What will Haslam do next?

Samar Ali, Tennessee's international director in the Department of Economic and Community Development, has been an ongoing target of a small number of loudmouthed bigots:

The attorney in question is named Samar Ali. At the time she was appointed to the Obama White House, Ali raised some concerns nationwide due to her specialization in Shariah-Compliant Finance and her association with the World Islamic Economic Forum, an organization that has essentially designated Shariah Finance as “missionary operations” to promote Islam and Shariah.
Now we find out that the embrace of the Shariah Finance Trojan horse extends across the aisle as well. Sources in Tennessee tell us that the Republican leadership in that state have seen fit to appoint Ali as the International Director of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development.

First, the obvious: this is bigotry. People who agree with what's written above are bigots. Specifically, religious bigots, though the racism isn't hard to infer, either. Those who criticize Ali based on this sort of tripe should be drummed out of respectable public conversation. 


I'd also say they're conspiracy theorists, as Shariah Law is about as likely to hit Tennessee as a hurricane. However, that would be an insult to true conspiracy theorists, who are usually more entertaining, in a "Real Housewives of..." way. This is just boring ol' inference. Where's the Illuminati reference? 


Anyway, these folks should be limited to exercising their First Amendment rights to sound like a moron in the nether reaches of the Internet, not Republican Party resolutions. 


Alas, that's not what's happening. From Nashville Public Radio:

Some county Republican groups have passed resolutions against Haslam, saying they worry Ali is an inroad for spreading Sharia law in state government.

Apparently this is driven by some Tea Party activists who've been attending county Republican Party meetings. Even though I'm a Democrat, I'm not so partisan as to think this is representative of the Tennessee Republican Party as a whole -- Bill Haslam pretty easily won their nomination for governor and he's the one who gave Ali her present position -- but I think what happens next will be instructive as to who is really in charge of the party. 


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Haslam was elected in landslide and polls show he remains very popular both within the GOP and the state as a whole. He is one of if not the most popular politicians in Tennessee right now. He along with Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander reign supreme over the Tennessee Republican Party. Or, at least they should.


The resolutions are interesting test of who is driving the bus. I don't have a dog in this fight other than not wanting my state to allow religious bigots a prominent public perch. This is really about the bounds of tolerable dissent within a political party. In a serious political party --  one that aspires to grow or at least not alienate those of us who aren't bigots -- criticizing the party's leader for hiring a capable employee who happens to be a member of a minority religion would be grounds for being shunned. Can anyone imagine party bosses like Richard Daley tolerating this sort of foolishness?


Haslam's reaction has been what I would expect, given that he clearly was initially caught off guard: he's downplayed the comments and defended Ali. Considering the fire is already lit, there's no win for Haslam in giving it more oxygen. 


What I'm curious to see is what happens next. Namely, when the media spotlight goes away, will Haslam make sure the bigots are denied an official Republican Party megaphone? Will he make sure all future country GOP meetings are filled with enough non-bigots to kill any resolution like these? Will he make sure certain officials who allowed such resolutions to move forward are reassigned to tasks more benefiting their ability, like picking up the cookies from Kroger?


Bill Haslam isn't a bigot. How important is it to him to marginalize those who are?

Same building, same grade, different results

I'm a little late to this post from Education Week, but it's worth highlighting. 

Daniel Lautzenheiser at Ed Week describes what happened when two schools shared the same building in Harlem:

If there's ever a tangible physical reminder about the differences in education quality in a particular locale, it is found on the floors of a school building on West 134th Street in Harlem. Literally on the floors. There, a line of tape runs down the hallways. On one side is Democracy Prep Charter School, which in 2010 was the best middle school in New York City. On the other side, until recently, was the Academy of Collaborative Education (ACE), which that year happened to be the worst middle school.

The student population was identical -- about 100 to 125 6th graders. The schools even opened in the same year -- 2006. The only difference were the adults in the building and how they decided to educate the children entrusted to them.

From day one, the two middle schools moved in literally opposite directions in terms of student performance (as measured by the DOE chancellor's annual Progress Report) and parent and student satisfaction (as measured by NYC School Surveys). A short three years in, in 2009, ACE received a "D" score on the chancellor's Progress Report and was ranked the worst middle school in central Harlem, while Democracy Prep received an "A" and was ranked the best.

The charts below from the chancellor's Progress Reports and School Surveys succinctly show these trends.
Chancellor's Progress Reports:

	ACE			Democracy Prep
	Score	Letter	Enrollment	Score	Letter	Enrollment
2007-2008	43.4	C	221	91.7	A	197
2008-2009	35.7	D	254	99.8	A	325
2009-2010	13.7	F	194	100	A	326

*In 2010-2011, ACE's enrollment dropped to 129 while Democracy Prep Charter increased to 340
2009 School Survey of Parents, Teachers, and Students:

	ACE	Democracy Prep
Academic Expectations	4.9	8.9
Communications	4.1	8.2
Engagement	3.8	8.4
Safety and Respect	4.4	8.8

The NYC Department of Education shut ACE down after four years of failing students. Democracy Prep took over the rest of space, though one can reasonably assume that the reason DP's enrollment was rising in the years before that was because ACE's student could look down the hall and see what school should be like. 

The fact that DP is a charter school matters, but only in the sense that DP had been allowed to hire great administrators and teachers and develop them into a high-performing school. The charter label didn't give them any advantage -- just an opportunity to demonstrate that a ZIP code shouldn't also be academic destiny. 

This goes back to the idea that we should find where the high-performers are -- district or charter -- and expand what's working. And if someone's not getting the job done -- flagrantly, repeatedly -- then reallocate those public dollars towards an organization that is.

