WHY TOP-DOWN SCHOOL REFORM DOESN'T WORK

One of the most critical aspects of the present wave of school reform is that would-be reformers don't bother to ask teachers what they think. Emboldened by their own ignorance and impelled by a desire to posture for the electorate, politicians concoct top-down changes then try to force-feed them to gagging teachers.

This condescending style of management dates back to the era when classroom teachers were long-suffering females and the power holders were self-satisfied males. Today this style is alarmingly bisexual. Consider Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of Education, Washington, DC. She is a top-down reformer par excellence.

Top down reform also used to be a right wing specialty. William Bennett, President Reagan's blowhard Clown Prince of Education, for instance, combined top-down reform with unrestrained teacher bashing. These days, however, progressives like Arne Duncan, our conspicuously untrained, but politically connected, Secretary of Education, has adopted it without reservation.

The chief problem with this heavy-handed approach is that it rarely works. As far back as the 1970's a Rand Corporation study clearly demonstrated that successful introduction of innovations requires voluntary, highly motivated participants.

Think about it. It is teachers who must implement these so-called reforms. And once they close that classroom door there are a thousand ways to resist ranging from inaction, through half-hearted implementation, to sabotage.

The perception that teachers stand in the way of needed reform is one motivation for imposing non-consultative change. But resistance to change is hardly distinctive to teachers. Resistance is an inevitable response to any major change in any organization.[3] And when those changes are being pushed on you by the same people who disrespect you and ignore your advice, resistance is not only more likely, but sensible.
Nevertheless, teacher resistance so frustrates policy makers that if they ever thought about soliciting teacher consent and cooperation, they think about it no longer. Instead they become ever more controlling, autocratic and disrespectful. They implement straight jacket policies, eliminate delegated authority, and ratchet up coercion via so-called "merit pay."

The trouble is such policies only increase the sort of frustration and anxiety that stiffens teacher resistance. Nevertheless, politicians exercise their power with complete disregard for its impact on teacher morale. In fact, they seem to have lost all concern for the actual consequences of their "reforms" on those who must carry them out. Perhaps these reformers can't imagine the negative state of mind their actions promote — much less the negative consequences they have on instruction.

One reason policy makers underestimate the need for teacher cooperation is that they are too far removed from classroom realities. Unilaterally imposed "reforms" might seem plausible when viewed from the Olympus of Capital Hill or the White House. Imposed change might even seem credible in the less rarified atmosphere of a state capital. But on the ground, at the classroom level, the top=down approach fuels opposition, lowers teacher morale, and decreases teacher effectiveness.

Sure teachers must be held accountable for being informed, caring and doing their best with the resources they command. But contemporary reformers are going way beyond that. They demand that teachers be miracle workers who must somehow nullify anything that impacts school achievement. Never mind what goes on in the home, on the street, in the community, the economy, or in the school in general. There are to be "no excuses." If a child fails in school it is ultimately attributable to a teacher! What humbug!

Teachers know from bitter experience that what the boss calls "excuses" are often well-founded explanations. And researchers have found that a major source of employee resistance to change is fear of failure in the new environment.[4] So what are the reformers doing? They are demanding that teachers embrace a change that literally allows no room for failure no matter what. Who wouldn't be fearful of that kind of craziness?

