ago. Corbett Charter School is fortunate to have had the opportunity to take up this tradition, and perhaps we will implement it more thoroughly than has been done before. But it's been done before, and on several continents. Not quite unique.

What about the use of big, brilliant thematic units that place an emphasis on understanding the wonders of the world as well as our immediate surroundings? Highly unusual. This happens in only the best schools. But it happens.

What's truly unique about Corbett Charter School is that it is a place where the professional teachers in the room are authorized to do the work for which they were hired. This sounds mundane enough, but more than one person has expressed surprise (and sometimes even dismay!) that the teachers are trusted to do their jobs without interference from the administration or from anyone else.

Corbett Charter teachers have a common mission. They have a common curriculum and methods that they all embrace. But they are each entrusted, one at a time, with the hundreds of judgments and decisions that every teacher makes every day regarding the conduct of their classroom and their class activities. They are solely responsible for the school experience of their charges. This is not negotiable. Ever. That's unique.

Why are we so adamant about this? It's what works. Or, more precisely, its opposite is what doesn't work in schools across the country. Teachers have an incredibly demanding job. It is demanding both intellectually (assuming that they don't teach from zip-locked, prefab programs) and emotionally (as the result of managing literally dozens of relationships simultaneously) and they don't need the distraction of wondering at every turn whether some moment in time, some drop of water in the stream, is going to be taken out of context, scrutinized, and found wanting. In Corbett Charter School they have no such worries. And that, as some poet somewhere once said, makes all the difference. Our teachers are remarkable. And they can only be fully remarkable when they know that they are fully trusted.

Why are we so adamant? Because too many cooks spoil the broth.

Why so insistent? Because a survey of 100 concert pianists confirms that 94 of them don't believe that they benefit from someone else wanting to help out with that C# in measure 74...it tends to disrupt their performance.

Why so inflexible? Because marathoners have been known to trip when a spectator attempts, out of kindness, to tie their shoes mid-race.

Why so sure? Because we hold teachers responsible for educating the children in their little classroom communities. Solely responsible. Because we take very seriously our charge to provide the best possible education for every child who walks through the door and is willing to take instruction. Because we believe that each child's education is our obligation. Because we don't pass the responsibility off on others. We take it to ourselves. And responsibility entails, necessarily, the ability and authority to respond.

Teachers own their classrooms at Corbett Charter School. We promise. And that is perhaps our most unique attribute. It is also perhaps our greatest strength. It is our best guarantee that every child in our care will receive the best possible education. That's what we are here for. Nothing else. O.K., that might be unique as well.

How to Make K-12 Schools 20% more effective

Over the past three years, Corbett has had a number of students enter college with sophomore standing. Many others have earned at least a portion of their freshman credits prior to graduating from high school. (About 60% of the Class of 2009, in fact). This isn't just about saving parents tens of thousands of dollars (which is has, by the way) but is also about encouraging students to make the most of their opportunities. I think this is a great life lesson.

Last year 20% of Corbett's 10th graders passed the Advanced Placement World History exam. If they take their scores to Oregon State University, they will receive six credit hours for History 104 and 105. A passing score on either AP English exam is worth three more credits (and they get two tries). A score of four on an AP Government exam is worth four more credits. A three in Environmental Science? Four more credits. A four in Biology? Twelve more credits. A three in U.S History is worth eight credits. A three in Spanish? Twelve more. A three in Calculus (ab)? Four credits. A four in BC? That's worth twelve. A three in Psych? Four credits.

Last year 13% of Corbett's seniors had passed AP Calculus (bc) as well as AP Stats. Those exams were worth between eight and sixteen credits (up to a third of a year), depending on whether students scored threes or fours. In no case does earning credit require a score of five, but several exams require fours.

Most private schools do want fours, by the way, and Harvard wants fives. The rubric that I have been describing is the law for Oregon Higher Ed members.

A person wouldn't have to be all that prolific, really, to benefit tremendously from this program. A Corbett graduate could score fours on the right four exams and enter OSU with sophomore standing. Just two as a junior and two as a senior would do it. We've had plenty of students earn fours on more than four exams. It can be done.

In a time when everyone seems to want to talk about efficiencies and how we spend education dollars, it's clear to me that we could increase our output by anywhere from 8% (if you are only talking about time) to 20% (if you include the cost of a freshman year in a public college or university) by simply supporting our students' efforts to do well on their AP exams.

Exams are coming up again during the first two weeks of May. Encourage someone you know to do well.

There is no reason to limit ourselves to being a K-12 school. We can just as easily be K-13.

Why Winning Matters

There's a reason they call it winning. But is winning the end-all, be-all for schools? I don't believe that it is. But there are times when winning matters. The last decade in Corbett has been one of those times.

Ten years ago, 4% of Corbett's students were leaving the district in order to pursue a better education elsewhere. Other schools were winning and we were losing. Losing our own kids. Losing 4% of our revenues. Losing. So, for awhile at least, winning mattered.

What did we start with? A number of things. Some actions were aimed at reducing costs. Some were aimed at enhancing revenues. But all were also aimed at improving student achievement. Lackluster student achievement was the reason that we were losing students, and improved student achievement seemed like the best way to win them back.

Up until 11 years ago, Corbett High School 10th graders had posted three consecutive years of math passing rates that were below 20%. Below 20%. Less than one in five. We were losing. Losing kids. And we were failing to serve those kids who stayed. Among those who stayed to graduate in 1997, 1998 and 1999, about 25% were taking the SAT (a few more than the number who were passing the 10th grade math assessments) and they were posting an average score of 1005. Statewide participation rates were about 50%, and the statewide average score was about 1015. We were losing.

We were losing students to transfers out of district, and we were losing students to the rural population trend by which were were graduating more seniors, year after year, than we were gaining new kindergartners. By the year 2000, Corbett's student population had dropped from a previous level of 700 to only 580.