In NYC and several other big cities, the NYT says parents seem to be voting with their feet. 

The rise of charter schools has accelerated some enrollment declines. The number of students fell about 5 percent in traditional public school districts between 2005 and 2010; by comparison, the number of students in all-charter districts soared by close to 60 percent, according to the Department of Education data. Thousands of students have moved into charter schools in districts with both traditional public and charter schools.

Although the total number of students in charter schools is just 5 percent of all public school children, it has had a striking effect in some cities. In Columbus, Ohio, for example, enrollment in city schools declined by more than 10 percent — or about 6,150 students — between 2005 and 2010, even as charter schools gained close to 9,000 students.

The only thing that bothers me is treating charter schools as if they weren't also public schools. They are. In Tennessee, charter schools must offer open enrollment, follow all special education regulations, and all of the other laws that keep our public schools, well, public. 

A better way to frame it is that parents are seeking better options within their public system. In Nashville, charter and district-run schools' enrollment are counted together -- which makes sense! -- and what do we see? Metro's enrollment is rising this year to more than 80,000. 

Where the magic is

A theme of this blog is that we keep having conversations about education that are either peripheral to student achievement or don't mention it at all.

Another theme of this blog is that if a conversation about education isn't, in the end, focused on student achievement, then it's wasting the time of all involved.

So let's talk about the stuff that matters. Stuff that affects kids, stuff that changes lives, stuff that makes our schools work for everyone.

As the start of the school year nears, I've been thinking about the factors of a building a successful school, things that can (and should!) be done by any school, anywhere.

William Raspberry highlighted the importance of the first factor several years ago::

One way I know I've heard a keen insight into a difficult problem is when I find myself thinking: I knew that all along.

The phrase almost always pops into my head whenever I talk to James P. Comer, the Yale professor of psychiatry and the mind behind the Comer School Development Program, a highly successful model for transforming urban schools.

Comer's insight this time: Curriculum reform, new governance models, stiffer tests for students and teachers may be fine, but there's no magic in them. The magic is in a culture that supports child and adolescent development, and that can happen only through relationships.

 -- William Raspberry, "A Culture for Teaching" July 18, 2005

Peter Drucker was more succinct: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast."

I don't meet a lot of parents who grill me about value-added test scores or Common Core standards. I do meet a lot who want to know their children are in a school that is pleasant and safe, where the high expectations parents have for their children at home transfer into the school.

In other words, I meet a lot of parents who care about the culture of their child's school. They are exactly right to do so because of two reasons:

1) A fun, learning-focused culture is one of the biggest factors in creating a successful school.
2) Culture is the factor most under the control of the adults in the building.

Notice I didn't say culture is entirely under the control of the adults. It's not. Sometimes kids bring stuff in from outside the building that can create a drag on the culture. After all, we're dealing with kids here -- they sometimes act immature, make poor decisions, or just have a bad day.

Consider, though, the inputs of a school's culture:

1) How the adults interact with each other
2) How the adults interact with the students
3) How the students interact with each other

Adults control two out of three factors, and it's not a leap to say that the students take their cues on how to treat each other based on what they see modeled by the adults. Obviously, in the short-term, kids can be disruptive, rude, frustrating and just about every other adjective in the English language. In the long-term, though, they follow the leadership -- or lack thereof -- of adults.

Admitting this is hard for an educator because of the unpredictability of children. I have recurring nightmares about visitors walking in my classroom as I'm at wit's end with a student who's having a bad day. However, a veteran principal once told me: One student out of control is the responsibility of that student. A classroom out of control is the responsibility of the teacher. A school out of control is the responsibility of every of adult in the building.

A school will have a culture one way or another. In the long-run, it will determined the adults in the building. The question is whether those adults are willing to build the relationships -- with each other and with the students -- necessary to have a culture that supports learning and makes school a place everyone looks forward to coming to each day.

The next step is how to do it. John C. Maxwell said it well: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." 

The teachers I've known who were master culture-builders weren't the most inspirational people. No one would ever confuse them with Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. But of course, in that movie, Robin Williams' character makes it pretty much all about him.

The great teachers I know built culture in the exact opposite way: they made it about the students, their colleagues -- anyone other than themselves. Instead of the thinking of the perfect thing to say, they perfected their listening skills. They were meticulous about the little things that matter to all of us: a smile, a friendly greeting, asking about their weekend, remembering a birthday.

These were the people that, on an everyday level, inspired me to continue teaching.

People want to be teachers because when there's a great culture in the building, there's no job that's more fun. This sort of culture also attracts students like bees to honey. Especially for students from a rough home life or who are easily frustrated by academics, a positive culture is what keeps them invested.

For everybody, going to school every day becomes, in a word, magic.

Something that changed my life

A few months into my first year in the classroom, my mentor teacher in Philly saw that I was having a rough time with a student. She sat in my classroom after school and listened to me vent for ten minutes.

When I finally shut up, she was quiet for a while. Then she said this:

What helps me is to remember that no matter where a child came from, they are coming from somewhere. Someone has sent that child to you. For that person, that child is the best thing in her life. That child may be flawed, but it's still more important to that person than anything else. You are being entrusted with the best thing in that person's life. It's not up to us to judge the person. It's up to us to remember that each child is the best thing in the world to someone.

School starts in a little more than a week. School board elections are heating up.

In the midst of all that, it helps reorient me to remember that all of this is about helping people with the best thing in their lives.

Nonpartisan candidate seeks nonpartisan post

Our community's conversation about how to best educate our children has become more and more opaque and derivative. On Tuesday, I read a Tennessean article about how the Democratic Party will soon deny Elissa Kim access to its voter database. The article focused on the nuts-and-bolts of campaigning and how to infer a partisan label in a nonpartisan election.

