School Leader

KASC releases "Transition Index" data

Senate Bill 1 eliminated the Academic Index, once used to generate an overall score used to evaluate school progress twoard proficiency (a score of 100 meant that most students were proficient in key subject areas).  this was helpful for tracking school progress over time and, let's face it, for ranking school performance.  Though the Kentucky Department of Education no longer tabulates results this way, the Kentucky Association of School Councils and some other organizations have continued to provide this service while the old testing system was in place, generating what they call the "Transition Index."  Full transition index information is available by Excel spreadsheet on the KASC website.  Schools are listed alphabetically by district, and then by shcool.  Note that there are separate pages for elementary, middle, high school, and district results (tabs at the bottom of the page).

With the new accountability systems launching this year, the academic index - even the transition index - will no longer apply.

It's always interesting to see how well (or poorly) some schools do on this index compared with their NCLB results.

Coaching: Reaching for your "personal best" in teaching and leadership

Many students know I put a big emphasis on teaching and leadership as professional practice, a concept I borrow from Richard Elmore, who stresses that education is a skill and craft closely akin to the work of medical professionals who apply a large body of (ever-changing) technical knowledge to make thousands of individualized judgments about treating individual patient needs.  Thus, professionals like teachers and doctors must constantly be honing their craft.

You may also know that one of my key research interests focuses on using coaching models for helping principals improve their practice of instructional leadership.  I'm currently conducting the second part of a multi-phase research agenda using theories of practice as the foundation for a principal coaching protocol.

Happily, a new article in the New Yorker links all these concepts together in a thoughtful and compelling way.  In"Personal Best," writer and surgeon Atul Gawande describes how professional athletes and singers have long used coaches to improve their performance, even when they are at the top of their profession.  Gawanda asks, why shouldn't other professionals, like doctors, use coaches as well?

In making his case, Gawande actually suggests that doctors could learn a bit from educators in this regard, and points to the work of Jim Knight, director of the Kansas Coaching Project at the University of Kansas.  Knight, author of Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction, trains teachers in a simple but powerful method of coaching designed to help teachers improve their practice.

For the New Yorker article, Gawande observed Knight and instructional coaches working to help a  teacher improve her practice, and describes their collaborative problem-solving approach in vivid detail.  Inspired by the example of these educators, Gawande decided to trying coaching for his own surgical practice, and found his complication rates improved long after he thought he'd plateaued professional.  The author concludes that coaching should be considered by every professional, especially those who work in fields where technical knowledge must be applied to the unpredictable world of human problems:

The kind of coaching that fosters effective innovation and judgment, not merely the replication of technique, may not be so easy to cultivate.  Yet modern society increasingly depends on ordinary people taking responsibility for doing extraordinary things: operating inside people's bodies, teaching eighth graders algebraic concepts that Euclid would have struggled with, building a highway through a mountain, constructing a wireless computer network across a state, running a factory, reducing a city's crime rate.  In the absence of guidance, how many people can do such complex tasks at the level we require?  With a diploma, a few will achieve sustained mastery; with a good coach, many could.  We treat guidance for professionals as a luxury - you can guess what gets cuts first when school district budgets get slashed.  But coaching may prove essential to the success of modern society.

Read Gawande's full article here.  Listen to him discuss the same concepts on NPR's Talk of the Nation program here.

News and Resource Roundup: State NCLB, College-Readiness Results; Schools and Social Media; New Staff Development Standards, More...

A roundup of recent education news and other resources:

• Statewide NCLB results have been released.  Less than half of Kentucky schools made AYP.  Education leaders point to deep flaws in the system.
• Last year saw a small improvement in statewide college readiness, but overall rate remains below 40 percent.
• A recent article in District Administration magazine explores The Social Media Dilemma, examing how schools have responded to Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools from a range of perspectives, from fully embracing these new media to banning them outright.
• This summer Learning Forward (formerly known as the National Staff Development Council, the nation's largest organization dedicated exclusively to teacher and principal professional development) unveiled their new Standards for Professional Learning.  The new standards provide an extremely useful framework for designing, implementing, and evaluating professional development in your schools.  Purchase a copy of the Standards Handbook, download a free, four-page Standards Reference Guide, and read articles about applying the standards in the most recent issue of JSD [The Journal of Staff Development].
• Also from Learning Forward, see this recent issue of The Learning Principal, which focuses on strategies for building a high-functioning, school-based leadership team.