Budgets were tight, because of which Corbett had decided, in 1998, to initiate a 4-Day school week. Morale and confidence were faltering. During the 1998-1999 fiscal year, Corbett lost its superintendent (in mid-year), its high school principal (also mid-year), its counselor, its maintenance director and its music teacher. None retired. All left for other positions.

What did we need to do? A lot. What did we need to change? Almost everything. How quickly did we need to do it? Almost immediately. During the month of July, 1999, I discovered that the 1999-2000 budget was out of balance and that we needed to cut about $150,000.00. That meant cutting staff. And we had to do it during the summer, when most of the staff was off for the summer and believed that the plan for 1999-2000 was already set.

Beginning in 2000, we launched simultaneous changes across the grades, across the curriculum and across the district. We did it with frequent, intense staff involvement through dozens of meetings, and every move was discussed and approved in public board meetings. At 90% of those board meetings, only the board and one or two faithful community members were present.

Over the course of the first two years, we reduced administrative staffing by 50%, the teaching staff by 17% and classified staff by about 30%. And, little by little, we improved.

Today, Corbett means quality. It means achievement. It means opportunity for kids after graduation. And for that reason, it has become a destination district for the region. And because of its image as a Winner, Corbett Charter School is attracting far more students than it is able to accommodate. Because it is seen as a Winner, Corbett avoided the reductions in staff and school days that have plagued (and will continue to plague) other districts around the state.

For Corbett, winning is a fiscal policy. It is a financial strategy. It has worked. Everybody in Corbett is better off for it. It matters that we continue. For those whose sensibilities or self-confidence make them adverse to competition, adverse to working, adverse to winning, or adverse to bragging about it, I suggest that they keep an eye on the budget cuts that will occur around the state this coming year. The stories are already in a paper about Beaverton School District deliberating over whether to cut staff or school days for 2010-2011. That conversation will be echoed throughout the state, throughout this budget season.

Do we have to win? Do we have to be number one? Absolutely not, so long as we are willing to live with the consequences of being average...larger class sizes, fewer course offerings, less preparation for college and careers, and two parking spaces for every student and parent.

Winning isn't everything. But for now it's necessary.

National Standards?

For some decades now, the Standards Movement has produced no measurable improvements in American public education. It has worn many guises, has been repackaged innumerable times, but always with the same result...a declaration that it is time to start over and to purchase new books, materials and services from the developers of the next new redesigned one best way to educate children.

When No Child Left Behind was enacted, two responses captured the mood of most school practitioners. My own response was to argue that NCLB was ill-conceived, that it suffered internal contradictions that doomed it to failure, and that school leaders should resist it at every turn. There were those who agreed, but it seemed that we were few. There was another school of thought...those who believed that if we supported NCLB, bought the new books and the new trainings, filled out the new reports and executed the new mandates, the system would eventually collapse under its own weight and we would be none the worse for it. Well, it has indeed collapsed. (When Diane Ravitch came out against NCLB, that had to be the final nail.) But in Oregon alone, we have wasted millions of dollars and thousands of school days in a program that never showed any potential for success.

And now the move is toward national standards. And because the feds will attach money to them, the lemming-like states will line up and march toward to sea. Oregon? We'll scramble to be first. Incredible.

If the result of statewide standards in Oregon is wildly disparate achievement between two schools in the same Oregon district (Portland comes to mind), who in their right mind would imagine that national standards will create parity among schools in Mobile, Minneapolis and Manhattan? There is simply no reason to think so. On the other hand, there are billions of reasons to say so. There are new committees, new documents, new curriculum mapping projects, new staff development conferences, books and tapes. There are new textbooks to publish and sell, new formative assessments to develop. And sell, sell, sell. Shiny brochures will flood my office, all promising to move every student up to 'national standards'. Guaranteed.

National standards will be to the Publishing-Education-Technology complex what World War II was to American manufacturing interests. Profits falling from the sky. The goal? It seems to be to lead the world in the production of college graduates by the year 2020. President Obama seems to have endorsed the goal. Like the 2014 goal set by President Bush, it conveniently pushes any real accountability out beyond the life expectancy of the current administration.

2020? It used to stand or perfect vision. Now it stands for perfect deferral. Which of the big decision-makers will still be in their positions of authority when 2020 comes and the national standards movement bears no fruit? Not the President or Secretary Duncan. Not the Oregon Superintendent. Not the superintendents of the large districts who will jump on board and echo the promises of the Administration. Ten years from now? It's doubtful that they will still be paying into PERS. Some people will make careers and others will extend them by getting on board with National Standards, just as they did with NCLB. Most of them will be far beyond any accountability by 2020. And billions will have been spent. And a good percentage of those billions will have been wasted.

It was either Frank Smith or Richard Allington who said that no reading program had yet been invented that could prevent all students from learning to read. NCLB didn't put a complete halt to student achievement. Neither will the dive to National Standards. But like every commercial reading program yet published, it will dampen the results that would be possible without this noisy, time-consuming, distraction from the task of educating the next generation. It will line the pockets of gurus and produce very little added value. The opportunity costs will go unmeasured, but they will be tremendous.

Public education's addiction to fads and to empty 'visions' is its Achilles' heel. National Standards are just the latest delusion. In 2020 I'll open this blog for comments and you can explain how wrong I was...I promise.

Corbett, Washington?