No part of the article had anything to do with the shared value of educating our children.

This isn't the fault of the reporter; I learned in my brief stint as journalist that the media, for the most part, reflect the conversation of the larger community. 

This is our fault for trying to have a conversation that keeps getting off-topic.

What does it say about us that we seem to think affixing a partisan label to a candidate will help us in deciding which candidate will best govern our schools?

William Raspberry and fake competitions

It is one of life's coincidences that the man who inspired me to first to be a journalist, and then later a teacher, grew up in the same hill country of Northeast Mississippi as I. That said, the differences between his childhood growing up in 1940s segregated Okolona and my upbringing in Tupelo are stark. I can't claim any special insight into what made William Raspberry; I'm just grateful that he broke through barriers of race and class to become a prominent journalist whose writing was published by his hometown paper, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.

William Raspberry's columns were the part of the newspaper I read immediately following my favorite section--the comics*.  After my parents, he was the most influential person in shaping my nascent worldview. I remain attracted to the values he espoused:

• Balancing self-reliance with the needs of a diverse society
• Attempting to see the world as it is, so we can work to make it the world we want it to be
• Learning the lessons of history, while avoiding being handcuffed by the mistakes of previous    generations
• Respecting the humanity of all, but with no patience for the arrogance of power or privilege

In addition, I appreciated Raspberry's tone, which the New York Times imprecisely called "moderate." A better word, suggested by a commenter at the Washington Post obituary, is "reasoned." Raspberry argued for all sorts of things that had nothing to do with being in the center in a left/right political spectrum. This was because Raspberry understood the difference between a value and an opinion -- the latter being subject to change based on the facts he reported. More often than not, his columns focused on finding shared values in a world of conflicting evidence and countervailing opinions.

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"In virtually every public controversy, most thoughtful people secretly believe both sides."

--William Raspberry, 1935-2012

Raspberry was, and still is, right. We have so many decisions to make about how best to educate our children. And you know what? We secretly believe the answer to most policy questions is both. The problem is that our instincts put policies in competition with each other. Instead, they should be in cooperation. We are confusing the values (which we mostly agree on) with opinion (where there's legitimate difference).

I've written before that pitting charter schools against district schools is a silly and a false choice. What we need to focus on are finding high-performing pockets of excellence and learning from them.

One of the best things about working in education is that it can be a win/win. If I do well, a student does well. If another teacher at my school builds a fantastic culture, I benefit. If another teacher in another school does a great job, that's also a win for me as a fellow citizen. Our community can never have enough well-educated citizens.


It's also frustrating to see a false dichotomy made between traditionally-trained teachers and Teach for America. The right frame is how can we get more high-performing teachers in our classrooms?

Once we've acknowledged that the only competition in teacher training is attracting the best people into the profession rather than pursuing a different career, then there's a bunch of great policy issues in which to delve: How do we best train these teachers so that they become great teachers as quickly as possible? How do we make teaching a sustainable and financially rewarding profession? How do we offer educators many career paths?

We have scarce resources, but they're almost never distributed in an all-or-nothing fashion. However, we argue about these choices as if they were. We set up false competitions when we actually want to make investments so that all kids win. 

This doesn't mean we won't, or shouldn't, have debates about policies on how best to educate our kids. We should. This is important stuff. But when we do, we should acknowledge that, more often than not, both sides have shared values as to the importance of education, teachers, and great public schools. Otherwise, we're going to spend a whole lot of time and effort in a fake competition. 

We're all rooting for the same team: our kids. 

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* Calvin and Hobbes has been equally influential in my life, but that's a topic for another day.

Disclaimer: All views expressed are solely my own and don't represent any organization with which I'm associated.

Why I support Elissa Kim

One afternoon a few months ago, I found myself thinking of reasons not to support Elissa Kim for school board.

My wife and I were about to meet Elissa for coffee and have our first real conversation with her. Before the meeting, I secretly hoped that Elissa would, in some way, demonstrate that she wouldn't be a great school board member. Then I would have an excuse to not get involved in her campaign. After all, John Haubenreich is a friend and I deeply respect Gracie Porter's experience. I don't know Erica Lanier, but she seems like a model for how we want parents to be involved in our schools.

However, Elissa made her case and I knew that not only did I need to vote for her, but I should also tell others why. What follows is my explanation, but if you want the upshot, here it is:

Elissa is one of the finest people I know in education, period.

The Case for Elissa

Elissa would a be thoughtful and relentless advocate for our public schools, our tax dollars, and our kids' right to a great education. Her leadership style is understated. She listens more than she talks, asks questions more than she makes declarations, and seeks pragmatic solutions rather than engage in ideological quests.

Elissa's calculus is quite simple: Is (fill the blank) going to be best for kids, especially those who haven't been served well by our system? If yes, then she will support it and fight for it.

Elissa more than meets the qualifications I have for school board members. She is relentlessly dedicated to student achievement and she has the ability to work within a group to get things done. She is fluent in data-driven decision-making, is both realistic and optimistic about how to improve our schools, and has a fine-tuned bullshit detector. Finally, while I haven't personally seen her stare down a grizzly bear or disarm a bomb, I believe she has the courage to make the tough decisions required of a board member.

Her professional life bears this out. She started out teaching in New Orleans public schools and stayed past than her two-year commitment because she was that dedicated to her students. Keep in mind that this was pre-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, and it's public schools were routinely ranked among the worst in the country. Though I don't think teaching alone is a qualification for school board, it's telling that early in her career, she did something hard without expecting any recognition beyond the feeling one gets when you do right by kids.

