Saturday, March 6, 2010

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.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

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.