Over the past ten years, Corbett School District has achieved the dramatic improvement that has eluded the State of Oregon. The State of Oregon, for its part, has kept quiet as Corbett has been recognized by various national agencies and media. Far from embracing Corbett's achievement as its own, the Oregon Department of Education has kept Corbett at arms length. Why? I'm not certain that they want it known that improving student achievement has nothing to do with State Standards, DDDM, PLC's, RTI, AVID, CIP, CDIP, NCLB, Scientific, Scientifically-Based, Evidence-Based, or VooDoo Based Evidence, or any of the highly profitable rituals that are the mainstay of the current educational practice. They don't want to celebrate the achievements of a district that openly expresses concern that TSPC is on the wrong track, that their definitions of Highly Qualified Teachers and quality professional development are wrong-headed. They don't like that we don't embrace the recommendations of the Chalkboard Project, the PTA, OSBA, the FBI... or that we believe the OEA to be a significant barrier to school improvement. And they certainly don't want it known that a district with Corbett's record of achievement has embraced a Charter School.

During a recent private meeting with the President of The College Board, he wondered aloud regarding Oregon's lack of acknowledgment of Corbett School District's astounding performance in the Advanced Placement program. I fumbled for an answer. What I landed on was this: in order for Corbett to produce improvements that were unlike those posted by any other Oregon district during the same decade, we had to approach education in ways that were fundamentally different from the Oregon orthodoxy that produced almost nothing. And when I say different, I mean 'in opposition' to. And when I say 'in opposition to', I mean that we believe that Oregon's approach to school improvement has been, on every level, disastrous. And it has been disastrously expensive. It is no secret that our practices, in direct opposition to every prescription from the State and Federal department, have produced unparalleled results. So it makes some sense that they ignore us.

The occasion of the above meeting was the College Board's Western Regional Forum in San Diego. We were invited to speak and to meet the President of the Board. The College Board published a special announcement in recognition of those schools in the Western Region that were recognized by Newsweek Magazine as being among the top 100 high schools in the nation. It was an elite list, and Corbett was on it. Right there in black and white. Well, almost. The College Board, those same folks who wondered why Oregon ignored us, listed us as Corbett, Washington.

Corbett, Washington. That would explain a lot. And it would let Oregon off the hook.

Oregon Gives Up Hope

The Oregon Department of Education has broken a fundamental rule: when deploying smoke and mirrors, don't skimp on the smoke. Mirrors present the clear danger of catching a glimpse of oneself, and that can be a jolting experience.

In this case, the image is not a pleasant one.

ODE is scrambling about like a gaggle of characters in a Buster Keaton movie, pushing, pulling, and hoping against hope to so situate a mobile goal post in the path of an errant kick that they can throw both arms toward the heavens and shout "Field Goal!!!" And their exuberance is, so far as I can judge, real. They are, it appears, authentically mistaken.

The State of Oregon has made no significant progress on student achievement in a decade. They have provided no evidence that they know how. Yet they insist that they can and that their lead is one that we ought all to follow. (And all the while, they are only jumping on every national fad, hoping that whoever started it knows what they are doing). And now this.

They are evidently so desperate to produce the illusion of improvement that they have decided to take what are currently the 10th grade assessments and magically transform them (though with no transformation) to the 11th grade assessments. Will this help students better prepare for life after high school? No. Will passing rates improve? Possibly. Why? More students who would have failed the 10th grade assessments will have dropped out prior to taking the same assessments in 11th grade. Sound cynical? I'm not sure. They don't show much evidence of thinking that far ahead.

And 'riddle me this': with the current ODE leadership having been in place for the better part of a decade, how did the discovery that the 10th grade assessments were misplaced by an entire calendar year somehow escape their attention until now? Shouldn't this intellectual sluggishness disqualify those responsible from further involvement? (or at least result in a good long time-out?)

And riddle me further: if the problem with the 10th grade assessments is that students don't see the requisite curriculum until 11th grade, how is it that over half of the 10th graders in the state will pass the assessments this year? Are over 50% of our students somehow accelerated by a year? Are two-thirds of our 10th graders accelerated in reading? That's how many Oregon students will pass the reading assessment this year. (In Corbett, it will be 90%. It boggles the mind what that implies...our curriculum is clearly misaligned!)

On one level, all of this is fine with me. After all, they got elected. But they don't stop at exercising horrific judgment in high places. They talk. They fill the press and the public discourse with silly notions that get in the way of real conversations about education. They flood entire statewide conferences with failed strategies that are obstacles to student achievement. They have the bully pulpit yet lack the imagination to reach all the way to the 'y'. They repeat every empty cliche that comes down from the national organizations without regard to the fact that their pet programs never produce results. They make judgments about the work of those who actually do the work, and they make them publicly.

So what's wrong with moving the goal post...again? Why not, after all, make the assessments easier? To do so undermines the work of those who insist that real achievement is possible. It puts the lie to those who claim that our children are not being served as well as they could be and that it's the fault of the adults. They give quarter to those who have sat in their desks for years and insisted that Oregon's students just aren't up to the goal of high achievement.

They have taken sides against hope.

More smoke. Really. You don't want to see this.

"...On a Jet Plane..."

Destination San Diego, where Dr. Trani and I will be the guests of The College Board at their annual Western Regional Forum on Saturday and Sunday. We'll be giving a talk about overcoming barriers to Advanced Placement courses for all children.

This month The College Board released its State by State analysis of Advanced Placement participation and performance. Corbett was one of two districts in Oregon in which 30% or more of seniors attempted at least one Advanced Placement exam. The key word is attempted. In 196 Oregon school districts, fewer than 30% even attempted such a thing.

Corbett was also one of only two districts wherein 30% or more of graduating seniors passed at least one A.P. exam prior to graduation. The state average is about 13%, so 30% is pretty good. But in Corbett's Class of 2009, 40% of graduating seniors passed three or more exams!

What about that 13% number? If that's how many Oregon students passed one more more exams, what did Corbett's top 13% do? They attempted an average of 10 exams each, and passed 85% of them with a score of 3 or higher! They earned a score of 4 or 5 on 60% of their exams. One was a State AP Scholar (one of two in Oregon) and one was a National Scholar (one of 53 in Oregon). That's what Corbett's top 13% did. How many passed one or more exams? 60%.