Her next role, though it took her out of the classroom, has positively impacted thousands of children across the country.

She has become the most successful recruiter of teachers in the country and is a national expert in what makes teachers successful. (She's not quoted in the linked article, but has been a driver for implementing the research discussed therein.) She also has served on the senior leadership team for Teach for America for a dozen years. Having met a few people on this team, I can testify that it isn't for the faint of heart. You won't last unless you're smart, capable, and produce results. There's no better preparation for serving on the school board.

She also has an eye for talent, which will be critical when choosing a new superintendent (assuming Dr. Register retires at the end of his contract in 2015). She built a 200-person team at TFA. Separately, she's familiar with dozens of school districts across the country and has a clear picture of the best practices in governing a district. Moreover, she's played a role in how TFA has learned to better support teachers, keeping them in the classroom and growing their skill set. (A personal example: My wife joined TFA four years after me. The strides the organization made in supporting teachers in just that time were phenomenal.)

In sum, having Elissa serve on our school board is like getting LeBron James to play on your basketball team. When you can get the best, get the best.

Addressing Criticisms

The critiques I've heard from some -- zealously pro-charter, irreconcilable conflict of interest, tool of special interests, anti-teacher -- are so off-base as to be comical.

First, Elissa does not favor charter schools as a solution for everything. She has said we absolutely have to increase the quality of all our district schools. Charters are a piece of the puzzle. Magnets, enhanced option, Big Picture, and Middle College are, too. Nashville parents deserve more and better choices. This means that all schools should offer an opportunity for an excellent education.

The ironic thing is that I think Elissa will be harder on charter schools than the average board member. As noted, she's spent the past dozen years traveling around to schools across the country. No one who is a candidate or currently on the board can match her experience as far as knowing what a successful school looks like. I almost pity the poor charter school operator who tries to give her excuses as to why his or her school isn't getting the job done. Given her years as a senior executive in a high-pressure, rapidly growing organization, she is tough enough to vote to close failing charter schools, no matter the political consequences.

Second, the Teach for America contract with the district is not an irreconcilable conflict of interest. Each year the district hires more than 500 new teachers. About 100 or so come from Teach for America. No teacher has ever been fired from the district to make way for a TFA corps member. (See response to @AlexLittleTN) The district's contract with TFA has been renewed several times unanimously, without controversy. As far as I know, every single person running for school board supports continuing the contract with Teach for America. Furthermore, Elissa's job deals solely with recruitment and admissions. She has nothing to do with the Nashville contract. (FYI, TFA's senior leadership team is spread out across the country*.) Finally, she has stated she will recuse herself from votes dealing with TFA's contract. This would be essentially one vote every year, so the contract renewal would be 8-0, rather than 9-0.

As a point of comparison, Vanderbilt has a contract with MNPS to staff its employee health clinics which results in millions of dollars of payment to Vanderbilt. Would we prohibit one of the  21,500 Vandy (14,000 at VUMC) employees (or an employee of one of its rivals for the contract) from running for school board because Vanderbilt is an MNPS contractor? No -- this is why all sorts of part-time politicians recuse themselves from the occasional vote. It's hard to find large organizations in Nashville that don't have some sort of contract or partnership with MNPS.

I understand raising the question and voters should know Elissa's answer, but let's keep an eye on the big picture: This is a $700 million district. Teach for America's contract deals with maybe 20 percent of new teachers. It's been in effect for years and is uncontroversial. Principals around the district seem to like the TFA corps members and alumni in their schools, as they keep hiring them. The school board has bigger issues to deal with.

Third, Elissa isn't a puppet of "special interests." This, frankly, is offensive to even have to address. Talk to her for about 5 minutes and you'll realize that she's her own person with well thought-out policy positions driven by her 15 years in education. Most of her campaign's donations are local, garnering more support from East Nashville than any other candidate. As I've argued before, the money in this race reflects its seriousness and the fact that Elissa's candidacy has inspired people. She's also had tons of volunteers and convinced a whole bunch of people in District 5 to display signs in their yards. Campaign volunteers have knocked on thousands of doors. Special interests don't do that -- that's grassroots support.

This election cycle has seen big sums by previous school board election standards, but wouldn't be considered unusual even in a state representative race (and an MNPS school board member wields more influence in some ways, given the size of its budget and the fact that the board is nonpartisan).

This isn't some Citizens United or Koch brothers conspiracy. The financial disclosures are public. If something concerns you, go meet or e-mail Elissa and ask her about it.

Finally, Elissa supports teachers. I've observed Elissa in a couple of different settings during this campaign and there's one thing that consistently makes her face light up: talking about teaching. She's positively nerdy on the subject of educating kids. Elissa would welcome conversations with teachers about what is and isn't working in a school. She has said over and over again that teachers will the be catalyst in making MNPS the model urban school system. The district employs about 6,500 teachers, most of whom are doing great work.  Elissa has said that a huge part of being on the board is figuring out effective ways to share best practices and give our educators the autonomy needed to have great schools.

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I've been involved with politics long enough to know that you vote for a person, not a set of issues. The things that will truly matter during the next four years are hard to predict. What I look for above all is a certain level of judgment and values centered around what is best for kids.

I'm not against any candidate. I'm for Elissa Kim because she's demonstrated through word and deed over 15 years that she has the judgment and values that will allow her to best represent District 5 as we accomplish our community's most important task: educating our children.

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* I hear this makes for some truly epic conference calls.

Disclaimer: All views expressed are solely my own and don't represent any organization with which I'm associated.

The quiet revolution

This isn't going to be a post about school board elections or charter schools or anything controversial and sexy like that.

(What does it say about me that I find school board elections to be sexy? Don't answer that question.)