Finally, the WKU College of Education and Behavioral Sciences Mary Hensley Lecture Series will feature National Teacher of the Year Rafe Esquith, author of Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire, on Tuesday evening, November 8, at 7:00 p.m. in Van Meter Auditorium.  Read more about Rafe Esquith here.

Getting It Done: Going for "Deep Implementation"

Last week I had the privelege of attending a talk by Karin Chenoweth and Christina Theokas, authors of the fortchoming book, Getting it Done: Leading Academic Success in Unexpected Schools.  The event was co-sponsored by the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative and WKU's Center for Learning Excellence.

Karin and Christina are staff writers for Education Trust, the clearinghouse for data and resources about American education and how a handful of high-poverty schools are nevertheless demonstrating that all students can learn at high levels, regardless of circumstances.  The authors shared stories of ordinary schools accomplishing pretty spectacular results - frequently reaching 90-100 percent proficiency in multiple subject areas in all targeted student groups (I'll update with a link to their presentation as soon as it is available).  Their new book profiles leaders of such schools and how they are a key ingredient in turning around chronically low-performing schools.

Karin and Christina also shared what all these schools have in common:

• A laser-like focus on what students need to learn.
• Constant collaboration on how to teach it.
• Frequent formative assessments (they didn't use the word "formative," but its meaning is clear from the next bullet point).
• Using data to inform instruction.
• Building positive personal relationships with students and their families.

The reactions from the audience, made up of area principals and district leaders, were polite, but afterward I heard a wide range of comments.  Some were appreciative and inspired, while others were skeptical that such results could be replicate in their schools, and yet others seem a bit puzzled because, after all, almost every school is "kind of" doing all the essential things the authors attributed to these high performing schools.

 And they are, indeed, kind of doing all these things. But perhaps that is the key point.  

We've learned so much in recent years about how to raise student achievement and the vast majority of schools are making a good go at new approaches to instruction and assessment that correlated to what research says really works.  But in few cases are schools reaching the level of deep implementation, which Doug Reeves defines as what happens when "90 percent of teachers are doing a targeted behavior 90 percent of the time." 

I still read so many school improvement plans that focus almost entirely on new computer programs or the work of various interventionists.  You might easily conclude that regular classroom teachers have no responsibility toward making needed instructional improvements.  But until the basics of good curriculum, instruction, and assessment, what Mike Schmoker calls "the Essentials," are embedded in every classroom, we'll still be "kind of" doing the work...and still not getting the results we're looking for.

More details on NCLB waivers revealed

The Obama Administration is expected to unveil more details today regarding how states may obtain waivers from NCLB requirements until the law is officially re-authorized by Congress.  Read the Education Week story here. 

Schools will be relieved of the current deadline to bring all students to proficiency in reading and math by 2014.  A previous blueprint for the waiver plan extended the deadline to 2020, but yesterday's announcement left that open-ended:

In exchange for this flexibility, the administration will require states to adopt college- and career-ready standards, focus on 15 percent of their most-troubled schools, and create guidelines for teacher evaluations based in part on student performance.

Kentucky's new Unbridled Learning school accountability model covers most of these provisions, though it's unclear exactly what the Obama administration will be looking for in tying teacher evaluations to student outcomes, or whether Kentucky's new system will meet the guidelines.

One potential sticking point for Kentucky may be the requirement that states expand charter school options, something that has met fierce resistance in the General Assembly.

Kentucky has been touted as a poster child for NCLB waivers; it will be interesting to see if the state bends on the charter school issue, or if the feds do.