If that's the senior class, it was probably just a flash in the pan. What about the junior class, the Class of 2010? What did its top 13% produce? The top nine of 65 juniors passed an average of 5 exams each. They passed 67% of their exams (a little higher than the national average passing rate). They posted 4's or 5's on 38% of their exams. So Corbett's juniors performed far beyond the Oregon norm for seniors.

Could just be another fluke...law of small numbers and all of that. Let's see what the 10th graders did! (We'll find a flaw here. Just wait!) The top 13% of the Corbett 10th grade (Class of 2011) last year attempted 2.6 exams each and passed 48% of them. They passed an average of 1.25 each. And every one of them had at least one score of 4 or 5. In the 10th grade! So with regard to AP productivity, Corbett's 10th grade significantly outdistanced Oregon's Seniors.

So we're going to San Diego to talk about it. Should be fun.

Academic Decathlon Results

Barlow High School earned 1st place at the State Of Oregon Academic Decathlon Finals. They did commendable work and earned the win. Of special note is that the team exists in large part due to the effort of a remarkable student who wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. It's a great story. A high school senior demanding that pure academic achievement be given a place at the table.

Corbett School and Corbett Charter School earned 2nd and 3rd places, respectively. Corbett Charter School placed 2nd in the Super Quiz, with Corbett School placing 3rd. There were a number of great individual efforts, but we simply lacked the needed depth to pull out the win.

Corbett School won the right to represent Oregon in the online Small Schools national competition. We will do our best.

Overall, we would have to call this a building year. We took two freshmen to the event (almost unheard of) and the Charter team had no veterans. Barlow had two students who competed last year and seven of their nine members were seniors. They were well poised for a win. And they were well prepared.

I have to add that spending time with the 17 competitors from Corbett School and Corbett Charter School was a wonderful experience. These are among the nicest, brightest young people anywhere. I am deeply grateful to know them, and everyone with whom they came in contact was favorably impressed.

I predict that we will (both) do better next year. Stay tuned. For a year.

Valentine Thought

We are off to the State Academic Decathlon competition. Some of the kids have worked very hard. I hope that they earn a trip to nationals...it's a sight to behold. I can't believe I'm nervous. I'm going to miss Lara today. Even more than usual.

Budgetary advice for the day:

Better a great teacher drawing in the dirt with a sharp stick than a mediocrity massaging a Smart Board.

Wish us luck!

P is for Several Words, All Starting with 'P'

P is for Paternalism. It is the bedrock of the traditional public school system in Oregon and elsewhere. Paternalism in education includes the well-intended requirement that parents must send their children to a particular (usually 'neighborhood') school based on their place of residence. Paternalistic school districts believe that the children residing within their boundaries are 'their' children and that they have a fundamental right to whatever funding 'their' children generate from the state or federal governments. They believe that offering parents choice regarding attendance is harmful to 'their' students. The only escape from traditional Paternalism is private school or home school. (There are districts that allow students to attend outside their boundaries, but only with the explicit approval of the district and within certain explicit or implicit 'caps' in place.) Corbett School District has had a clear policy of approving all requests to transfer out for the past decade. I don't know of another district that keeps its doors open to that degree. Corbett made that principled decision, by the way, when it was losing 4% of its student population to transfers out, and twice as many students were leaving as were transferring in.

P is for Patronizing. When districts insist that they know best where a student 'fits', local schools are left to deal with those parents who are unhappy with their powerlessness to choose what's best for their children. Concerned parents rightly believe that if they are given no choice regarding attendance then they should have a say in how the school works. They should get to shape curriculum, operating hours, discipline policies, the choice of math programs, the budget, the contents of the library, the hiring and retention of principals. They hold that no individual decision made by any member of the staff should be beyond parental review. Principals and teachers who want to stay in good standing with their Districts know to keep their parents happy. I once had a superintendent for whom the highest complement that a principal could receive was the news that "I haven't received a single call." What should be educational decisions are now politically motivated. And because some parents are much more demanding than others, parents do not get an equal say in school matters. So now parents are forced to attend particular schools in which key decisions are made by other parents rather than by the professional staff. Giving parents a voice always caries the danger of giving some parents more voice than others.

P is for Professionalism. Schools need to 'go pro'. Plans need to be made and executed by trained professionals. Seasoned educators need to be empowered and responsible to make the decisions that matter. Teachers need to make decisions without fear of reprisal. They need to make demands of students without interference. They need to exercise their judgments based solely on what is best for students without regard for the opinions of non-teachers. They need to be liberated from Politics. (Politics is NOT one of our P's).

We are well on our way to 'going pro'. Many of our parents have discovered that their responsibility is to choose the very best school for their children and not to supervise the teachers or the revise the school philosophy after-the-fact. Some of the first parents who made the breakthrough to 'going pro' made the decision to leave. We honor their decision. When they discovered that teachers were going to be in charge of their classrooms, that students were going to be required to behave themselves, that completing assignments is the job of the student and not the teacher or the parent, they made the decision to find a better 'fit'. They did the right thing and we will remember them as people of conviction.

I have said to my staff that I believe that 90% of our students and 80% of our parents have made the transition to the new reality of the charter philosophy. The students are in the building and in the classroom every day, so they have an advantage. They know that their education is their work. They know that their teachers care about them and that they can count on being held to a high standard of effort, of conduct, of scholarship. They know that being kind and respectful greatly increases their standing in the school community. They know that whining is futile. 90%. That's pretty good.

