School Leader

On the KDE-JCPS district turnaround agreement

Today I was pleased to join other members of the Kentucky Board of Education in unanimously dismissing the scheduled appeals hearing requested by the Jefferson County Public Schools to contest the recommendation of state management by Interim Commissioner Wayne Lewis. Dr. Lewis, Superintendent Marty Pollio, and JCPS Chair Diane Porter requested the dismissal because they have reached an agreement for a collaboration between the district and the Kentucky Department of Education setting JCPS on an improvement path that preserves local governance but gives KDE heightened oversight and authority over the district's progress. 

Dr. Lewis and Dr. Pollio will now collaborate on a district corrective action plan that is expected to incorporate several improvement strategies already underway. The JCPS board will retain its authority, but Commissioner Lewis will have the right to provide comment and feedback on any board actions involving early child education, special education seclusion and restraint, career and technical education, and facilities, areas identified as serious district deficiencies in a recent management audit. Meanwhile, the Commissioner will also have the right to approve or disapprove of any changes in board policy regarding special education, seclusion and restraint, and early child education.

The agreement establishes that a follow up management audit will be conducted in 2020, and based on those results, the Commissioner may then release the district from its corrective action plan, or recommend state assistance or state management of the district as provided under Kentucky law (which the district may appeal). Of great significance, the JCPS board will not be able to dismiss Superintendent Pollio without the Commissioner's approval until after the 2020 audit, ensuring that his leadership may continue secure and uninterrupted during this turnaround process. It appears that the district is, in fact, making serious progress to address its growth areas under Dr. Pollio's leadership, and I am pleased to see him empowered to continue that work.

I am tremendously proud of Dr. Lewis, Dr. Pollio, and the JCPS board members who rose above the sensationalized rhetoric surrounding this process and made a bold, collaborative decision on behalf of the district's students. I hope this agreement will finally bring a stop to the barrage of misinformation that has been spread by those who sought to politicize this effort to correct the many problems the district has struggled to fix. The agreement recognizes that important local efforts are underway and that local actors are ultimately in the best place to articulate a path forward. But given the serious, longstanding, and still unresolved issues around student safety and achievement, it also makes sense to create a structure of monitoring and accountability to ensure there is effective follow through on these efforts.

If this works - and I have every reason to believe it will under this current combination of leaders - a new national model for state-district turnaround collaboration may have emerged. I'm so pleased for Kentucky and for the students of JCPS.

Usual disclaimer: All opinions expressed on this website are mine alone and do not reflect the views of anyone else affiliated with Western Kentucky University (where I am professor of educational administration, leadership, and research) or the Kentucky Board of Education.

Related posts:

• Information regarding recommendation for JCPS state management
• What I see in low-performing schools

 

Kentucky drops the masters degree requirement for teachers: What you need to know

I've seen a lot of concerned and angry responses in social media to yesterday's decision by the Education Professionals Standards Board (EPSB) to drop the long-standing requirement that Kentucky teachers earn a master's degree (or equivalent) by their tenth year of service. There seems to be some confusion and misinformation about this change, where it comes from, and what it will do. In this post I'd like to provide some background and perspective. While this change of policy has big implications for university educator preparation programs (like the ones where I work at Western Kentucky University), I believe the net impact will be positive for teachers and for teacher professional development overall.

As always, let me be clear that I am speaking solely for myself in what I write here. My perspectives are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of anyone else affiliated with WKU (where I am professor of educational administration, leadership, and research) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I serve as a member; note also that KBE has no role in this decision by the EPSB to change the Master's degree requirement).

Kentucky's pay and rank system

First, it's important to know that Kentucky is fairly unusual in requiring teachers to earn a master's degree, but it is very common for school districts across the country to pay teachers more when they do. Under Kentucky law, individual school districts establish teacher pay scales, but they are required to differentiate pay for teachers based on both years of experience and "rank." In Kentucky's unique language, Rank 3 means a bachelor's degree, Rank 2 is a master's degree (or an equivalent, "planned fifth year" program), and Rank 1 is 30 credits of graduate coursework in a planned program beyond the master's degree.

Kentucky teachers were required by regulation to earn Rank 2 by the time they've been teaching 10 years, and districts usually pay about $5,000 more per year when they do. Teachers could voluntarily choose to go ahead and earn Rank 1, and most districts again pay teachers around 5,000 additional dollars to those who do. Over the course of a career, these pay bumps for Rank 2 and Rank 1 can add up to a sizable salary difference.

Yesterday the EPSB voted to waive the requirement that teachers earn Rank 2. It now becomes a voluntary option for teachers who would like to earn more money in their district, just like earning Rank 1.

Why make this change?

