Category / Standardized testing

by nflanagan

“My Research is Better than Your Research” Wars

When I retired from teaching (after 32+ years), I enrolled in a doctoral program in Education Policy. (Spoiler: I didn’t finish, although I completed the coursework.) In the first year, I took a required, doctoral-level course in Educational Research.

In every class, we read one to three pieces of research, then discussed the work’s validity and utility, usually in small, mixed groups. It was a big class, with two professors and candidates from all the doctoral programs in education—ed leadership, teacher education, administration, quantitative measurement and ed policy. Once people got over being intimidated, there was a lot of lively disagreement.

There were two HS math teachers in the class; both were enrolled in the graduate program in Administration—wannabe principals or superintendents. They brought in a paper they wrote for an earlier, masters-level class summarizing some action research they’d done in their school, using their own students, comparing two methods of teaching a particular concept.

The design was simple. They planned a unit, using two very different sets of learning activities and strategies (A and B) to be taught over the same amount of time. Each of them taught the A method to one class and the B method to another—four classes in all, two taught the A way and two the B way. All four classes were the same course (Geometry I) and the same general grade level. They gave the students identical pre- and post-tests, and recorded a lot of observed data.

There was a great deal of “teacher talk” in the summary of their results (i.e., factors that couldn’t be controlled—an often-disrupted last hour class, or a particularly talkative group—but also important variables like the kinds of questions students asked and misconceptions revealed in homework). Both teachers admitted that the research results surprised them—one method got significantly better post-test results and would be utilized in re-organizing the class for next year. They encouraged other teachers to do similar experiments.

These were experienced teachers, presenting what they found useful in a low-key research design. And the comments from their fellow students were brutal. For starters, the  teachers used the term ‘action research’ which set off the quantitative measurement folks, who called such work unsupportable, unreliable and worse.

There were questions about their sample pool, their “fidelity” in teaching methods, the fact that their numbers were small, and the results were not generalizable. Several people said that their findings were useless, and the work they did was not research. I was embarrassed for the teachers—many of the students in the course had never been teachers, and their criticisms were harsh and even arrogant.

At that point, I had read dozens of research reports, hundreds of pages filled with incomprehensible (to me) equations and complex theoretical frameworks. I had served as a research assistant doing data analysis on a multi-year grant designed to figure out which pre-packaged curriculum model yielded the best test results. I sat in endless policy seminars where researchers explicated wide-scale “gold standard” studies, wherein the only thing people found convincing were standardized test scores. Bringing up Daniel Koretz or Alfie Kohn or any of the other credible voices who found standardized testing data at least questionable would draw a sneer.

In our small groups, the prevailing opinion was that action research wasn’t really research, and the two teachers’ work was biased garbage. It was the first time I ever argued in my small group that a research study had validity and utility, at least to the researchers, and ought to be given consideration.

In the end, it came down to the fact that small, highly targeted research studies seldom got grants. And grants were the lifeblood of research (and notoriety of the good kind for universities and organizations that depend on grant funding). And we were there to learn how to do the kind of research that generated grants and recognition.

(For an excellent, easy-reading synopsis of “evidence-based” research, see this new piece from Peter Greene.)

I’ve never been a fan of Rick Hess’s RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, speaking of long, convoluted equations. It’s because of these mashed-up “influence” rankings that people who aren’t educators get spotlights (and money).

So I was surprised to see Hess proclaim that scholars aren’t studying the right research questions:

There are heated debates around gender, race, and politicized curricula. These tend to turn on a crucial empirical claim: Right-wingers insist that classrooms are rife with progressive politicking and left-wingers that such claims are nonsense. Who’s correct? We don’t know, and there’s no research to help sort fact from fiction. Again, I get the challenges. Obtaining access to schools for this kind of research is really difficult, and actually conducting it is even more daunting. Absent such information, though, the debate roars dumbly on, with all parties sure they’re right.