There are those who haven't turned the corner with us. There are those students who still imagine that to remain intellectually inert will eventually result in someone else rescuing them, though I can't imagine how that would look in practice. A small fraction still believe that the accumulation of zero effort, day after day, will eventually amount to something more than zero. We are working with them. Most will come around.

There are still parents who believe that a nasty email will somehow compensate for a student's missing work or that the appropriate response to a student's misbehavior is to accuse the teacher of 'picking on' the student! These are good, time-tested strategies in the Patronizing School, but they are conspicuously out of place in a Professional School.

There are those who, based on past experience, believe that gossip is a school improvement strategy. I must have heard the phrase a hundred times during my career: "I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I've been talking to other parents..." The occasion for the last time I heard this? A student was reprimanded for being rude in the hall. So the expectation is that an administrator will be swayed by the fact that more than one parent doesn't think children should be required to behave in school? Well, in a Patronizing School, discontent (even in the form of gossip) is a potent weapon. But we strive not to be that school. And I predict that parents who are at home in that environment will continue to feel out-of-sorts regarding their experience here.

I think that achieving 80% consensus among parents in our first year of operation is an astounding achievement. The vast majority understand and appreciate where they are. Their students are going to graduate with an astounding array of options laid out before them. They will be ready to stand on their own and will be prepared, through years of practice, to take responsibility for themselves and to help those around them. They will be magnificent...and all the more so to the degree that we hold ourselves accountable to the vision of Professionalism and refuse to settle for less.

What is a Charter School?

Charter Schools are the hope of education turned right-side up. In what respect?

Several come to mind.

With Regard to Foundations:

Upside Down education begins with the obvious need to educate the children of a geographic area. More specifically, in the British Colonies, the public school system was born out of concern that too many young men were lying about town unprepared (and possibly unwilling) to contribute to the well-being of the community. Parents were accused of failing in their responsibilities, and the community felt the need to respond.

Right-side Up education begins with a sense of HOW children ought to be educated and by whom. The school is designed, top to bottom, to support a particular vision. Parents are invited to have their children educated in accordance with this vision. Parents are not asked to take on the roles of designer, principal, curriculum director or classroom teacher. Those jobs are filled by professionals.

With Regard to Parental Rights:

Upside Down education corrals families into neighborhood schools based solely on residency and without regard to individual family preferences. The results are too familiar to warrant description. Parents have a right to provide input. They have a right to ask for change. They have a right to lobby within the system, to advocate for their kids. But they don't have the right to change schools unless they successfully petition the district for permission to transfer or abandon public education altogether in favor of private or home schooling.

Right-side Up education puts ultimate authority, in the form of choice, in the hands of parents. Parents can support the school or shun it. Because Charter Schools are schools of choice, staff members are under no obligation to please each parent or to respond to pressure from groups of parents. Because parents have the right to walk away, they are never trapped in a charter school, but neither do they have leverage to make demands. Educational decisions are made by professionals, and parents retain their right to choose the best option for their children. The tension built in to mandatory attendance boundaries is broken in favor of a voluntary association.

At its best, that's what a charter school does. It resolves the fundamental tension inherent in the traditional school system. It offers a revolution in the partnership between parents and schools.

How to Lengthen the School Year and Save Money!

Oh, and improve student achievement and teacher retention rates, increase attendance and graduation rates, and reduce anxiety among elementary students.

It's a simple plan, and it will make TPTB nervous from the outset. But they should find comfort in the fact that it is scientifically based.

The Plan? Stop administering OAKS to students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. The current practice is at best wasteful, at worst (more likely, in my mind) harmful in other ways as well.

What would be the result of this Cessation of Hostilities toward the cultivation of the intellect?

We could:

1. Increase time for teaching and learning by anywhere from 3 (in really good schools that only take minimal time for the tests) to 20 (in schools that spend a month on test-prep) days with no added expense. (The longest school year in the world doesn't do any good it's not being used well.) We could add significantly to the school year without touching the calendar.

2. Make school libraries and technology labs available to students and teachers for instructional activities. (There are schools in which the entire technology inventory is tied up for months out of each year because one or another grade has to take state tests in reading, math or science.)

3. Increase the willingness of the best teachers and administrators to work in the most challenging schools. This is critical. Policy-makers bemoan the fact that great teachers don't line up to go to work in struggling schools. But the fact is that teachers who work in struggling schools are often required to employ mind-numbing, commercially-driven strategies aimed at putting band-aides on test scores. Of course great teachers don't want to teach in a place where the teaching profession has been reduced to reading scripted lessons to a room full of defeated youngsters.

4. Save significant dollars and hours that are currently wasted on teaching teachers how to interpret the results of standardized tests (This activity is often referred to as Professional Learning Communities). What if teachers were allowed (and supported) instead to use this time to learn more about the world through participation is real Professional Learning Communities?

5. Save countless dollars and hours that are spent revising the State Standards and the State Assessments for 8-to-11-year-olds. Not one of these hours or dollars adds one iota to student achievement, and yet we continue to hold bake sales for classroom books while throwing good money after bad in the quest for the well-phrased mandate articulating the need for children to know how to add and subtract using carrying and borrowing.

6. Allow children the joy of experiencing a well-rounded school day rather than punishing them with 'early intervention' when they fail to perform on a standardized test. There are students all over Oregon who are being deprived of part of the normal school experience so that they can spend 'double' time doing something at which they are judged to be deficient. I can't think of a better way to make a child hate a subject forever than to force him to spend twice as much time at it while he is missing out on something else that he finds of interest.

7. In the place of anxiety over testing, cultivate a love of learning. For children who love to learn, testing takes care of itself.

My proposal is to give these children a chance to grow up before we begin weighing and measuring the contents of their minds. This is particularly urgent in light of the fact that long-term academic achievement depends far more on the virtues of care, commitment, respect and diligence than it does on specific subject-matter prerequisites. To fail to understand this is to miss the boat so entirely as to risk an ankle sprain from the jolt of striking dry land.