STILL MORE BULLSHIT ABOUT TEACHER EDUCATION

Those who can do, those who can’t teach, and those who can’t teach, teach teachers. —Anonymous Teacher education has long been a low status activity, and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan isn’t making it any better. Lacking any professional preparation himself, Duncan nevertheless confidently asserts that many, if not most, of the nation’s teacher preparation programs are second-rate. He claims that they attract inferior students and weak faculty. He also charges that colleges and universities use them as “cash cows,” bleeding off the revenues they generate. Politics, Not Logic There is truth in Duncan's allegations. But at the same time he demands increased rigor in teacher preparation, Duncan also praises alternative “quickie” routes into teaching. Logic demands that if teacher education lacks rigor, it must be made tougher, not easier. How shall we account for Duncan's illogic? The explanation is that Duncan holds a political office, and naturally prefers politics to logic. So let's forget his observation that: It’s no surprise that studies repeatedly document that the single biggest influence on student achievement is the quality of the teacher standing in the front of the classroom. For Duncan it's politics that takes first priority. Mr. Duncan says he favors getting to the root of the nation’s educational problems. Time magazine, for instance, quotes him as saying, It’s obvious the [educational] system’s broken. Let’s admit it’s broken, let’s admit it’s dysfunctional, and let’s do something dramatically different, and let’s do it now. But don’t just tinker around the edges. Don’t just play with it. Let’s fix the thing. The trouble is, at least when it comes to teacher education, Duncan doesn’t follow his own advice. Letting State Officials Off the Hook Duncan conveniently ignores the fact that state governments set, and enforce, standards for teacher education. So if programs are lousy, Duncan’s primary quarrel is with state officials. Duncan could use the big bag of non-earmarked money that the Obama administration is injecting into schooling as a means to compel those officials to raise teacher education standards. Would state officials do a good job of improving teacher education? Probably not, but since Duncan is inordinately fond of top-down reform, his inattention to state responsibility suggests he isn't really serious. Professional Education Schools Also, if Duncan were not just “tinkering around the edges,” but truly serious about improving teacher education, he would advocate the complete abolition of undergraduate programs. In their place, he would demand graduate-level professional schools of education modeled on the training required by other established professions. Consider what is required of aspiring physicians, attorneys, architects, optometrists, dentists, podiatrists, veterinarians, and chiropractors, for example. Entrance into any of these occupations requires selective, tough, graduate-level schooling in a specialized environment. To qualify for entrance, candidates first have to grow up, get a college education, and pass a tough examination. In contrast, teacher education programs typically are mere undergraduate majors that must compete for student attention with other undergraduate requirements and campus social life. Most teacher education programs can’t even select their own applicants. They must accept anyone the university admits who declares they want to major in education. In consequence, teacher educators have to make do with many immature, unfocused, often marginally committed youngsters who aren’t developmentally ready for serious study. By what magic is such raw material to be transformed into skilled, dedicated professionals? Money Talks Why the enormous difference between training in the true professions and in teaching? Is teaching easy? Just give it a try. Is there little to learn? Not the last time I checked. No, the reason those other occupations can charge a higher price for admission is because of the generous benefits that await graduates. Forgetting his secret tape recorder was on, Richard Nixon once candidly observed, “Money talks and bullshit walks.” And Secretary Duncan emphasizes that sort of bullshit in his speeches. He specializes in fertilizer such as this: There is no question that our country needs you. Our children need you. [I]f you care about promoting opportunity and reducing inequality, the classroom is the place to start. Great teaching is about so much more than education; it is a daily fight for social justice. This call to teaching is the great public mission of our time. . . .[3] Secretary Duncan goes on to say, “Put plain and simple, this country needs an army of great, new teachers.”[5] What Duncan does not say is that this country is not about to offer sufficient rewards for teaching to attract many of the best and brightest, nor will it support truly professional preparation. In fact, Duncan's florid rhetoric indicates that the substantial benefits of teaching are slim indeed. That doesn’t mean that the symbolic benefits are unworthy, mind you, but in this materialistic society they don’t offer the same degree of motivation as money. Warm Bodies Given how we poorly we reward teachers and how enthusiastically we dump on them, professionalizing entrance requirements would cause the candidate pool to dry up. Then where would we find the roughly two hundred thousand new teachers per year that the United States will shortly need? Remember, it has been a long time since sexism forced nearly all the best and brightest women into teaching. Today’s competent women have many other options. Conclusion The truth is that America's politicos only pretend that they want high-quality teacher preparation. If they really wanted it they would not tolerate slack state regulation, ever-easier ways to enter teaching, and exploitation by short-sighted college officials. It's just that, given the current costs and benefits of being a teacher, it is absolutely necessary to make it cheap and easy to enter the occupation. Of course, this slapdash approach creates many difficulties. But they can be dealt with by focusing still more blame on teachers and teacher educators. Duncan’s rhetoric provides a perfect example of this political sleight of hand. What lies beyond Duncan's rhetorical smokescreen? In the end, it is more of the same old bullshit. We might as well still have William Bennett in the saddle. At least he offered comic relief. In the end one can’t help but wonder if the Secretary of Education would encourage his own kids to become teachers. A quote from William C. Bagley comes to mind: When will men who would never for a moment encourage their own sons to enter the work of the public schools cease to tell us that education is the greatest and noblest of all human callings?[4] To further examine these and similar issues, see articles at www.newfoundations.com -- GKC

