The Answer To Rhee-Form: Reform
Lately, education reform has gotten a bad name. This is largely because all efforts to improve our institutions of learning are suspected to be more Rhee-form than reform, with an emphasis on statistics over students, testing over tutoring, one-size fits all approaches as opposed to creating the kind of cultural change within our schools that will lead to their renaissance.
This is why, for me, it was quite literally a breath of fresh air when I recently was introduced to Steve Edwards, CEO of Edwards Educational Services. Edwards, who speaks so passionately about education that there is no doubting his sincerity, has built a model consulting practice on the premise that leadership skills are of paramount importance, safety, lowering dropout rates and student achievement go hand in hand, and building a relationship of “trust” between students, administrators and educators is key.
In summary, Edwards and his entire organization are so successful because as EES itself states, we can't apply “simplistic solutions to address complex problems…The educational system of each city and town must be structured and continually adjusted to meet the needs of its population, as well as the demands of society’s evolving dynamics.”
Adding to this, Edwards told me:
There are a number of indicators of student performance, of which testing is only one. It is considered 95% of the pie by those dominating many reform conversations today. It should be about 20%.
Let's not create conformity so kids do not learn to think. Let's not substitute rigidity for the ability to study data and demographics from local communities, and see what that tells us about which strategies will be most successful. Let's develop programs so teachers and students can learn to communicate and interact. Let's prioritize safety and achievement, and acknowledge the obvious relationship between them. Let's ensure there is teacher accountability, but not judge teachers based on results from one test, but on how they handle all of these important facets of the educational experience for our children.
If that sounds different than Rhee-form, that's because it is. Innovation should be about updating improving how we teach our children, not figuring out the best way to profit from it. Yes, change is necessary, no it doesn't need to come in the form of some Randian version of public schooling.
How do we know EES’ strategies work? Because even before he took his innovative student-centric approach national, Edwards displayed its effectiveness as principal of East Hartford High School in East Hartford, Connecticut for a decade, during which time he and the school were recognized by USA Today as national leaders in education innovation.
What happened during his tenure there? Only a 50% reduction in suspensions, over 50% drop in incidents of fighting, no student expulsions in seven years, a reduction in the dropout rate to under 1.8%, and increased graduation rates—all while improving scores on the standardized tests that are so all-important to Rhee's crowd.
More recently, from 2005 to 2008, Edwards Educational Services worked with 48 Toledo Public Schools. When compared to the 14 schools that did not work with EES, the results speak for themselves. EES's emphasis on creating a culture of collaboration and data-based decision-making led to an increase in achievement scores of over 60% among the 48 public schools they worked with, while the other 14% saw their achievement scores go up by just over 10%. I don't need Isaac Newton to explain to me that those numbers mean something.
In the years since, Edwards has learned what works on the ground level, joining The National Crime Prevention Council as vice president, to develop strategies to lessen youth, family, and community violence. Edwards also provided kids with the training, skills, and confidence they need as Vice President of Global Initiatives with 180-Degree, and a decade sitting on the Board of the National Dropout Prevention Center—all contributors to the development of the groundbreaking programs of Edwards Educational Services.
As if these results and strategic imperatives don’t speak for themselves, one need only look to a recent piece by Sarah D. Sparks in Education Week, entitled, “Study Links School Safety to Student Achievement, Relationships,” to see the power of The Edwards Approach:
School safety depends far less on the poverty and crime surrounding the campus than on the academic achievement of its students and their relationships with adults in the building, according to a new study of Chicago public schools.
Read the rest, it is well worth it.
I'm excited to be working with Edwards Educational Services in trying to achieve some pretty lofty goals, but I'm even more excited that in EES we have the answer to Rhee-form. And as you could have guessed, it’s real, it’s tangible, and it’s student-focused....REFORM.
Cliff Schecter's on Twitter, Follow him @cliffschecter
The first one would be: Is USA Today a reliable judge of educational reform strategies? The second would be: How do those vague generalities like : "Let's develop programs so teachers and students can learn to communicate and interact. Let's prioritize safety and achievement,...." translate into actual policies and techniques that achieve those stated goals? And, if testing is so despised, why do they cite test score improvements as proof of the superiority of these supposedly better policies. If a deeper analysis of what happened at a single school were undertaken would we find these claims are justified? Or is it just another vaguer form of Rhee? Other than the fact that they chose different statistics to measure success (Incidents of violence?) I don't see a lot of difference. Rhee bases her claims on statistics and so does this guy.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
I am also pretty dubious about anyone claiming to be able to make teachers better with more discussions about priorities.
Teachers are professionals and when left to teach do a pretty good job.
It's the kids mired in generational poverty who need our help, not their teachers.
Edwards will make money, but won't help any students.
Such a shame.
If you were manufacturing a product and your suppliers sent you nothing but inferior raw materials to make an excellent product you would just change suppliers right? Well, teachers can't do that.