The simple reason for eliminating this requirement is that, despite many good reasons for earning a master's degree, there is no evidence that just earning a master's degree in itself has any meaningful impact on teacher job performance. Numerous researchers have examined this connection in multiple states, including this recent study from North Carolina by Helen Ladd and Lucy Sorenson. 

High quality master's degree programs can be a good source of professional development, can help teachers add new credentials and certification areas, and can serve as a useful mechanism for networking with other educators. Research suggests (unsurprisingly) that teachers who earn advanced degrees are more likely to stay in the teaching profession, which is a net positive in that it places limits on costly teacher turnover. And, teachers can earn substantially more money in doing so, even after they pay off the cost of their degree.

These are all good reasons for teachers to think about earning a master's degree. But they are insufficient to justify requiring every teacher to do so in a one-size-fits-all state mandate.

What will be the consequences?

The chief concern I've heard from teachers about the elimination of the master's degree requirement is that districts will cease to pay extra for earning one. But I believe this fear is unfounded.

First, KRS 157.390 requires districts to differentiate teacher pay based on rank. The amount of the difference is not stipulated. Districts are voluntarily paying teachers $4,000 to $6,000 more annually for earning Rank 2. As far as I can tell, if districts wanted to reduce this pay bump there is no provision under current law stopping them, as long as the pay was some amount higher than Rank 3. There is no reason to assume that districts will now rush to slash teacher pay when there was nothing stopping them from doing so already.

But furthermore, districts don't want to cut teacher pay and have no incentive to do so. In Kentucky, where we have 173 school districts, many in close proximity to each other, competition for high-quality teachers forces districts to keep their salary schedules in line with their neighbors. The backlash against local districts attempting to do this would be enormous and politically unfeasible. Districts may find new and innovative ways to compensate teachers, but at least one way will be based on rank earned (voluntarily), and the risk of cuts in overall teacher pay seems virtually non-existent. 

The second concern about waiving the master's degree requirement is the impact it will have on university graduate programs in education that have been able to rely on a captive stream of tuition dollars. Enrollments in educator preparation programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level are down nationally, and Kentucky's universities have felt the pinch also. Will this change mean even fewer students in their programs?

Almost certainly it will, as there will be some group of teachers who opt not to earn a master's degree. But for the reasons I note above, there is no reason to assume that this change of policy alone will cause massive numbers of teachers to abandon the idea of an advanced degree. Furthermore, this change places more creative pressure on universities to make sure the graduate degrees they offer are ever more effective, relevant, and affordable - a challenge we must meet regardless of whether master's degrees are required.

What this is NOT about

A bewildering array of accusations have appeared in my social media feeds from educators trying to make sense of this change. Almost all of them are unfounded or completely false.

First, it is not true that waiving the requirement that teachers earn a master's degree means that supporters of this change don't value education. I have two master's degrees and a doctorate. I make my living as professor in a graduate education program. My whole career is about promoting high-quality education. One can find value in advanced degrees without believing that every other educator must be forced to earn one.

Nor is this change part of some vast, right-wing conspiracy to "dismantle public education" in Kentucky, as one teacher on Facebook put it. The recommendation for waiving the master's degree requirement came from an ad hoc EPSB committee made up of stakeholders including teachers, administrators, and higher education officials that has been studying this issue for 18 months. The committee has made an array of recommendations regarding Rank 2 and other certification requirements which EPSB may also consider in coming months designed to make continuing education for teachers more flexible and relevant. 

Perhaps the most absurd accusation of all is that waiving the master's degree requirement is somehow designed to help charter schools - which Kentucky does not have at this time, despite a charter law successful passing in 2017. This is part and parcel to the ocean of misinformation deliberately spread by many educator groups about charter schools. Kentucky's charter law is clear that teachers in charter schools will have to be certified in the exact same way as teachers in traditional public schools, but charter schools already have the autonomy to set their own salary schedules and would not be beholden to district step-and-lane salary schedules regardless of this change in the master's degree requirement. (Read more about how charters will work in Kentucky here).

The bottom line is that this policy change simply gives teachers the opportunity to decide whether a master's degree is the right pathway for them individually. Most will do so, and will continue to be compensated accordingly. As I argued recently, these kinds of changes ultimately create more autonomy for individual educators and local schools to innovate and improve, and are deserving of support from people across the entire political spectrum.

Usual disclaimer: All views expressed on this website are mine alone and do not reflect the collective opinions of the Kentucky Board of Education (where I serve as a member) or Western Kentucky University (where I serve as professor of educational administration, leadership, and research).

Related posts:

• Urgency and humility: A conservative philosophy of education reform
• Kentucky charter schools basics
• Is education in Kentucky "under attack?"