HEY BUDDY, WANNA BE A TEACHER? Thoughts on Alternative Certification

Way back when there was a surplus of teachers, 0ur politicians ignored the opportunity to toughen teacher preparation and actually improve public education. Instead, they sat on their hands and let self-serving higher education administrators graduate thousands of half-trained, half-committed, half-witted candidates in order to cash their tuition checks. 

Now there is a scarcity of teachers. And how are state officials facing this challenge?  They are dealing with the problem by further weakening already wimpy teacher certification standards. Pennsylvania provides one worrisome example. Decades ago when teachers were becoming scarcer Pennsylvania's Governor Tom Ridge declared that those who have a hankering to teach need only take a ten day summer seminar to qualify for a classroom of their very own. Then, after no more than six credits of additional instruction in pedagogy, they could be certified for life. How’s that for standards? Of course many other states have done and are doing the equivalent.

Ridge claimed he wanted to “…help local education agencies fill critical vacant positions in secondary or K-12 content areas with ‘outstanding’ candidates for eventual level I certification.” He actually wanted to fill teaching vacancies in the state’s educational wastelands with whatever warm bodied cannon fodder could be found. He also wanted to weaken the state’s teachers unions, both of whom had been smart enough to oppose his election. (By the way, Ridge is the fellow who subsequently became  U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security and advised us to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting to ward off possible chemical, biological or radiological attacks.)

Politicians typically assert that thousands will jump right into teaching if they just don’t first have to expend effort to learn something about doing it. Besides, they argue, kids taught by certified teachers don’t do any better on achievement tests than those taught by scrubs. Here’s what’s wrong with this argument: 

 • Research actually shows kids do better when taught by certified teachers. 

 • Just because a teacher is certified doesn’t mean they have had adequate preparation. Certification means little so long as state officials fail to require tough program approval standards ,then close down low quality cash cow programs that exist to generate tuition dollars. 

 • So-called “achievement” tests are only one measure of a teacher’s success — and a weak one at that. We need only consider what they don’t measure to appreciate their limitations. 

 • You don’t get elite troops without tough training and you don’t get top-flight teachers with easy training either. Requiring a candidate to prove their commitment and capabilities by surviving a tough training process is vitally important.

 

 • Filling public schools with marginally committed, virtually untrained warm bodies destroys whatever hope teaching has of becoming a full-fledged profession. This fits the political agenda of “conservative” politicians who want to further weaken the profession for selfish reasons. 

 • However weak they presently are, most certification programs do sort out at least some of the candidates who are lazy, uncaring, mentally unstable, potential child molestors, and so forth. God knows what kind of people will sneak in with some crazy, just pee a hole in snow, alternative certification process. 

 • Subject matter knowledge is necessary for teaching competence; but it is not sufficient. To be competent a teacher must also command a body of professional knowledge. 

 • Certification was introduced largely because teaching was bedeviled by patronage. Hiring was based on anything and everything but professional competence. Without tough certification standards that’s where we're heading again. Political affiliation, religious preference or who your brother-in-law is will be what gets you a teaching job. 

 • Alternative certification and weak-in-the-knees programs undermine those teacher educators who still demand respectable standards. 

It’s very difficult to continue to insist on quality teacher preparation when government officials don't give a damn about it. Instead, alternative certification and existing cash-cow programs drive demanding programs out of existence. Why spend a lot of time and effort to become a teacher when there are far, far easier ways?