I could tell similar tales about reading instruction, school discipline, chronic absenteeism, and much more. In each case, policymakers or district leaders have repeatedly told me that researchers just aren’t providing them with much that’s helpful. Many in the research community are prone to lament that policymakers and practitioners don’t heed their expertise. But I’ve found that those in and around K–12 schools are hungry for practical insight into what’s actually happening and what to do about it. In other words, there’s a hearty appetite for wisdom, descriptive data, and applied knowledge.

The problem? That’s not the path to success in education research today. The academy tends to reward esoteric econometrics and critical-theory jeremiads. 

Bingo. Esoteric econometrics get grants.

Simple theoretical questions—like “which method produces greater student understanding of decomposing geometric shapes?”—have limited utility. They’re not sexy, and don’t get funding. Maybe what we need to do is stop ranking the most influential researchers in the country, and teach educators how to run small, valid and reliable studies to address important questions in their own practice, and to think more about the theoretical frameworks underlying their work in the classroom.

As Jose Vilson recently wrote:

Teachers ought to name what theories mobilize their work into practice, because more of the world needs to hear what goes into teaching. Treating teachers as automatons easily replaced by artificial intelligence belies the heart of the work. The best teachers I know may not have the words right now to explain why they do what they do, but they most certainly have more clarity about their actions and how they move about the classroom.

In case you were wondering why I became a PhD dropout, it had to do with my dissertation proposal. I had theories and questions around teachers who wanted to lead but didn’t want to leave the classroom. I was in possession of a large survey database from over 2000 self-identified teacher leaders (and permission to use the data).

None of the professors in Ed Policy thought this dissertation was a useful idea, however. The data was qualitative, and as one well-respected professor said– “Ya gotta have numbers!” There were no esoteric econometrics involved—only what teachers said about their efforts to lead–say, doing some action research to inform their own instruction–being shut down.

And so it goes.

by nflanagan

Dark Headspace—and Teaching

From a great column, by Darrell Ehrlick, on paying attention to the news, in the Michigan Advance:

 I understand the dark headspace a person can occupy after consuming a steady diet of news that seems to indicate a growing danger of authoritarianism; of a broken political system that continues to perpetuate dysfunction instead of listening to a public hungry for cooperation and solutions; of one global crisis after another; and of a global climate catastrophe so profound it threatens the very existence of the human species.

Yeah. That dark headspace.

For several years, since retiring, we have temporarily escaped harsh Michigan winters, spending the month of February in Airbnbs in Arizona. None of them had cable TV packages, so news-watching was limited to MSM, and sometimes, not even that. And eventually, we began to notice how agreeable it was to avoid what was happening in the Trump administration, dodge endless outrage over the January 6th insurrection, and reduce the non-stop anxiety of COVID spikes and variants.

No news, apparently, is good news.

Ehrlick’s point was—as you may have guessed—that it’s now incumbent upon all comfortable Americans to pull their heads out of their sulky discontent over restaurant wait times and gas prices and re-engage with civic responsibility. A republic, if you can keep it, and all that. The title of the piece is: Democracy is on fire. Consider this your wake-up call.

We’re seeing this wake up! language everywhere, lately, and not just in rabid, perennially anti-Trump commentary. As we round the corner into 2024, and the Election Where Nobody Wins gets closer, our obligation to choose wisely looms. Ehrlick is right—when the former leader of the free world is calling his enemies “vermin,” and pre-planning his political revenge tour, and the Speaker of the House can’t distinguish between facts and lies,  we’re in a bad headspace, indeed.

What was once considered hype, rhetorical overkill, playing the fascism card, etc. etc. is beginning to feel important and very credible. To political writers and news analysts, like Darrell Ehrlick—but also to invested citizens, like me. The old saw about being condemned to repeat a past one can’t remember is newly fresh and relevant—and omnipresent in the media.