It's just about something that, as Joe Biden might say, is a big f--king deal.

I've spent a decent chunk of my summer with my school's director of curriculum redoing my English I units in preparation for Tennessee's switch to Common Core standards.
If you want to know about things that will actually make a difference in student achievement, pay attention to the nuts and bolts: (hat tip: The Commercial Appeal)

In its simplest form, the Common Core is a list of must-have knowledge and skills students need to succeed in work or college. The movement to get states on board was spearheaded by the National Governors Association over the last five years; 46 states so far have signed on. Tennessee joined in 2010.

Common Core emphasizes fewer concepts, allowing teachers to drill down in core tenets, including exploring different ways they can be used to solve problems. 

In third-grade math, for instance, the number of standards will decrease from 113 to 25. Assuming children master the concepts, teachers will not spend time reteaching concepts, such as how to multiply fractions.

This is not just another education fad. This isn't Whole Language or "new math." Common Core standards will change the landscape of education in America.

Here's a small example of how it will do so: I've taught English in grades 9 to 11, but I've focused on the 9th the past few years. I've had 83 discrete standards to teach, of which ~65 would appear on my students' End of Course (EOC) test, which (by law!) makes up 25 percent of their 2nd semester grade. (All Tennessee teachers who teach a class with an End of Course test must follow the same grading formula.)

Before I go further: this isn't an anti-testing, anti-accountability, or anti-standards rant. Having a standardized test at the end of a significant class like English I is logical. It's much better than what happened when I taught English I in Philadelphia, which had no EOC test. As a result, there were wide variances between the quality of the classes with no systemic way of finding out which teacher was teaching and which one showed movies all year.

My concern is that the test be meaningful for the subject. As it's currently done, we have too many standards that give equal weight to both critical skills like supporting a thesis with logic and facts and less important ones like being able to recognize a couple of foreign phrases (bon voyage, caveat emptor, and the like). I'm not knocking the latter, but it's just not as important as the former. Yet the current incarnation of the English I EOC treats them the same. This is holding our students to a ridiculously low standard. Is it any wonder surveys show that our students aren't being challenged enough in the classroom?

Common Core focuses much more on the enduring skills of a subject. The idea to go deeper with skills people actually use in higher education and the workplace. Students will be writing more, but the focus will be on producing work with higher rigor and quality rather than a lot of short-answer or multiple choice questions that don't force students to think deeply and carefully form their thoughts.

Not only that, but imagine the crowd-sourcing of lesson plans that will happen as teachers across the country can share best practices. Someone who has never taught A Midsummer Night's Dream will have access to great materials that are almost sure to be aligned to standards in his or her state. This, more than any amount of cheerleading by politicians, will develop the skills of new teachers and help them remain in the classroom, presenting high-quality lessons to students.

Common Core standards, of course, will be much harder to teach. (The dirty little secret of the "drill and kill" method of teaching -- aside from the fact that it doesn't work -- is that it's much easier on the teacher. Just print off the worksheets and give 'em to the kids.) But this more rigorous teaching is also going to be much more rewarding. Most of us get in the business because we wanted to push students to see the rewards of hard work, to diligently pursue knowledge until they had their own "Ah ha!" moment, to understand the feeling of accomplishment from developing expertise.

The EOC test isn't going away, and that's a good thing. All public school students should have a rigorous class, no matter where they go to school or which teacher they have. Having a standardized test at the end helps to ensure that.

What excites me is that my students will be pushing themselves towards something that will give them an idea of the level of rigor that will be expected of them at the next level of education.

They can't reach that higher bar until we as educators put it there.

Switching to more rigorous, in-depth standards isn't what a lot of people in the political sphere like to talk about because it's not about power games or winners and losers.

This is just a quiet revolution that helps all of our kids reach their potential.

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8:39 p.m. update -- added a link and made some clarifications

Why we don't yet have charters in rural TN schools

Another point to deal with from Jamie Hollin's post. This didn't quite fit in the previous post.

Hollin:

Trace Sharp has been wondering about charter schools and why they aren’t in rural Tennessee. I have a short answer for her. There aren’t enough students. In order for the model to work, think ROI, they need pupils. The money follows the pupil. If this were not true, then there’d be charters in most or every rural county in Tennessee. There are none.
Only urban schools need “reform” and only urban parents need a “choice.” Get it?

Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina all have rural charter schools. Tennessee hasn't had rural charters yet because until recently the law made if difficult, if not impossible to do so. Specifically:

1. We had a statewide hard cap on charters.

2. Student eligibility was limited to students at failing schools and/or students who scored below basic on the TCAP. Since the failing school designation changed each year, it was extraordinarily difficult for  would-be rural charter operators to get enough students to fill out a class.

3. When eligibility was expanded, it was limited to the five largest school districts.

4. Memphis and Nashville have the largest philanthropic communities in the state. Starting a new charter school usually requires some privately raised funds to pay for capital costs like painting classrooms and buying technology. 

5. Until recently, all charter authorizations were done by local school boards. Rural boards are notoriously unfriendly to opening new schools.

Spending per pupil would actually be roughly the same in a rural or urban setting because a lot of that is state or federal dollars. The BEP formula sends more money to district that raise less in local taxes (though it doesn't completely make up the deficits and should have more funding, period).

Many of Tennessee's rural schools have terrible student achievement. Parents and students there also deserve more and better options.

Paranoid inferences aren't an argument

Jamie Hollin wrote a piece that has several factual inaccuracies, a lot of unsupported assertions, and quite a few paranoid inferences. Below are selected responses. Another post deals specifically with rural charter schools.

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First, on the big fundraising totals in the school board races...