To those who worry that without OAKS academic deficiencies would go undetected, I have to suggest that you go introduce yourself to a real teacher. Elementary teachers know who can and can't read. They know who can and can't do math. A teacher who doesn't know these things regarding his or her own students needs to hang it up. But to organize an entire system around the assumption of incompetence in every classroom is both unrealistic and wasteful.

For those who argue the urgency of EARLY INTERVENTION, your theoretical ice is pretty thin. Early intervention makes the adults feel good. But most children just need more time to get their feet under themselves. And the most urgent needs for early intervention have never relied on state assessments for detection.

Longer School Year? More instructional time? Savings? All doable. Abandon OAKS in the elementary grades.

Sometimes progress depends on the bold implementation of a recent stroke of genius. But there is also something to be said for the decisive abandonment of a deeply entrenched monument to mediocrity.

P.S. I am aware of the federal mandate for testing. So let's grab a test off the shelf (whichever one requires the least amount of time) administer it, and never speak of it again. The savings in instructional time, money, and quality of life would be reduced only slightly by the nuisance. But to continue the charade by which we treat the testing nuisance as a boon to education is unconscionable.

J. K. Rowling for State Superintendent?

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix includes a magnificent parody of the anti-intellectualism that gave rise, in this country, to No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. In the novel, the Ministry of Magic invades Hogwarts and attempts to convert it to a test prep mill in which students prepare to pass their OWL exams and avoid unnecessary distraction such as wands and magic. This in a school for wizards!

The parallel to schools in Oregon where attention to passing the OAKS exam threatens to eliminate any possibility of classroom magic is unmistakable.

Silly? Perhaps. Fun? Undeniably. Hogwarts is a school the likes of which would never be tolerated in the pubic sphere. Classes are taught by 'unqualified' teachers who are only expert practitioners in their fields of study. Instructors raise their voices. Sarcasm is freely administered. Classroom activities sometimes end in bumps and bruised egos (which in our schools is allowable only on the football field) and there is no guarantee against the possibility of failure.

All well and good, but what of the Ministry of Magic working to reduce schooling to a series of basic competency exams? Certainly there is no parallel in our experience!

Is there really a movement so plodding, so pedantic, so life-denying in our own place and time? Obviously! It's common name is No Child Left Behind. A more recent incarnation goes by the name of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. It is the brainchild of the nation's governors and the state superintendents of schools. Forty-eight states have signed on to date. Oregon included. Who signed on Oregon's behalf? Who knows? And yet we are somehow signed up!

Common Core State Standards! What can that mean? All fourth graders the nation should know and be able to do the same things on February 19th of each year? And how is this educational chimera to be promoted if not by a single, national test? Call it an OWL, and OAK, or whatever you wish, it is a profoundly wrong-headed notion. It would be a wrong-headed notion if it could be achieved with the waving of a wand, with no investment of time or expense. But in the world of muggles, there will be no wand-waving. Instead, we will waste millions of hours and dollars on a process at the end of which we will not have achieved any significant gains and we will be looking for the next silver bullet, magic bean, or scientifically-based miracle.

Let's be clear. Common standards do not make sense for two 9-year-olds sitting in the same classroom. They make less sense to two 9-year-olds living across town from one another. And common standards for all 9-year-olds in America (among whom the oldest are 364 days older than the youngest) is absurdity the likes of which can only be achieved on a grand scale.

Rowling is smart. She tells good stories. But how does she understand so much more about education than do the high-profile policy-makers in our state and nation? What a strange turn of events when a writer of fantasy displays more educational insight in her sub-plot than the majority of educational thinkers have been able to put together with decades of conferences, summits, legislative edicts, and re-re-re-re-re-reforms?

We educators like to call what we do a profession. Yet we tend to be cowards when it comes to actually professing. We leave it to the Rowlings, the Tolkiens, the Mathesons of the world to say what really needs to be said about schools and schooling while we professionals stand guard over the safe, the stalwart, the polished forms that are too often empty of meaningful content.

We professionals need to find our voice. We need to profess. We need to demand that what we be allowed to do what we know. That what we do should be fun. We need to be a little more fanciful and a little less concerned with appearances. We need to teach more like coaches and coach more like teachers. We need to develop real, authentic relationships with our charges and bring extraordinary expertise to their intellectual lives. We need to read literature with an ambulance on the sidelines and play football with a poet's passion.

We should demand that what we do be fun. Serious fun. More fun than Bill and Ted or Ferris Bueler. More fun that Charlie Bartlett.

The obstacles are many and they are formidable. The State of Oregon. The Ministry of Magic. The U.S. Department of Education. Every professional organization that I am aware of. Public opinion, shaped by years of uniformed (to put the best face on it) reporting. But the possibility of progress is worth the effort.

It appears that Superintendent Castillo may have competition in the next election. Election? Is that really how we want to choose a state superintendent? Do we really want which ever applicant can mount the best political campaign? Perhaps we should consider an alternative. Many states appoint a superintendent. Maybe it's worth considering. And J.K. Rowling might be worth a careful look. She won't fall for claims of magic where there is none. That would be a great start.

David and the Philistine

"An art which cannot be specified in detail cannot be transmitted by prescription, since no prescription for it exists".

"It is pathetic to watch the endless efforts--equipped with microscopy and chemistry, with mathematics and electronics--to reproduce a single violin of the kind the half-literate Stradivarius turned out as a matter of routine more than 200 years ago."

Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, describing the limits of science in comprehending artful performance.

PBS. RTI. AVID. IDEA. RTTT. Title I. TAG. OAKS. NCLB. State Standards. National Standards. Direct Instruction. Reading First. All examples of an attempt to 'transmit by prescription' and measure the outcomes of the art of teaching.