Urgency and humility: A conservative philosophy of education reform

When I was first appointed to the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) in 2016, I mused on the irony. As a professor of education administration, I was accustomed to telling my students (all aspiring school principals) to pay little attention to education policy or the workings of the state legislature or state board. School leaders spend way too much time fretting over the state accountability system or other mandates, all of which have an extremely indirect impact on student learning, and not nearly enough time on the building-level factors that actually make a difference in student achievement. That’s where I want my students to focus their efforts.

And then suddenly I was a member of the state board of education, helping make the policies I was telling practitioners not to worry with so much. At the time I argued that of course I believe policy does matter, but its function is in creating an environment where educational excellence can flourish by unleashing the innovative capacity of empowered teachers, parents, students, and local school and community leaders.

In the two years that have followed I’ve had many opportunities to reflect further on the tension between what we do at the state level and what happens at the local level in the larger effort to improve student learning. For example, when KBE was reworking the statewide school accountability system to conform with new federal guidelines, I cautioned fellow board members and education stakeholders that while we should build the best accountability system possible, we should not overestimate its capacity to actually accelerate student achievement. Only the work of local actors could make that happen, and the accountability system exists primarily to provide feedback on their efforts.

In April of this year several new members joined KBE as the terms of members appointed by the previous governor expired. These new members (several of whom I had worked with previously in their role as governor-appointed advisors to the board or in other capacities) have a refreshing and passionate urgency to press our educational system to much more rapid levels of improvement. While I am the only member of KBE to have served as a professional K-12 educator, these new members draw on their considerable experience as business and community leaders to provide new perspectives and ask demanding questions about our lackluster progress and how we can do better.

In our discussions about policy, I often find myself trying to explain the complexities of what educators do and the confounding, immeasurable, and often uncontrollable variables at work in the results. I anticipate that, as we move forward with our board agenda, I will often urge caution and careful consideration of sweeping policy ideas that, while well-intentioned, may not achieve the desired results and may ultimately do more harm than good. I expect to frequently advocate for giving educators more flexibility in their work and greater consideration of their perspectives and frustrations.

This is all good. I am grateful for board members who are fiercely dedicated to educational improvement, because no one should be satisfied with the results we are currently getting. Like everyone who has spent decades in a professional environment, I have my own blind spots where perhaps I have grown accustomed to the way we do things. I can readily admit that I’ve been wrong about certain educational ideas in the past and therefore I’m likely to be wrong about some of the ideas I currently hold as well.

But I also don’t want my reservations about state-level policy to come across as a defense of the educational status quo. Read virtually any post on my blog from the last eight years and it should be clear that I don’t endorse business as usual in education. I believe I was appointed to the KBE in the first place because of my advocacy for education reforms that might seriously disrupt the way we have traditionally thought about schooling. So I want to be clear, both for myself and others, what guides my thinking about the role of state policy, student learning, and the work of K-12 education.

In this extended post I’d like to unpack some of my thoughts about all this, first as an intellectual exercise for myself, but secondarily as a help to any education stakeholders interested in how we balance all the tensions we encounter while trying to make K-12 education far more effective than it has been in the past. As always, let me be clear that I speak strictly for myself, and no one else affiliated with the Kentucky Board of Education or my employer, Western Kentucky University.

We’re not getting better fast enough, for many reasons

The first thing to say is that the education system is, indeed, not getting the results we need. I won’t go into great detail about this as I’ve presented this argument elsewhere with data to demonstrate that, while Kentucky may be having some modest progress in certain areas of student achievement, the rate of improvement is so painfully slow that vast swaths of children will still be lacking in basic academic proficiency for generations to come. Of course there are serious limitations to what test scores can really tell us about student learning, but even with those limitations, our rate of progress (or lack thereof) is simply unacceptable.

Why are our schools not successfully meeting this challenge? The reasons are legion and no single cause accounts for a measurably larger explanation than others. Poverty certainly has a key role to play. There is overwhelming evidence that students who grow up in low-income homes face a multitude of learning challenges. A few bold voices have recently started naming the role of family breakdown (a phenomenon closely, but not exclusively, linked to poverty) as an enormous obstacle to student achievement. Sometimes educators want to blame low student performance exclusively on poverty and family instability, but this ignores the reality that there are schools serving high percentages of low-income students that are nevertheless getting strong results (updated: see this new New York Times piece on how Chicago schools are beating the odds with high percentages of students living in poverty). In my own experience, there are qualitative differences between high and low-performing schools in terms of learning processes and leadership decision-making that can explain more than poverty. But even when all those best practices are in place, it is demonstrably harder to accelerate learning with at-risk kids and schools have not been able to scale up a more rapid improvement in overall student achievement.