So Margaret Dolan smashed fundraising records in a school board race. I noted in a previous post that Dolan was a talented businesswoman with deep connections in the community. Is anyone surprised that she's good at her job? Isn't her prowess at attracting support evidence that she possesses the leadership traits necessary to be an effective board member?

Likewise, the fact that Elissa Kim, Will Pinkston, and Jared DeLozier raised a bunch of money by school board standards is more of a testament to the seriousness of their respective campaigns. One hundred and sixteen people donated to Kim, for instance. That's not dominance by a single PAC -- that's widespread support (and, I also note, from a whole bunch of people in Nashville -- including my wife and me, who live in District 5).

Modern politics involves a bunch of money. Don't hate the player; hate the game.

Hollin feels differently:

Our public school system in Nashville is for sale—and the price being offered is pretty high. Great amounts of money—heretofore never contemplated in MNPS school board races—is coming from far and wide to enable their like-minded followers to take over public schools in Nashville.

Upset about rich people being influential in politics? In related news, the sky is blue and the Cubs won't win the World Series. Rich people have been politically active since time immemorial. People with money have disproportionate influence in politics. It is what it is.

What interests me more is what said rich people are doing with their money. I get concerned when they're spending millions to build Ensworth High School or starting yet another K-12 private school in Donelson or Madison. Those are massive educational investments that most of Nashville's children will not be able to take advantage. Feel how you like about Great Hearts (my thoughts are complicated and off-topic), but it does represent a desire for affluent and middle-class parents to keep their kids in public schools*. And it will have to follow the same lottery admission procedures that all other charter schools do -- that's a major step for keeping kids out because their parents can't afford a $10k or $20k tuition.

The investments by hundreds of people in the campaigns of Dolan, Kim, DeLozier and Pinkston show that there's political will to keep families in Nashville by increasing the quality of all schools and offering real choices instead of the "one size fits all" model that has been failing most of students for decades.

I, for one, support electing "like-minded followers" of people who want to increase student achievement and offer families more and better options.

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Second, on belittling education reform and school choice....

Hollin again:

Let there be no doubt: the buzz words “reform” and “choice” have been kid tested and mother approved. It’s time for profiteers to strike while the iron is hot. There’s too much taxpayer subsidy for private gain with socialized losses to avoid. They can’t help themselves. I am not even mad at them. Many of them are great people, I am sure.

Charter schools in Tennessee are nonprofit. It's the law. If you want to know who is profiting off public schools, look at the budget and see the massive investments in remedial computer programs and reading intervention curriculum because 58.8 percent of our K-8 students score basic or below basic in reading. Those computer programs and reading intervention curriculum are made by for-profit companies.

An alternate conclusion is that about 70 percent of our schools' graduates don't have the skills to make it at the next level. Hence the need to "reform" our district schools and offer public school parents "choice" as to the school that best suits the needs of their children.

If Hollin is tired of hearing these "buzz words" then let's do the hard work necessary to radically increase student achievement and then he won't have to hear people saying them.

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Third, on inferring that people who work to change our schools for the better are actually controlled by nefarious privatizers who wish to cannibalize public education....

Hollin: 

No matter how nice candidates are, how long or how little they’ve lived in the community, whether their kids go to public school or not, whether they work for a company already receiving public tax dollars through contracts, how brilliant they may be, who they’ve worked for or with in the past, or who endorsed their candidacy, the ultimate goal of the monied-interests behind them is privatization. And, there’s lots of money to be made in privatization.

I like the "no matter how nice..." beginning. So those of us who've dedicated our professional lives to improving educational opportunities for low-income kids have actually been tools of the Koch brothers. No matter what we do, it's all for naught because it violates Hollin's idea of how public education should work. And, apparently, public education has been working so well in this country that any attempt to make significant change is a stalking horse for "monied interests." Good to know...

Seriously, stuff like this just irks me. This year is my seventh in reforming public education the hard way -- by working with kids who've been screwed by the system Hollin doesn't think needs radical change. Mr. Hollin, you're more than welcome to join me. One small warning: you won't make much money in this business. (My salary is public record, so check it out if you'd like.) Then again, you'll be working so hard that you won't have time to spend much money, so it balances out.

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Fourth, on teachers who commit two years to working in a low-income school....

Hollin: 

We are only one family. A family convinced there are local solutions to local problems. We are a team in our house and the decision has been made, for us at least, to send the boys to public schools. The teachers, principal, and school will become components in our kids’ educational attainment. Among other things, we want a teacher who has been in the classroom before, not one serving a two-year stint while building their résumé for another career. Do I believe there are great charter operators? Yes. Do I believe there are bad charter operators? Yes. Similarly, there are good and bad public schools. Yet, I am not willing to completely dismantle the public school system in Nashville like the individuals and groups supporting these candidates are so hell-bent to achieve. 

I'm glad Hollin is committed to our public schools. So am I. I'm glad he's going to be an involved parent. We need more of them. I'm glad he recognizes the success of schools like KIPP, LEAD, STEM, Nashville Prep, and Liberty Collegiate.

I find it ironic that an attorney is criticizing people choosing to leave the classroom after two years to do things like...becoming an attorney.

That aside, let's deal with some facts:

Those TFA corps members Hollin is disparaging are higher performing than any other group of new teachers in Tennessee.

The sad thing is studies show most teachers leave the profession in five years. New teachers who struggle in a difficult school last less than two years. TFA corps members actually lengthen the average stay of all new teachers in low-income settings.

Many more TFA teachers -- myself, my wife, Elissa Kim, to name a few -- stay in the classroom longer than two years. Sixty percent of all corp members remain in education and TFA is aggressively promoting staying longer than two years. Practicing what he preaches, the former executive director of TFA NYC is actually headed back to the classroom this year.

