The Education Policy Debate

Posted in Standards and EvaluationEducation PolicyTeaching on Jun 07, 2010 - 10:26 AM

I enjoy reading columns by David Brooks in The New York Times. He's a moderate conservative who promotes a more compassionate, intellectual, and pragmatic form of conservatism than what is often found in politics and the media. Nonetheless, I often disagree with him, and his recent op-ed on education deserves a critical response.

He begins by praising Obama's direction on education, saying that Obama is using "federal power to incite reform, without dictating it from the top." Yet Obama and his Education Secretary Arne Duncan's Race to the Top program is rewarding $4.5 billion to a limited number of states who receive the most points based on a scoring rubric (PDF) the administration devised.

For instance, states that rate teachers and principals based on student performance on standardized test scores receive up to 58 of the possible 500 points, making up 11% of possible points. States can also receive 40 points for supporting charter schools, and another 40 for adopting common national standards. While I'm not against all kinds of federal influence on education, these are policies that are at best highly controversial and at worst, damaging to students, teachers, and schools.

Brooks goes on, like many others recently, to blame unions and others who disagree with these policies as supporters of the so-called "status quo." You have to admire the success to which the administration, analysts like Brooks, foundations like The Gates Foundation, and politicians like D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, among others, have spun the education debate into one focused on either "reformers" - good guys who want more high-stakes accountability based on test scores and a more market-like approach, and "supporters of the status quo" - the bad guys who disagree with that and want more funding equity, smaller classes, and greater support for teacher development. We need to point out the errors in this good/bad debate.

Most frustrating to me was that Brooks goes on to say that all other jobs in this country measure employees by their results, and that schools need to as well. But we're not talking here about how many widgets are sold or whether or not a plane lands safely. Education is about the growth and learning of young people, a process that is different and unique for each individual child and cannot be measured as simply as producing results in other fields.

I do believe that it is important to assess teachers and schools, yet I suggest other measurements instead of reducing it to a grade on a narrowly-focused and stress-inducing test. Instead, we can assess teachers and schools through:

• peer teacher, student, and self evaluations of teachers
  
  
• school climate surveys to ensure that schools are caring, supportive, and inspiring environments, and
  
  
• diverse measurement tools that assess the extent to which teachers and schools support the development of students' social, personal, and intellectual development.

Here's another perspective from Eric in Alaska, who commented on Brooks' op-ed online, saying that those in other professions, like physicians, are assessed on their impact on patients, whereas in education there are an incredible number of other factors that impact the learning of young people:

If we are going to hold each teacher individually accountable, then each teacher must have authority over the entire system of education. Here is what a teacher does not control: the amount of the budget and how it is spent; the length of the school day and school year; whether there is tutoring and summer programs; the undergraduate education of teachers and whether there is mentoring in the first years on the job; the curriculum and required courses; whether there is preschool; the preparation students received in the grades prior to the teacher's grade; the students' home lives; whether they grew up with English; whether they are emotionally disturbed, homeless, hungry, substance abusers; whether the culture's values instill the traits that make for good students.

Finally, it's important to mention that we have to look at the sources cited in pieces like this one by Brooks. The two sources he cites are the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), both generally considered to be conservative think-tanks. This calls into question the impartiality and validity of the claim that the new common national standards proposed by the National Governor's Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers are "tough, rigorous, and practical" (Fordham's words) and the claim that "it's nearly impossible to turn around failing schools" (from AEI).

The second is particularly problematic, as it is inconceivable that AEI, Brooks, or anyone has surveyed enough schools to verify that statement. What is more, as an educator and researcher, I have read numerous books and articles about schools that have improved by building better professional development opportunities for teachers, encouraging student engagement, or creating supportive learning communities. So to say that "failing" (as in, low test scores) schools must be closed down is far from the only, or best, option.

(Check out a great effort to combat the errors from think-tank reports: Think Twice, a program of the Great Lakes Center, the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University, and the Education and Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado.)

We need to show analysts like David Brooks and policy-makers like Secretary Duncan and President Obama that resistance to their high-stakes and market-based policies is not resistance to reform, but rather a commitment to policies that support teacher development and provide young people with opportunities for personalized and meaningful learning. And most importantly, we need to put forward and strongly advocate for these kinds of policies at the local, state, and national levels.

Tags for this entry:
education reform, achievement, standardized tests, alternative assessment, barack obama

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