New York Congresswoman wants to ban corporal punishment...in Kentucky

Last Spring I blogged about news that incidents of corporal punishment in Kentucky totaled 1,573 during 2009-2010, a slight increase from the year before.  In that post, I noted my sympathy for frustrated educators who are desperately trying to instill some sense of discipline in a generation of students increasingly impervious to authority and respect for adults.  But I also argued that, ultimately, corporal punishment doesn't work, and wise educators will seek other alternatives.  Nevertheless, I upheld a local district's right to establish such policies for itself.

Today comes news of U.S. Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy of New York, and her plans to introduce federal legislation that will ban corporal punishment in Kentucky and the 18 other states where it is still permitted under state law.

The story cited above recounts data about the practice of corporal punishment and quotes various sources condeming the practice.  Interestingly, what the article does not address is by what authority Congresswoman McCarthy believes the federal government can dictate such matters to the states.  Will it be, as with most federal educational initiatives, the carrot and stick of federal education funding?  ("If you want our money, you'll do as we say?").

The U.S. Constitution is silent on the issue of education, suggesting that the federal government has no authority over such matters. 

Corporal punishment is a bad idea.  So is excessive federal meddling in issues best handled by local authorities.

Politician refuses to offer parents school choice; offers 25 "innovation" schools instead

In class the other night I mused that education in the future, especially high school education, will look remarkably different  than it does today, if we're going to really deliver a 21st century education to our children.  A student asked me what I thought education of the future would look like, and I described some ideas about how schools might be structured.

But I also found myself echoing a powerful point made by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, editors of Reason magazine, in their new book, The Declaration of Independents: it's a crime that consumers have more choices of toothpaste at their local Minit Mart than they do in educational options for their children, especially if they are poor. 

In almost every aspect of our lives, Americans enjoy more choices of goods and services at lower prices and higher quality than in any other point in history, with a few stark exceptions.  And education is probably the biggest exception of all.

A news story from earlier this week illustrates how politicians and the educational establishment maintain a monopoly on one of the most crucial services in our economy.  On Monday, Kentucky House of Representatives Education Committee Chairman Carl Rollins made it clear to the Kentucky School Boards Association that we'll get no closer to charter schools in the upcoming legislative session of the General Assembly.

“I am not a fan of charter schools and think it would be a detriment to public schools to have charter schools. We need to focus on working with the schools that we have,” Rollins told the association's leaders in Frankfort.

I'm not a fan of charter schools either, per se, but I am a big fan of school choice.  And Rollins is absolutely right: if you give parents options, they might very well not choose the public schools that are currently the only option for poor and middle class families.  We can't be having that, Rollins seems to say. 

Instead (as if it's a comparable proposal to giving families more educational choices), Rollins says he will sponsor a bill allowing up to five schools per year to apply for "innovative school" status, a designation that will free them from some of the regulations currently hamstringing otherwise dynamic, high-performing schools.  Rollins didn't state which regulations he will specifically waive for these schools.

The puniness of Rollins' proposal is laughable.  In five years, Kentucky will have a whopping 25 schools in which principals are free to make key leadership decisions and teachers are free to innovate curriculum and instruction. 

I'm all for the idea of wiping out as many school regulations as possible, but creativity and innovation ultimately only thrive in a marketplace where consumers have the choices among a variety of options.  As I've written elsewhere, England has the right idea at the moment: give schools total autonomy but also ultimate accountability; if they don't deliver high levels of student achievement, they'll be replaced, shut down or taken over by other schools or organizations capable of getting the job done.

That kind of system with autonomy and accountability only exists when you give parents a choice.  Charter schools are perhaps the weakest school choice strategy available, but they are at least a start.  "Innovation schools" aren't a bad idea, but they go nowhere in terms of creating a genuine marketplace of educational options.

Politicians like Rollins think they know better than parents what's in the best interest of their children, and have engineered a system that guarantees poor and middle class families have no other choices.  The results are bad for children, and ultimately bad for public schools.

More on Power Standards

Yesterday I made some pretty bold statements about power standards - or the lack thereof - within the Common Core Standards, and suggested that our friends at the Kentucky Department of Education are misguided, at best, if they think the entire CCS can be taught to mastery.