Finally, a bit of opinion: one can build up a resumé in many ways. Teaching any amount of time in a classroom serving low-income students is incredibly hard way. Those who choose to follow that path shouldn't be condescended to by those who haven't walked in their shoes.

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There's a reasoned discussion to have about the direction of our public schools. We have hard choices to make about accountability, how much to invest in new schools, and how to attract great teachers to our classrooms and support them with the best principals and professional development.

Those choices shouldn't be confused with paranoid inferences about the "liquidation" of our public schools.

Take a deep breath. It's a school board election.


* Charter schools are public schools, charter teachers get a public pension, we use a lottery system open to all to determine admittance, and it would be illegal for us to discriminate against students who have special needs.

** 8:36 a.m. update: Fixed a small grammatical error and also recognized my friends at STEM Prep, who also kicked butt this year. 

School board elections: Traits that matter

Who sits on the MNPS school board is incredibly important. (You may have noticed that this is a theme in my posts.) Not only are they spending a huge chunk of your tax dollars (about $670 million this past year), but they are the government body that most directly affects the quality of life in your neighborhood and the price of real estate.

Oh, and also they play a big role in how our children are educated.

So how should you evaluate this year's crop of candidates? Sure, you can go to their websites, but much of it is meaningless babble. The best way is to meet and talk to a candidate. If you don't have time, ask around. These people really aren't hard to learn about.

I said in a previous post that leadership traits matter more than specific stances on issues. What we're hiring in a school board member is, above all, someone who has good judgment and can work with others. What does that mean? Here's a breakdown:

Traits that are incredibly useful

Good judge of talent
A board member needs to have the scouting abilities of an NFL GM (one for the Packers or Steelers; not, say, the Jaguars). He or she will influence the hiring of people who control hundreds if not thousands of employees, millions of dollars, and, ultimately 85,000 students. At this level, most resumés look the same and people know what to say in an interview. A great board member should be able to see through all of that,  find how committed a person is to student achievement, and be able to recognize a concrete plan to improve it in Nashville.

Ability to use data 
This an industry that is increasingly dependent on numbers. Some numbers merely represent how many millions of dollars are being spent. The really important numbers give the most dispassionate picture how children are actually being educated. Numbers aren't all-in-all, but given that even the worst school cleans up a bunch when the brass comes visiting, hard data will be a board member's most trusted advisor when make tough decisions. Avoid candidates who are number-phobic.

A mix of skepticism and optimism

A board member needs to be enough of a skeptic to research why a policy was put in place and find out if a solution wouldn't make things worse. Policies, after all, have intended and unintended consequences. The board member needs to be enough of an optimist to believe, nay know, that a better solution is possible. 

Ability to work within a group structure
One person is an outlier. Five people are district policy. 

Bullshit detector
Everybody is going to say they're doing it for the kids. Look for the people whose actions actually show this. Many people, sadly, say the right thing, but put other priorities before student achievement. That's bullshit.


And speaking of that...many people will will say we can't expect a big change in student achievement. I remember a previous school board telling KIPP in its first rejection letter that it's unrealistic to expect children in East Nashville to go to college. Again, bullshit. 

Courage
Remember when I argued that everybody in a community is affected by its public schools? A school board member will soon realize the extent of this. Real change is going to make opponents one never would've imagined. 

Patient relentlessness
This is going to take time and effort. Problems grow like kudzu and solutions are like finding orchids. But they exist! 

Traits you might think would be useful but aren't really

Teaching experience
Teaching experience means...a person knows ways to teach a student. It shouldn't be confused with what board members do. Namely, they'll be asked to govern a $700 million enterprise* with several thousand employees. Teaching grammar or directing a high school play is not analogous (and I've done both). Don't get me wrong -- experience on the front lines of education is useful; it's just not a requirement or even a qualification for setting district policy.

Being a parent
As I've explained, we all have skin in the game. The public school system is funded by taxpayers and, on some level, touches everyone. Being a parent is an important role, but it doesn't necessarily correlate with the traits described above. A board member should care about student achievement more than anything else. People who don't have children themselves are capable of that. Go talk to a Dominican nun if you need proof. 

Degrees
Finding people in education with lots of degrees is like finding guitarists in east Nashville. I've got an Ivy League master's degree in education. It looks nice on my wall and resumé, but it doesn't mean I possess the any of traits listed above. We're looking for leadership ability and that usually doesn't come from a C.V.


* Next year's budget is considerably higher. Remember that tax increase Metro Council just passed? A lot of it is for MNPS.

Earworm of the Day: Alabama Shakes

I realize I'm perhaps the bazillionth person to say to you, "Hey, the Alabama Shakes are pretty awesome. Check them out."

But I also know that repetition is a powerful pedagogical tool, so there.

School board elections: Ask candidates about these two issues

Early voting starts July 13, so let's get down to it. Out of all the areas in which the school board exercises governance, these are the two you should ask candidates about:

• The next superintendent
Jesse Register's contract will be up during the next school board term. He'll be 70 at that time, so it's reasonable to wonder if he'll retire. Whoever occupies the big office on Bransford Avenue is important for high-profile endeavors like the Academies of Nashville.

What really matters, though, is the tremendous discretion a superintendent exercises in staffing. This person will decide who leads schools and who governs central office departments. He or she will be the gatekeeper of the gatekeepers.

Find out about the candidate's ideal superintendent (or if he or she would want to extend Register's contract). Ask yourself if a candidate would be good at recognizing a talented district leader. Finally, do you think this candidate would be able to convince other board members that a particular candidate is best?