Speaking of manufacturing, our urban schools were designed and built when we had factories in our cities. Suburban and newer schools were based on this model. There are basically no factories left in our urban areas, but our schools and that old model remain.
Mass media, such as C&R, doesn't really have interviews or articles from teachers or administrators. What we usually hear is PR like the above from businesses or politicians.
teachers stopped being able to "communicate and interact" with students.. If such is the root of the problem it can't be the students fault can it? In which case this is just another way of saying the teachers are at fault. I don't buy that.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
All this bullshit "reform" isn't intended to make public schools better, it is to destroy them. Wake up.
Great report, Cliff. With real reforms like this, we really could leave no child behind.
The book of the year...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0058KSKHW
and big business marketing is now the "educational system". It's no wonder everythings so screwed up.
For more about moving away from factory education to "empathic civilization", see this RSA animated video by Jeremy Rifkin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g
When was education really working? When does it work best?
Consider the brain, it has two parts. One part is a transcriber, and today that is the ONLY part that gets any real use in the Henry Ford model of education that almost every school attempts. It doesn't mater if the school is public, private or charter. All schools today treat education as a factory. The students are told to listen to the teacher, read what goes on the blackboard/whiteboard/smartboard, and take notes on what they are learning. This fits in with the theory that learning happens when you have all three input mechanisms (auditory, visual, kinesthetic) functioning at the same time.
But consider that is NOT how people learn. An infant does not learn from watching someone walk, but learns from attempting to walk. Learning come from DOING, from making mistakes, from having someone indicate that the error has been made and suggesting paths to correction and then from correcting those mistakes. This doesn't change from learning to walk to say, writing software. A software engineer writes a line of code, runs it, it fails and they investigate what happens and then correct for any errors and run it again.
So, how do we teach? Today we teach as stated above. We have students sit in an environment where they get input and then regurgitate it on a multiple guess test in which one answer to a question is right and the other four are distractors which are not used to gather information about why the student may be wrong, but are there to be "almost right".
So, what can be done to "fix" the system that treats education the same way we treat building a car, an assembly line where we think dumping data in is the best way to get it retained and out again? There are actually three things that have to be done. One I won't discuss here (see my disclaimer at the bottom of this post), but the others I will.
There was once a time when our educational system was working. It gave us bright minds that helped the country leap forward. Original thinkers and problem solvers. It was a time when students were not only expected to learn and retain, but they were also expected to do something else. Teach (actually tutor, which is far different from just teaching).
In the single room schoolhouse a teacher was responsible for teaching students of multiple age levels. Since that teacher was having to focus lessons on students with differing abilities, the teacher often used older students to "help" younger students understand concepts after she had provided the basics and the younger students were practicing them (like a child learning to walk). But here was where the power of the educational process came in. The older student was responsible for helping the younger learn from their mistakes and correct them. That involved not "giving the answer" but tutoring. In this process the older student would have to take the data that they had in the "input" side of their brain (go back to the first paragraph) and rewrite it to the "output"side of their brain where they would have to be able to use that information in tutoring the student just learning and working with the new lessons.
The current educational system, which treats education as a process of building something via an assembly line, attempts to give every child the exact same experience at the exact same time. Rather than treating each child as a unique learner at a specific point on their path, public,charter and private schools today all attempt to pour into all the children the exact same information whether they are ready or not to process it. Then they don't actually allow the students to "learn"it from experiencing it, and they don't reinforce the leaning process by allowing the student to learn to analyze and tutor/teach the information so it self-corrects and re-writes.
Finally consider this:
"Districts must admit children at the beginning of the school year (or whenever they move into a district) if they will be five years of age on or before December 2 for the 2010-11 school year, December 2 for the 2011-12 school year, November 1 for the 2012-13 school year, October 1 for the 2013-14 school year and September 1 for the 2014-15 school year and each school year thereafter."
This is the law in California. So, in 2014 the age range in the third grade class the day it starts will be from 8 years 9 months to potentially 10. In that time spread physically a child will grow over 1.75 inches in height and almost 18 pounds in weight. Yet for educational purposes we consider their brains ready top accept the exact same information, at the same rates. That the conveyor belt of our education factory sees these children, at both ends of the spectrum exactly the same in their capability to learn the same data at the same rates.
Going back to that single room schoolhouse above, a student there was not treated as a member of a group that was that expansive, that thought that the learning skills and ability of a child at one plus years younger than another was the same. A student was a point on a continuous line of education, not a learning segment called "third grade". This chopping of the education process into learning segments where a student could be over a year away from another at any point in the segment, yet should be treated the same as it came to expectations for their ability to learn, retain and compete almost ensures education designed to serve the lowest common denominator. Mildly challenging to the minimum, and gruel to the rest. Much like giving everyone hamburger when many could manage steak.