Today some colleagues close to KDE tried to broaden my perspective on this a little.  As my colleagues described it, KDE is not against prioritization of standards - but that should be done in such a way that less essential standards get folded into the power standards, recognizing that many of the skills and concepts in the CCS actually support other, more rigorous and demanding standards.  Their concern is that by using the term "power standards," we're suggesting that some standards just get thrown out altogether.

Okay, I get this - and I see we are almost talking about the same thing.  I'd have to see or seek out examples of less-essential standards that could be folded into larger, more important ones.  I'm still skeptical that such a process could cover everything that's in CCS - necessitating that we do, indeed, throw some things out.

But the point remains that the Common Core Standards - as they are written - are still too many in number.  An intentional process of prioritization is still needed, whether you call it identifying "power standards" or something else.  And as yet, KDE has not formally acknowledged this or offered structures and support to do so (that I'm aware of). 

So it still falls to school leaders to lead their teachers through thoughtful, intentional processes of culling through the CCS.  I sense that this isn't happening - anywhere.  Maybe students or colleagues can set me straight on this too.  Until we do this process of prioritization, we are still not offering the "guaranteed, viable" curriculum Marzano and others argue is essential for high-levels of student learning.

Power Standards: The Elephant that is STILL in the Room...

Some of my classes are currently studying "power standards" and reading a book chapter by Doug Reeves of the same name.  Reeves, writing in 2006, argued that the scope of curriculum taught in most schools is far beyond anything that could reasonably taught to proficiency.  Reeves (and Mike Schmoker and Robert Marzano) argued that schools must cull through the state-mandated curriculum and identify the most essential standards for instruction.  Reeves provides guidelines and criteria for identifying and prioritizing curricula in this way, and claims that schools making power standards the focus of instruction will make a better investment in student learning.  Whatever is lost in breadth will be made up in a depth of learning.  More students will master more key standards and ultimately do better on state proficiency exams.

Reeves, Schmoker, and Marzano were all key figures who, in part, inspired the move toward Common Core Standards.  The CCS were intended to be clearer, fewer in number, and better aligned K-12 than previously-existing state standards.  On two of these counts, CCS was indeed an improvement.  And while, in math perhaps, CCS may include fewer standards than Kentucky's previous core content for assessment - there is still far too much there to teach to proficiency.

We know this, but to my surprise, state education bureaucrats must be in total denial.

At his presentation on grading practices last week, Steve Ventura launched his talk with an argument that schools still needed power standards.  He also said that, when he gave this same presentation to Kentucky superintendents last summer, staff from the Kentucky Department of Education approached him and said, "Don't you dare talk to these people about power standards."  (I assume since Steve defiantly talked about this last week he won't mind me putting it writing here on this blog).  The KDE folks argued that all of the CCS is important and therefore they wanted to be united in insisting that schools should teach it all.  To proficiency.

The absurdity of this is staggering.  As Steve Ventura pointed out, other countries that out-perform schools in the U.S. teach far fewer standards and have much longer school years.  This has not changed with CCS.  One can argue about how American standards compare with other countries in depth and scope, but on the face of it any reasonable person can look at the CCS and know that, as our schools are currently structured, the likelihood of teaching every standard to mastery - especially when many students are already working below grade level - is nil.

Instead of foolishly insisting otherwise, our state education leaders ought to be having real, meaningful conversations with teachers and school leaders about how to best approach the implementation of Common Core Standards.  That implementation ought to start with a thoughtful, intentional, collaborative process of prioritizing standards from essential, to important, to "nice to know."

This is not easy work because none of the standards are superfluous and no teacher wants to leave content untaught.  But if we don't make intentional, collaborative decisions about what we won't teach, then what gets left out will simply be what we run out of time to "cover."  Which is exactly where we were before CCS.

It's a terrifying prospect for educators, of course, because there's always the fear that what we leave out will be on the "test."  But I believe (and here, I stand confidently on the shoulders of Reeves, Schmoker, Marzano, and others) that by teaching fewer standards, we can get more students to a richer, deeper level of mastery on core concepts and skills that will pay off in higher test scores.

Risky?  Possibly.  But one thing you can guarantee: we won't teach all the standards to mastery as they are currently constructed.