• Charter school approval and accountability
The board gets to approve or deny new charter schools. It would be nice to see board member basing their decisions on data rather than a personal vendetta or just lack of knowledge. (For the uninitiated: I'm referring to the board rejecting KIPP's expansion the first time.)

As a practical mater, when they deny a school, it'll have to be done in a thorough fashion, because it looks like the state board is going to be a viable appeal option for charter applicants. The state board previously approved Drexel Prep over MNPS' rejection and soon will rule as to whether Great Hearts can open in 2014. (Give credit where it's due: it looks like the MNPS board initially had it right on saying no to Drexel.)

MNPS already has a number of charters in operation, so perhaps even more important is the board's willingness to shut down operators that are breaking the law or just doing a poor job of educating kids. Remember, the board's standard should be about funding high-performing classrooms versus low-performing ones.

Shutting down charter schools will be politically difficult. I was at the meeting when the board was deciding whether to shut down Drexel for not following federal law governing special education services and not having certified special ed teachers. Drexel had been caught red-handed, yet managed to put bring out several elected officials and enough parents to fill up the board room and then some. The board relented and gave Drexel another six months to get their act together.

It doesn't matter how poorly performing the school, a bunch of angry parents and community members will show up and apply pressure. A board member should be willing to take a hard vote in order to put student achievement first. 

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A few more notes...

Having reviewed many candidates' websites and watched the forums, I've seen candidates spend a lot of time talking about stuff that the board exercises little, if any, control. For example, the board doesn't have anything to do with setting academic standards, nor deciding which standardized tests to give. That's state policy. If you want to influence that stuff, talk to your state legislators or state board of education members.

I've also seen candidates reach far into the weeds to push for highly specific curriculum. As a classroom teacher (and one who taught in district schools), I can't say I would want a school board member deciding a particular writing or reading program for me to use. We have in-house committees for that sort of thing (and for very good reason).

In addition, a number of candidates have yet to describe on their respective websites their stance on any issues. (Is the idea that if they don't put anything up, it won't count as b.s.?)

Obviously, the board will make many more important decisions than the ones listed above. I merely mean this as a place to start when trying to find meaningful information from amongst the pablum.

In the end, your vote should be less about a candidate's specific policy proposals and more on the leadership traits a person will bring to the board. I'll discuss those in a future post.

Try to contain your excitement in the meantime.

Metro schools matter to all of us

When Gaylord Opryland flooded in 2010, then shuttered for several months, I'll bet you felt it. Perhaps you know someone who works there. Maybe you or someone you know has a business that is at least partially dependent on Opryland. If you worked in state or city government, perhaps you saw a hole in tax revenues. Nearly losing one of Nashville's most significant institutions hit all of us in some way. 


For a major American city, I've found Nashville to be surprisingly tight-knit. So if you think Gaylord matters, then let's compare Gaylord to Metro schools:


According to Gaylord's 2011 Annual Report, Opryland had $292 million in revenue and employed somewhere around 2,000 people*. 


For 2011, MNPS employed about 8,240 people and had a budget of $662 million to educate about 73,000 students. 


In Anchorman terms, MNPS is Ron Burgundy:

Metro schools are the largest single entity within local government. As I've canvassed for Elissa Kim, I've yet to meet the citizen who didn't have some connection to our public schools.


That's because every single citizen is affected by Metro schools and has a stake in our success. 


And that is why I find accusations like the one below to be so frustrating. From today's Tennessean on the District 9 race:

While candidates have tried to introduce themselves to voters and distinguish themselves from their opponents, the common issue of where they sent their own children to school has come to the forefront. Two of the favorites in the race — (Margaret) Dolan and (Eric) Crafton — chose not to enroll their children in Nashville’s public school system.

Isn't the fact that these parents felt that Metro didn't offer good options for their children a reason for these candidates to run? 


Look, I can think of plenty of reasons to not vote for Eric Crafton. For one, his signature "English only" ballot initiative was a slap in the face to the 13,000 Latino students in Metro and an embarrassment to a diverse city on the rise. Crafton also believes we can magnet our way to success for (a few) children. But the fact that he plans to enroll his daughter at Christ Presbyterian is a sign that Metro has a problem, not Crafton. He said in a City Paper article that his daughter lost in the lottery to get in Meigs Academic Magnet. If a former councilman looks at the options for his child and decides that he can't risk putting his child a zoned school in Metro, then how in the world is MNPS following through on its vision to be "the first choice for families?"


As for Margaret Dolan, she's done nothing but served on seemingly every significant board or task force in Nashville in addition to being an accomplished businesswoman. Are we actually going to have an argument about whether she has a stake in Nashville's success or cares about children? Does anyone believe she is insufficiently dedicated to this community? Seriously?


The idea that only people who enroll their children in MNPS should have a voice in running the system is ludicrous. 


Imagine what would happen to the already hot Nashville real estate market if families knew that their child could get a great education in any public school.


Imagine what would happen to our economy if employers looking to move to this area knew the typical MNPS graduate has a college-ready skill level.


Imagine what would happen to our crime rate if our graduation rate were more than 76 percent and those graduates were ready for the next level of education.


The quality of our public schools affect all of us who own a home in Davidson County, want to raise a family here, employ or work with its graduates, or just want to live in a community with a high quality of life. 


Think of our school board elections as deciding who gets to govern this town's largest and most important corporation. We need bright, savvy board members who are completely dedicated to increasing the achievement of our students. As the quality of MNPS' graduates goes, so goes the success of Nashville.


Everything else is a just a political sideshow.


* I'm not as sure about that number, but when they rehired after the flood, 1,700 positions were filled. That, plus the people who weren't laid off, gives me around 2,000.