I have written again and again, one acronym at a time, that each of these programs/approaches/concepts is deeply flawed. They are not flawed in their implementation or in their finer points. This is not a matter of nuances. They can't be fixed or adjusted or improved. They are flawed in principal. They are epistemologically malformed. They are monstrous. They have their roots in a misunderstanding of science. Everything else follows from that misunderstanding.

Each of these programs is worthy of criticism in its own right. Each is flawed in ways that are unique to its intended outcomes. Still their single common flaw dwarfs their individual maladies. But how does one flaw find its way into all of these arenas?

The proponents of these various programs begin with an inadequate understanding of the physical sciences which they then misapply to the social sciences. Next they misappropriate this ill-wrought vision of social science and deploy it as a substitute for a theory of education. They have no theory of education and yet they are certain that they have the wisdom to determine practice on a state and national scale.

There you have it. Three sentences, three critical errors. And all of those errors are subterranean. They aren't even part of the discussion in the education community. In fact each error registers as truth (through relentless repetition) in the deep background knowledge of educators everywhere. Schools of education never discuss these issues. Most have no faculty capable of leading the discussion. They indoctrinate without questioning, they believe without hesitation. Their unexamined belief? The common article of faith? That they are doing some sort of science. That the practices that they promote are 'scientifically based'. That when they add up three test scores and divide by three, they are doing the educational equivalent of physics or chemistry. The notion is, of course, absurd. But they are serious. And they are in charge.

Those within the education community (mostly teachers) who feel ill-at-ease with the ramifications of this flawed thinking generally lack the channels of communication with which to effectively voice them. And if they can articulate them, they are still under the authority of leaders who don't want to hear it (and who often as not wouldn't understand it if they did). Education 'leaders' aren't generally informed or patient with ideas. They don't know or like philosophy. Most will identify themselves as pragmatists, by which they mean that they just 'do what works'. The fact that what they do doesn't work seems never to register with them. The fact that they don't understand Pragmatism (a philosophical orientation) leaves them untouched.

There are many circumstances in which it is unimportant whether a person lacks philosophical sophistication. But educational leaders who miss the mark regarding the very nature of schooling are far from harmless. Educational leaders who want to command compliance with their malformed theories are dangerous in the extreme.

These are people who cannot tell the difference between Merlot and grape jelly, Van Gogh and paint by numbers, Giselle and DDR. They are artless. AND they misunderstand science. Twice blind, and firmly in charge.

All that is left to those of us who have glimpsed the possibility of teaching as art, as craft, requiring judgment and connoisseurship, is to shield those closest to us from the worst of the edicts of the philistines and to create what space we may for real education to take place within our spheres of influence.

Data Driven Decision-Making?

Current educational literature contains few ideas that are so widespread or so damaging as "Data Driven Decision Making". (This phrase has recently displaced "Rigor, Relevance and Relationships" as the shibboleth of the neo-know-nothings who both create and profit from the state and national consensus regarding educational practice).

Because most preachers know very little about their own sacred texts, it is entertaining in the extreme to occasionally ask some unsuspecting proponent of DDDM what exactly is meant by the phrase. The typical response is a moment of shocked silence (surely everybody knows that!) followed by an disturbingly similar disclaimer (delivered with almost catechism-like exactitude): "Well, when we say data, we don't mean just numbers...we mean informal data, too, like the observations that teachers make in the classroom and all sorts of ordinary things..." Wait a minute! If when 'we' say 'data' 'we' don't really mean what everyone else means by that word, then why are 'we' using it? If what 'we' really mean is 'decisions driven by the immediate experience and judgment of each classroom teacher' then why don't 'we' just use those words? Well, that's just not what 'we' mean. Quite the opposite. What 'we' more often mean is a sort of slight of hand by means of which a teacher's direct knowledge and judgment regarding her students is discarded in favor of abstract data analysis.

And what is ironically called 'Professional Development' is in reality quite the opposite: training teachers to interpret data regarding their own students as though they had never actually met, never spoken, never shared a passion for learning, a love for the world or for each other. Training teachers, in fact, to distrust their own eyes, their own judgment. Training teachers to avoid risks, to avoid controversy, to play it safe.

What can ultimately be meant by 'Datadrivendecisionmaking' except the abdication of personal responsibility? If the decision was driven by data, then no other decision was possible. Nobody else, properly trained in a the proper conduct of Professional Learning Communities could have decided otherwise. If the results are disappointing, it's not anyone's fault. Nobody is responsible. The decision was not mine, after all, but was driven by the data. The decision was the result of technique and not judgment. And when (not if, but when) the results of this sort of manipulation are disastrous, it is the technique and not the decision-maker that needs refining, resulting in a need for new workshops, new trainings, new shibboleths, new profits for prophets.

Data Driven Decision Making is finally just another delay tactic. It will buy a few more years while its proponents claim that it's too early to judge the results. About the time that the results might be accessible, the next new thing will come along to replace it. The new innovation will require several years of implementation, of course, before its effects can be judged.

The Banishment of Professional Judgment

Much of current programming in education only makes sense if one begins with the assumption that most (if not all) teachers are below average. Sounds silly, I know. But a quick review of common practices makes sense of this claim.

The Standards Movement, to take the broadest example, assumes that teachers are incapable of guiding or evaluating the reading progress of a 9-year-old. It not only assumes that the teacher is not expert, it assumes that the teacher is so incapacitated that only an expensive, time-consuming commercial program can provide reliable instruction and that only an expensive and time-consuming outside assessment can provide real 'data' regarding a student. It further posits that the numbers generated by the test paint a better picture of a student than the teacher is capable of producing independently.

