School Leader

Recent CQ Researcher issue focuses on homeschooling

I was recently interviewed for a special issue of CQ Researcher, a bimonthly public policy publication that attempts to offer a comprehensive look at hot-button issues.  The March 7, 2014 edition examines the topic of homeschooling.  The complete issue, written by Marcia Clemmitt, features several articles and is available here.

In an effort to provide a "balanced" view of the topic, the issue is sometimes longer on opinion than fact, but nevertheless offers a multi-perspective analysis of what I consider one of the most interesting developments in American educational history.

My comments appear in a section called, "Can home schooling help public schools?"  Relevant passage:

In the long run, says Gary Houchens, an associate professor of educational administration, leadership and research at Western Kentucky University, the public schools badly need fresh ideas about how to tackle today's tough education demands, and the experiences of home-schoolers might provide some insights.

“The current structures of education have outlived their usefulness,” Houchens says. That's largely because, for the first time in history, “we have to figure out how to do something that schools were never designed to do — educate all students to proficiency,” he says. It's clear by now that this unprecedented task cannot be achieved using many standard school practices, such as “age-level groupings, a fragmented curriculum, days broken up into 60-minute periods by traditional subject matter such as reading or math, and letter grades,” he says.

But what new practices and structures might effectively replace those models remains a mystery, Houchens says. He argues that the embrace of home schooling by more and more parents might provide some answers, if educators study them. “What does it mean that kids can be educated in their own homes at least to a comparable level that they are in schools” and that some people find homeschooling “a personalized model that schools don't provide and that seems to work better for their child?” he asks.

Actually, while I do believe that no one knows what the future holds, the features of America's emerging schooling structures are becoming more clear to me.  Whatever education looks like later this century, I believe families will demand more personalization, flexibility, and choice than the traditional structure of state-run schooling can provide.  And it is in these features that high-quality homeschooling excels.

Read my review of Joseph Murphy's excellent book, Homeschooling in America: Capturing and Assessing the Movement, here, along with my thoughts on what all of this means for people who work in traditional schools.  A version of this post also appeared on Penelope Trunk's homeschooling website.

 Read my post, "Countering educators' bias against homeschooling," here.

Doug Reeves reflects on acquittal, his future

I have been writing about the trial of education writer, speaker, and consultant Douglas Reeves, who was acquitted earlier this month on a charge of indecent assault.  Reeves was accused of inappropriately touching a nine-year-old girl in his home in 2006.  He denied the accusation and, after numerous delays (he was first arraigned in August 2012), a trial commenced on April 1 and he was found not guilty by a jury three days later.

Today I had a chance to talk with Reeves about the trial and his future.  While acknowledging that his reputation may have been permanently damaged despite his acquittal, Reeves emphasized his hope that educators would continue to focus on the evidence for the ideas he has promoted in his writing and speaking, rather than their personal judgments about him.

"Ideas are more important than personalities," he said.  "My respectful request would be that people consider the strength of the ideas and research I have presented in the past. I have never said that you should evaluate a policy or practice based on the simple fact that I advocated it."

Reeves declined to talk about the specifics of his case or strategies used by the prosecution or defense.  (You can read local media coverage of the trial here and here).

"Maybe [people] expect me to come out swinging [in my own defense] but that is not who I am and not what I'm going to do...I have nothing negative to say about them [the complaining witness and her family] or anybody else.  That would serve no good purpose...I am not joyful or relieved [about the outcome]....There are no winners in a case like this."

Reeves' former organization, The Leadership and Learning Center, severed ties with him soon after the case became public.  Education publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had already purchased the organization prior to these events and at the time Reeves was an independent contractor.  His contract was suspended after his arraignment and then canceled by mutual agreement when it became clear the issue would not be resolved quickly.

Reeves said his speaking engagements were typically scheduled over a year in advance and all but a few were cancelled almost immediately.  "I went from being booked 120 days or more a year to one or two.  People just wanted to wait and see what was going to happen."

Reeves said he spent the next 20 months focusing on volunteer work, including offering a free service to doctoral students to help them successfully complete their dissertations, and on-going research and writing projects.  Among other things, Reeves said he has been writing about how to better nurture creativity in leaders, teachers, and students.  "Everybody talks a good game about how creativity is a 21st century learning skill, but in fact we don't encourage it and may often undermine creativity because we don't allow the risk that's involved," he said.

He has launched a new website, www.changeleaders.com, to facilitate his future work.  The emphasis is on organizational leadership in general, rather than just education.  Reeves said he hopes to expand his writing into other areas, such as leadership in the non-profit sector, and is conducting an original research study on how successful non-profits have weathered the economic recession since 2008.

Reeves said he is realistic about the challenges to his credibility in light of the publicity surrounding this trial.  Soon after the case became public the Swampscott Patch reported that Reeves plead guilty and spent a brief time in federal prison for securities fraud in 1993.

Reeves said that case involved $10 million dollars in investments, of which approximately $200,000 was a real estate offering in which he had a personal ownership interest.

"That situation requires that you disclose your ownership," Reeves said.  "I failed to do that.  Restitution was immediately made but failure to disclose is still a [criminal] violation.  I plead guilty.  There is no equivocation on my part.  I should have made the disclosure.  I failed to do it.  I was wrong."

Reeves again emphasized that his personal failures and accusations against him should not undermine the value of the teaching and leadership practices he has promoted in his work.