As long as the educational system (public, charter and private) treats our children as if their development levels are all the same (when it is quite clear that they are far different), teaches to the lowest development level at each learning segment, and treats learning as a process of dumping data into them (the two of the three failure in education today that I discuss here) then it is bound to continue to fail, to ensure we do NOT educate our kids, whether they be from Compton or from Beverly Hills; whether they attend the best private schools, or the worst public; whether they come from the richest or poorest families.
[Disclaimer: I am a partner in a patented product for computer adaptive diagnostics for education]
http://www.theonion.com/articles/department-o...
"I've never pictured Hell as a place of fire, sulfur and demons with pitchforks, I've always imagined it as a place of excess and broken dreams and hopes."
...Michelle Rhee can kiss my stats.
Molding minds of mush for a better society! Another song and dance!
Every see Cindy Lauper's "She Bop"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFq4E9XTueY
They'll exchange one kind of conformity for another! What works is well known.
They did it in the '40's and 50's. Made us a world super power in technology.
Today China has a 20 year headstart on us. It would take a national emergency
to start to change the fact that we graduate morons, and nincompoops.
The day will come when we fix education, but that day is not today. Society is
not ready yet to do what needs to be done.
“I have had a messianic illusion since childhood ” -George Soros
when they are fed a lot of nonsense about the relative rankings of American students with the students of other countries. What is interesting is that when you go to look at the actual statistics on test performance you find that, while the rankings are accurate, the spread in actual performance is not something to get excited about. The differences between first and twentieth place in actual scores is just not that big.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
They will be by and large victims of an education system that cares more about appearences than substance. The movers, and shakers will make sure their children get the best education. For example my stepson's middle & high school education cost more than my house payment. I am a life long Union man, but I did not send my kid to a unionized, or public school for his education. He knows he is better for it.
Anybody who has heard of Rabun Gap school in NE. Georgia knows it would be hard to find a better school anywhere in the country.
Nobody says you have to be poor to be a Socialist, but if you are poor you will most likely be supported by a Socialism!
Fabian Socialists, heat the world up so they can remold it. - George Soros
Afterall that's what makes a strong middle class and we cannot afford a middle class in a global economy.
How are domestic corporations to compete with multinationals when the latter are given tax incentives to exploit cheap overseas labor?
We cannot tariff those reimports because their lobbyists give millions in "political will" every year to those who are suppose to be representing America. That federal employee pension fund just doesn't cut it for politicians that have become accustomed to flying around in corporate jets, eating at the finest restaurants, running up over a million in tabs at Tiffany's and vacationing at the most expensive destinations on earth.
These politicians work hard for themselves and they think they deserve the best.
If we have a middle class that points out how this economic and trade policy is killing America so a select few can prosper, that just creates unnecessary headaches for those politicians that just want to enjoy their corporate jet flight home from Europe after tasting the most expensive wines on earth. Remember, they have to let their corporate lobbyist friends write their own legislation and if it goes over 3 pages long, these same politicians will be required to pretend they read it. That can be exhausting.
So for the sake of our politicians, children must stay stupid.
"When you're president -- as opposed the head of a private equity firm -- your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot." - President Barack Obama
The US Army is out front on this. Kind of makes you wonder--
Hardin County (KY) Schools hosted the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) and the United States Army in the national launch of a new pilot program aimed at developing leadership and academic skills for middle school and high school students.
The program, Project Partnership for All Students’ Success (PASS), offers elective Junior Leadership Corps (JLC) courses, after-school activities and a JROTC program to develop character and leadership with the goal of keeping students in school and improving their chances for a successful life. Project PASS was established through
Is our children being reformed, that's what the American persons want to know.
Home schooled children are better educated than public schooled children. However the government has an interest in what children are taught, or not taught! For example why did the United States support the secession of the Yugoslave States from their federal government, but went to war to prevent the secession of the Confederate States? Reading the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution clearly shows the Articles of Confederation forbade secession, and the Constitution allowed it.
Just as the Soviet Union, and Red China have an interest in what the minds of mush soak up, they don't want the population to learn that which will be bad for the government.
Every home school parent should be jailed, their children removed and put into foster care, and both should be monitored for life to see if anti social, or anti government attitudes arise.
Fabian Socialists, heat the world up so they can remold it. - George Soros
"Home schooled children are better educated than public schooled children."
Bullshit! You don't know what you are talking about.
I've been teaching 30 years and the home schooled kids who joined our school were always at the bottom of the class, and most dropped out within a few days because they were so far behind.
Now, if someone has an educated parent who teaches their kid at home and the local district is not great, than you may see some better scores with a few individuals. But where you have good public schools, the home schoolers are far behind.
Don't try telling me some religious nutjob with a high school diploma is going to be a better teacher than someone with a M.S. in Pyhsics. What a stupid thing to even imply!
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
Innovation should be about updating improving how we teach our children, not figuring out the best way to profit from it.
Absolutely right. It's such a waste that so many children, generations to come, will not be able to learn enough to survive, so that millionaires with crooked junk "educational" materials, like Marvin Bush, can become billionaires at the expense of the children.
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