And—surprise!—our older students are impacted by the same real and important political instability, as well. I think a whole lot of the ugly blah-blah promulgated by Moms for Liberty types is generated by parents’ wishes to keep their children from experiencing that dark and questioning headspace. There are plenty of “cultural chaos agents” ready and willing to help helicopter moms with that goal, then cash in after the election. It also helps to explain why the most zealous M4L acolytes are those with the most to lose by pursuit of diversity and equity. Keeping calm and carrying on while trying to solve problems that impact us all is not a way to preserve privilege.

All they have to do is convince anxious parents that the K-12 sky is falling. That their kids can’t read competitively by age eight, because their instructors are incompetent. That environmental science is promoting clean energy, undercutting the fossil fuel industry. That elementary school teachers are urging first graders to reconsider their gender, when the curriculum actually prescribes a foundation of respect and understanding for other people. That it might be a good idea to totally defund public education, and throw in public libraries and museums as well.

So many manufactured crises. So much to lose.

And although teachers are my favorite people on the planet, I have to admit that a lot of us are also inclined to—cliché alert—close our doors and teach, as policy and negative media opinion swirl around us. I get it. I am intimately familiar with the most pressing concern for teachers, especially novice teachers: What am I going to do tomorrow? And how will it prepare my students for their diverse futures while keeping their standardized test scores up?

Mostly, this is a matter of limited human time and energy. We are firefighters, dealing first with the urgent, and later with the important and long-term issues. Studying worst-case news and opinion—the dark headspace in education—can lead to a kind of paralysis for educators.

Things like choosing the perfect books to expand students’ minds and imaginations– see Mandy Manning’s photo illustration, a mélange of horror books, light and love–become minefields. If we’re not letting our students safely wrestle with the idea of a dark headspace through literature, history, drama and current events, how will they learn to cope?

Shortly after No Child Left Behind (the law to permanently fix all our public schools) was passed, I took a sabbatical—a perk in our local contract—to work for a national non-profit. While there, I spent a lot of time dissecting the new law, and its impact on highly qualified teachers, both the ones who were labeled highly qualified under the law, and the teachers who actually were exemplary, according to their school leaders, parents and students. I went to D.C. and spoke with folks in the Education Department, who were trying to figure out the laws’ outcomes, as well.

When I returned to the school where I taught, I was in a union meeting where the local Communications VP was cluing members in on the new legislation, which he called the ‘Adequate Progress’ law. But don’t worry, he said. Our contract prevents administrators from transferring us because we don’t have the right credentials. I raised my hand and gave my colleagues a quick summary of NCLB—the HQ teacher part, the adequate yearly progress part, the testing part, and more.

Our good contract won’t protect us from requirements of federal law, I explained. There was silence in the room. The idea of federal law mandating testing as early as 3rd grade, of tests determining a teacher’s value, of a district losing control over who is best positioned to teach a grade or subject, of national curricular standards—those were new and terrifying ideas.

Ideas, I might add, that teachers have pretty much absorbed in the intervening 20-odd years. Which ought to be a cautionary tale.

Living in a dark headspace is a call to action.

by nflanagan

A Few Thoughts about Teacher Evaluations without Testing Data

There’s a bill on MI Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s desk that would—among other good, constructive things—end the mandated practice of evaluating teachers using their students’ test data. Most recently, 40% of a MI public school educator’s annual evaluation was tied to standardized test scores. Getting rid of that (and the myriad ways that it was subverted, in practice) is definitely a policy upgrade. Hallelujah.

The next question is always: What will replace test data-based teacher evaluations? And that’s a vastly more interesting topic—how and why should teachers be evaluated? You need both the how and the why to think out of the checklist-of-skills box here.

Yes, teachers’ work must be monitored and assessed, to meet a minimal level of competence, as a critical, publicly funded service. But—are there ways to enhance teachers’ effectiveness embedded in an evaluation process? Is it possible to improve teachers’ practice in the process of checking on them? That’s the gold standard. But is it reality?