Will turning out truly qualified teachers actually improve our schools? Look to Finland. Troubled by low achievement, Finland dramatically upped teacher preparation standards as well as the pay and professional autonomy of their teachers. The result was a dramatic improvement in Finland's academic achievement that finds them, year after year, at or near the very top.

It's palpably obvious that you won't improve an organization by enforcing laughable entry standards. Consider the Navy SEALS. Seventy five per-cent of their candidates fail to meet the mark. But the twenty five percent can certainly get the job done. Or here's a very different sort of example. The requirements to participate in building those great European cathedrals that still astound us more than a thousand years after their creation. To qualify to participate in their creation took years of demanding effort. First as an apprentice. Then a  journeyman. And finally, after proving your skill by creating a masterpiece, as a master craftsman. Only then were you fully qualified to help create these awe-inspiring wonders. 

The craftsmen who built these marvels didn't just grab any shlep wandering by, shove a chisel into his hand and say, "Hey buddy, how'd ya like to take a crack at carving that stone into a gargoyle." But that, in essence, is what we are doing to prepare the people who help us shape the lives of our children! Shame on us! It's way past time to match the standards of entry into teaching to the importance of the job!

DEBASING SCHOOLING: Preparing Kids for the World of Work

Recently I was involved in interviewing a candidate for Director of Graduate Teacher Education at my university. She was a twenty year administrative veteran of a big city school district and, more recently, superintendent of several different suburban districts. During the interview she kept referring to schools preparing children for the world of work. After a while I began to wonder if she thought schools should do anything else. When I asked her about that she looked bewildered and said, "Like what?" I suggested that perhaps schooling should have something to do with truth and beauty, for example. She frowned in disapproval and said that this sort of thing was up to parents or other non-school agencies. Then she added, "I seem to have a broader vision than you do of what education is about." How she came to that conclusion I am at a loss to explain. But I am not at a loss to explain her commitment to the notion that schools should concentrate on preparing kids for the world of work. That ominously unimaginative priority has dominated every governmental education "reform" since A Nation At Risk. That was the sensationalistic Reagan administration sponsored 1983 report on American education which claimed our schools were so awful that if a foreign power had caused their deterioration it would be a cause for war. No Child Left Behind simply reiterates this report's alarming emphasis on schooling as a means of training internationally competitive workers. This unimaginative goal fails to consider the unpatriotic nature of multinational corporations. They typically don't give a damn about the US or its workers. What they care about is profit. So if, say, the Vietnamese, sew shirts at less cost than US garment workers the jobs go to Vietnam regardless of how well schooled Americans are for the world of work. Such an unimaginative goal also vulgarizes the proper ends of education. At its best schooling is not about improving international competitiveness. Schooling is about cultivating wisdom, it is about discovering what is universal in the human experience, it is about discovering that truth and beauty are more valuable than profit, and it is about learning how to assess value, not just price. Such transcendendent values must not be replaced with beating the Chinese at making widgits. In the best case, an exclusive focus on preparing school kids for the world of work will succeed only in creating more competitive barbarians.

KISSING UP AND TEACHER MERIT

President Obama’s education agenda, which turns out to be George W. Bush’s program squared, has a particular feature that could have an unfortunate impact on teachers — merit pay. Whenever I think about teacher merit pay I’m reminded of a situation that occurred when I taught seventh grade. Our school’s scarce audio-visual equipment was “stored” in the classroom of the principal’s favorite teacher. The practical consequence was that this teacher, we’ll call him George, had first claim on it— a privilege he routinely abused. How did George become the principal’s favorite? It wasn’t that he was the most skillful teacher. He actually bored the kids half to death. His talent was boot licking. The man stroked the principal’s ego like Paganini bowed a violin. And since he taught nothing of consequence nor dared anything different, he never made waves. The principal loved him for that too. This is how George got the AV equipment, as well as choice assignments; and this is what would have won him merit pay if such a thing had then existed. Yes, teacher merit pay could easily turn into bonuses for brown-nosers. And even if standardized test scores become the soul criteria, favoritism could still play a role in who gets the money. That’s because the principal’s favorites often end up with the easiest classes and particularly difficult kids are quickly reassigned to some less favored soul. One doesn’t even have to be the principal’s favorite to gain such advantages. Sometimes being a secretary’s favorite will do. I personally know of a school secretary who annually let her favorite pick the kids she wanted in her class because the secretary was her friend and neighbor. The other same grade level teachers got, as one of them dejectedly put it, “the dregs.” Will favoritism result in unfair competition for merit pay? It’s a good bet. To examine these and similar issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com

THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT AND ABSTINENCE-ONLY SEX EDUCATION

As Governor of Texas, a born-again George W. Bush was unequivocal in his support for abstinence-only sex education. And when he became President he put the full weight of the federal government behind it, spending $1.5 billion trying to convince hormone-addled adolescents that self-denial was their only suitable standard of sexual behavior prior to marriage. The abstinence-only approach also encouraged, some say, “pressured,” teens to sign a pledge that they would remains virgins until marriage. In order for schools to qualify for federal funding all other types of sexual and reproductive education, particularly those dealing with birth control and safe sex, had to be excluded from the curriculum. The use of contraceptives could be mentioned only to emphasize their failure rates — which often were grossly exaggerated. An overwhelming majority of experts opposed the President’s program. In fact, abstinence-only education was officially criticized as unscientific and ineffective by the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, the Society for Adolescent Medicine, the American College Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Public Health Association. But Bush and a host of sleazy Texas politicians could care less. Even the general public was opposed to the abstinence-only approach. At the height of Bush's popularity, a solid majority of the public did not support it. In fact, fully 82 percent wanted other methods of preventing pregnancy taught, and a surprising 70 percent supported teaching kids how to use condoms properly. If the experts were so opposed, who supported it? Many social conservatives did. But the Christian right, particularly televangelists such as Jerry Falwell, John Hagee and Pat Robertson, were its most passionate champions. They used their nationally televised pulpits to recklessly, and often falsely, attack existing sex education programming and promote the total abstinence approach. Pat Robertson’s fulminations were typical. In one broadcast, for instance, he said, "Sexuality is a sacred thing. It is the creation of human life, made in the image of God. …. It isn't just something where you hook up with this one and then you hook up with that one. But, that's the message. It is on college campuses. It is in these schools, and the educators are buying into it. If you want to fix some of this you'll stop the teachers from pushing that thing that was going on -- I think it was a program called SIECUS by Mary Calderone and it must have been 30 or more years ago that was free sex and the whole thing. That's Planned Parenthood's plan -- to have kids have as many babies as they can, then we can start sterilizing them." Where did such reckless charges originate? They were "borrowed" from an earlier, and very successful, religious right campaign against sex education that began in the 1960’s. Reverend Robertson was just inaccurately repeating an old discredited con. OK, so both experts and the public weren't behind abstinence-only — the Christian right was. But experts, even an overwhelming majority of experts can be wrong. So can the general public. Maybe the program actually worked. No, it was a bust. Research clearly demonstrates that abstinence-only had no enduring effect on teen’s sexual behavior. As a matter of fact, teens who took the much publicized virginity pledge not only had sex just as often as those who didn’t; they also engaged in more far-more-dangerous substitutes and protected themselves less often from disease and unwanted pregnancy. The facts are that almost 75 percent of U.S. teenagers have had sexual intercourse before they reach age twenty. American teens under fifteen also are more likely to have sex, and with more than one partner in a year, than teenagers in Sweden, France, Canada, and the United Kingdom. And the U.S. has the highest level of teen pregnancy of any developed nation—eight times higher than Holland and Japan, for example. Disregarding these realities, Republican Party leaders adopted abstinence-only sex education as a component of their 2008 party platform. They also chose Sarah Palin, a particularly vigorous abstinence-only proponent, as their candidate for vice president. (Incongruously, Palin’s unmarried daughter was pregnant at the time.) During the campaign the Republicans did their best to tap into America’s once-vast reservoir of sexual anxiety. A McCain TV ad claimed, for example, that Obama's “one accomplishment” as a congressman was a bill to teach sex education to kindergartners. But unlike previous eras in American history, this sexually sensational charge had little impact on voters. The Republicans lost in a landslide, and abstinence-only sex education went down with them. The Obama administration’s first budget abolished almost all spending for abstinence-only, transferring the money to teen-pregnancy prevention instead. The director of the team that organizes White House domestic policy commented dryly that the sex education budget Obama sent to Congress, “reflects the research.” Has ideologically inspired opposition to research-based sex education finally run its course? Is access to full and complete information about sexuality now broadly accepted as necessary for the nation’s youth? So it seems for the moment. But the US has a long history of sexual anxiety and repression, so only time will tell. To examine these and similar issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com