The 'Professional Learning Communities' movement, ironically enough, teaches teachers what to say to each other when they collaborate. It trains them to systematically sift through data for the purpose of replacing each teacher's independent judgment regarding their children (which would require competence) with a common approach. Thus, if students are posting an inappropriate number on a sub-strand of the outside assessment then the teachers ought to agree to a one-size-fits-all strategy for changing that number. The marvel of this movement is that it recruits teachers to collaborate in ridiculing the notion that any of them really know what they are doing! PROFESSIONAL Learning Communities?

Positive Behavior Support is a miracle of commercial packaging. Who could possibly be opposed to Positive Behavior Support? Only those who remember B.F. Skinner and his claim that promoting pro-social behavior is just a question of conditioning people to respond in certain ways to certain stimuli. For most PBS practitioners (who one has to believe have never heard of The Skinner Box) PBS is just a harmless network of bribes for good behavior. They don't even remember that the word 'positive' in this context means the introduction of a new stimulus to the situation and that it has nothing to do with warm and fuzzy feelings. Prizes for good behavior is all they know about the program. Fine. That should be enough. To take something so essential to human community (one's conduct around others) and to reduce it to an exercise in prize-grubbing is an insult to our children as well as to our teachers. It takes the virtue out of behaving well (because now good behavior is competition for a limited number of prizes) and it strips the teacher of her traditional role of a caring adult who models and encourages virtue. PBS replaces virtue with greed. It is cynical. And within the context of this discussion, it strips the teacher of any significant role in facilitating the development of virtue through daily interaction in the flow of teaching and learning.

I don't know how many letters of recommendation I have written for students, teachers and administrators. Whatever the number, I can say with some certainty that there is one adjective that I have never used to describe a prospective candidate for admission to college, scholarships, or employment. I have never described a candidate as "proficient". Proficiency is assumed. It is a minimum standard. To lay claim to it is to lay claim to mediocrity.

Credit by Proficiency obscures differences among students. It eliminates the achievement gap by limiting advanced achievement. If proficiency is the goal, then nobody needs to worry about being more than proficient. While giving the appearance of rigor, Credit by Proficiency promotes mediocrity.

If I could waive a magic wand and make every student in Corbett proficient readers, writers and mathematicians, I would not give it a moment's thought. No, thanks. Or maybe no thanks. No thanks at all. Why? Because proficiency is not a worthy goal for our kids (and not just because they are ours). Proficiency that is not won in the context of meaningful, life-impacting relationships with teachers (whether a favorite or a least favorite is beside the point)is largely useless. Most of the value of high school (where the credit by proficiency movement is growing) consists in the interactions between students and teachers and among students. To leave our high school with only proficiency in math and without the benefit of hours of time with our math teacher is to miss the whole point. Writing proficiency? Absent the encouragement and demands and expert guidance of our English teachers, the achievement of proficiency (measured, no doubt, by some standardized test) is hollow.

Education consists in relationships. Proficiencies, academic standards, social skills, all of these are only significant in the context of long months and years of mentoring. Mentoring requires skill. It hinges on judgment. Eliminate the professional judgment of those whom we have tasked with mentoring the next generation and there is nothing of value going on at school.

Standards, PLC's, PBS, RTI...if these reflect our beliefs and our aspirations regarding children, then it would be much more efficient to leave them at home with a computer and an online account. Data could be collected moment by moment, prescribed correctives could be delivered immediately, disruptive behavior would no longer disrupt (we could take lessons from game designers on how to reinforce desirable responses) and certificates of proficiency could be downloaded and printed off at the completion of each unit. Diplomas could be printed at birth and password protected pending the accumulation of the prescribed proficiencies. Letters of recommendation could be customized to each young graduate.

If we believe in the virtue and the efficacy of meeting together, of sharing more of ourselves than our proficiencies, of putting children in contact with magnificent adults, then why would we simultaneously employ practices that reflect a very different (and thoroughly cynical) view of the world? One explanation is that too many schools and school districts don't trust that they have gathered magnificent adults to mentor their children. So they compensate by preventing the adults from making important decisions, from exercising judgment, from evaluating their own work.

I am occasionally called 'cynical' for the swiftness and harshness with which I dismiss so many of the educational fads of the day. Quite the opposite in the case. Cynicism is the core value of these various fads, and my response is an emphatic rejection of cynicism. Every program cited here demonstrates a profound distrust of teachers. All offer a meager vision for our educational future. They betray a lack hope for our children. To reject them is not cynical. I am an unrepentant optimist. Were I not, I would be more polite to those in power whose cheerful cynicism causes immeasurable, ongoing harm to children and to the efforts of every good teacher within their spheres of influence.

If we can't find ways to let our great teachers be great, and if we instead impose on them those strictures that are designed to restrain the incompetent, then I fear that a self-fulfilling prophecy may result when great teachers refuse in ever greater numbers to participate in this folly.

We need to reassert the necessity and support the development of professional judgment in the work of teachers. We need to strip away every tendency to devalue or limit its exercise. That, or we will achieve standardization...and the standard will be mediocrity or worse.

Follow the Bouncing Blog!

Blogging about education from inside the system carries certain career risks. The fact is that education is political. There is therefore nothing to be said, among those things that might be worth saying, that lacks the potential to offend someone. And there are those who hold that the very prospect of anyone being offended (a friend calls it "Portland Nice", by which I take him to mean the local belief that it is better to let your neighbor's dog tinkle on your shoe than to point out that the mangy beast has the manners of a feral pig and the intelligence of a filbert) is a threat to the very fabric of life. So the blog has moved. Again. It is no longer linked to the website that shall not be named, nor are the opinions, aspirations or even the facts of the matter on these posts in any way a reflection of the attitudes, beliefs, or reality of the sponsors of the aforementioned site. Nobody here but us chickens. Really. Just me pecking at the alphabet with an occasional point for punctuation.