"Just as an example - take the importance of non-fiction writing," he said.  "I'm hardly the first person who has said that, and there is a huge quantity of research out there supporting the value of non-fiction writing for improving student learning...Improving grading practices is another [area where]...it's not just a matter of personal philosophy.  I just hope that these ideas would not be harmed because there is someone out there who doesn't like me personally."

The overarching theme of my conversation with Doug Reeves was his concern that educators stay focused on their work of school improvement and less on his personal troubles.

"Some people will welcome me back and others won't," he said.  "I'm well aware that there are people out there who do not like me and never will.  I just have to do what I've always done, which is just to do the best I can in my research and writing and let the results speak for themselves."

TELL Kentucky-PBIS research presented at AERA

Last weekend I had the pleasure of joining Dr. Jie Zhang of WKU in presenting our recent research examining the relationship between teacher perceptions and the implementation of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) at the annual conference of the American Education Research Association (AERA) held in Philadelphia.

Co-authors on our study included WKU EdD student Chunling Niu, GRREC behavior consultant Dr. Kelly Davis (a graduate of WKU's doctoral program), and former WKU colleague Dr. Kyong Hee Chon.

Our study explored whether teachers in schools implementing Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports had better preceptions of their working conditions than teachers in non-PBIS schools.  PBIS provides a framework for establishing school-wide behavioral expectations and engaging teachers in regular analysis of discipline data to set goals, monitor progress, and trouble-shoot problems.  The goals of PBIS include enhanced school culture and climate and a focus on positive student behavior (rather than a strictly punitive approach to student conduct). 

To explore teacher perceptions in PBIS and non-PBIS schools, we analyzed data from the 2011 TELL (Teaching, Empowering, Leading, and Learning) Kentucky survey, administered to teachers across the Commonwealth by the Kentucky Department of Education.  TELL measures teacher perceptions of their working conditions on eight constructs, including Managing Student Conduct (a concept closely related to the goals and processes of PBIS). 

We used MANOVA and ANOVA statistical techniques to compare TELL responses between 151 PBIS-implementing schools and 144 demographically-matched non-PBIS schools.  As predicted, teachers in PBIS schools reported significantly better perceptions of Managing Student Conduct than teachers in non-PBIS schools, but also had better perceptions of school leadership.  This suggests that, at least in terms of its impact on teacher perceptions, PBIS might serve to improve working conditions in schools.

We were further able to divide PBIS schools based on the extent to which they faithfully implemented key structures of PBIS, creating three groups (high-fidelity, medium-fidelity, and low-fidelity implementers).  Among these groups, high-fidelity schools had significantly higher perceptions of Managing Student Conduct, Community Support and Involvement, and Teacher Leadership than their lower-fidelity counterparts, suggesting that if schools plan to embrace PBIS, they should work hard to ensure that all aspects of the program are fully implemented in order to achieve maximum results.

In a final analysis, we used hierarchical linear regression to examine linkages between PBIS implementation and student achievement using 2011 Kentucky student outcome data.  We found no significant differences between PBIS and non-PBIS schools in this regard, although high-fidelity PBIS schools had significantly higher achievement levels than low-fidelity implementers.  This finding should be viewed with some consideration of the study's limitations, however.  High-fidelity implementers may have already had higher student outcomes and these results may bear no actual linkage to PBIS implementation.

We appreciated the feedback we received from conference participants.  Many complimented the inclusion of the fidelity of implementation variable, which is often not considered in program evaluation studies.

We believe this study makes an important contribution in the growing literature about PBIS and also about the TELL Kentucky survey (which was administered again in 2013 and has become a mandated component of school improvement efforts in the state).  Previous analyses have found relatively little linkage between teacher perceptions as measured by TELL and student outcomes.  In other words, TELL does not distinguish well between high and low-performing schools.  But the application of TELL for program evaluation purposes, as utilized in this study, perhaps holds more promise.

We will seek to publish results of this research in a peer-reviewed journal in coming months.  In the meantime if you would like more information about the study, please e-mail me.

Doug Reeves acquitted in indecent assault case

I have just received word that prominent education leadership author and speaker Douglas Reeves has been acquitted in his trial for indecent assault.

I have been following this case since Reeves' arrest in September 2012.  After numerous delays, the trial began this past Tuesday (April 1) and concluded today with a jury verdict that found Reeves not guilty.

Reeves was accused of indecent assault against a nine-year-old girl in his Massachusetts home in 2006.  He denied the allegations and was represented by prominent Boston defense attorney Max Stern, who has represented high-profile defendents like mob leader Whitey Bulger.

Following Reeves' arrest it was later revealed that he had spent time in prison in the 1990's for securities fraud.  It is unclear at this point whether that fact was considered relevant to this trial.

Readers of this blog have followed Reeves' case with close interest, generating thousands of visits to related posts.  I have also been contacted by educators from around the country eager to learn more.  Like me, many of them have considered Reeves an inspiration to our own work in schools.  Some have written me to express their disbelief and support; others have expressed their condemnation of Reeves' alleged actions.  It is unclear how Reeves' acquittal will now affect his standing in the education community.

I will post more on this case as information becomes available.

UPDATE, 4/8/2014: Read coverage of the trial and verdict from the Lynn, Massachusetts Daily Item here and here.

UPDATE, 4/11/2014: Read coverage of the trial and verdict from Education Week here.

UPDATE, 4/16/2014: Read about my interview with Reeves, in which he reflects on the trial and his future, here.