HIDDEN FACTORS: What Competent Teachers Really Need to Know

My first year of teaching I taught seventh graders. Things went reasonably well, except for one youngster who drove me to distraction. He did it by echoing me. I tried a variety of tactics to get him to stop, but to no avail. In fact, if I said, "David, please stop repeating me" he frequently would respond by saying, "Repeating me."

This behavior went on and on and it was having a disruptive impact on the class. Finally, having exhausted everything I knew about behavior management, I felt I had no choice. The school, which was in the heart of the Bible Belt, still subscribed to the "Spare the rod and spoil the child" principle. In fact, on the first day of school I found a paddle sitting in the chalk tray of my classroom. It was red with "El Diablo inscribed on it." When I asked the principal about it he told me that paddles were made by kids in wood shop and I should feel free to use it.

He did the same. A giant of a man with a misleading Gomer Pyle manner, he wielded a mean paddle himself. School legend had it that no one ever returned for a second treatment from him; and there was no doubt why. When he administered punishment the crack of his two handed paddle resounded throughout the halls and the school's biggest behavior problems left his office in tears. The net effect was an orderly school.

Anyway, after weeks of trying everything I could think of, I reluctantly said to David, "If you don't quit repeating me I'm going to have to paddle you." "Paddle you" David said quietly. With that I ordered him out into the hall for the administration of corporal punishment.

As required, I asked a neighboring teacher to witness punishment. At the sight of my witness David realized I was serious and dissolved into hysteria. "Oh my God, he screeched, "don't hit me!" I tried to quiet him by saying, "Come on David, take it like a man." But David squalled, "I'm not a man, I'm a little boy!" By the way, he was uncommonly small.

The commotion attracted a crowd — chiefly the kitchen staff from the nearby cafeteria. The janitor and some passing students assembled as well. As my colleague struggled to put David over his knee, David screeched for help from the Almighty. The cooks clucked in disapproval and looked at me as if I were a war criminal.

Embarrassed and deeply regretting my decision, I just gave David a light swat. But he reacted as if I had hit him full force with a cat-of-nine-tails. When I returned to the classroom with a sobbing David the kids looked shocked and frightened.

That was the end of corporal punishment for me. For a long time I felt that the chief lesson I had learned was that there were better ways to control behavior. But years later I discovered, quite by accident, that repetitions such as David's are a classic symptom of Tourrete's Syndrome — a psychological disorder three times more common in males than females and most often found in children. So there is a very good chance that I paddled David because he was ill. So the second lesson to be learned from this incident is that teachers had better know their business better than I did.

Clearly aspiring teachers should learn much more than they typically do about youngsters and what either empowers or impedes their learning. In other words, teacher training must transcend mere methods and require in-depth understanding of both learning and learners as well as possible abnormalities such as Davids. Lacking this knowledge, novice teachers will surely make damaging mistakes.

The shame of it is that teacher preparation is moving in the opposite direction. The "highly qualified teachers" requirement of No Child Left Behind has turned out to be a joke. To save money and find "teachers" for America's educational wastelands, many states are requiring less, not more, of future teachers. The financial savings this makes possible are obvious; the human costs are typically hidden. But they are real nonetheless.

To examine these and similar issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com