From a pretty good piece on the proposed changes in teacher evaluation in Michigan:

Districts would be able to use their own criteria for evaluating teachers, such as classroom observations, samples of student work, rubrics, and lesson plans.  Critics in the legislature (and let’s identify them by name: Republicans) say this plan is merely a return to what used to be—the good ol’ days when teachers got away with substandard practice because there were no teeth in district evaluation processes. But there is something to be said about evaluation criteria tailored to a teachers’ context and teaching assignment. After a couple of years, most teachers could, for example, write their own goals—and a first grade teacher’s goals around student literacy might be very different from the HS art teacher’s portfolio of student work samples.

The bills would de-emphasize evaluations as a factor in districts’ decisions to fire or demote teachers or deny them tenure. Districts seem to have little difficulty firing or shaming teachers these days, for all kinds of stupid, politicized reasons. For teachers lucky enough to have tenure, it’s not the guarantee of a job for life, as the right wing might have you believe. If a district wants and needs to fire a teacher, it’s possible to do that without testing data—in fact, taking away the test score excuse puts the onus on a district to do the work of gathering evidence of a teacher’s unsuitability.

The bills would require districts to take action against teachers who don’t improve after repeated interventions.  As districts should, even in a time when qualified teachers are not thick on the ground.

Michigan’s law on test scores and evaluations grew out of a push for greater accountability in education that began in the 2000s. Some advocacy groups theorized that more rigorous reviews would generate detailed feedback that could be used to improve teachers’ performance. The language here is interesting—“some advocacy groups” and “detailed feedback.” Not much happens when an education advocacy group has a good idea (like using a non-threatening evaluation and mentoring process to build teacher capacity). The groups that get traction for their ideas do so through legislation. And only legislators bent on proving that lack of accountability is the problem would believe that standardized testing data represents detailed feedback on how well a teacher is doing in the actual classroom.

Critics are concerned that de-emphasizing student test scores could lower standards for teachers while students are still struggling to recover from pandemic learning loss and need high-quality instruction. This concept—“lowering standards for teachers”—is comical in a time when districts are thrilled to be re-hiring retirees, rather than relying on uncertified long-term subs. And shame on any media outlet for buying into the idea that students are suffering from learning loss (as measured by the same testing data that doesn’t identify outstanding teaching). Of course, students need high-quality instruction. They have always needed high-quality instruction. Let’s figure out a way to give them more of it.  

Proponents of returning to the old evaluation method say there is no evidence to suggest the current system benefits students, and that tying ratings to test scores contributes to burnout amid persistent teacher shortages. Bingo. Although it’s optimistic, one can hope that districts will take the opportunity to modify their ‘old’ evaluation systems, since tying ratings to test scores didn’t get our hard-working teachers to miraculously raise either. Ten years of data analysis, no uptick in scores.

Let’s go back to the gold standard: an evaluation process that would improve teacher practice. It’s a huge—and evergreen—issue in building teacher capacity, and there is no shortage of, umm, advocacy groups that would like to take on that challenge (and then sell their thinking, materials and workshops to districts).

I’ve always been a fan of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards’ assessment, but it’s complex, time-consuming and expensive, and needs to be renewed every five years. Moreover, it was created for experienced teachers—an opportunity to stretch and grow and be recognized for your exemplary practice. It’s not designed for novice teachers, and it’s especially not useful for teachers who are struggling.

It’s worth noting that tracking student test data to teacher performance is not only useless, but expensive. Freeing up districts to create their own, multi-phase, divergent forms of evaluation could be a cost savings (but a lot of different work). While buying an off-the-shelf evaluation system is the easiest option, a high-functioning district, with adequate staffing, might be able to do some good work, building a system that runs from an intentional induction phase, to using skilled veterans to partner with newer teachers.

When I think about teacher evaluation, I remember Deming’s first principle: First, drive out all fear. If changing the law does nothing more than that, it will be a success.

The bill dumping test scores as a mandated factor in teacher evaluation is part of a wave of edu-changes including making charter school teacher salaries public, eliminating third grade retention for students testing below grade level in reading, ending the practice of giving schools letter grades and giving underwater districts debt relief.

All of these will matter in the fight to improve and strengthen public education. Just as much as teacher evaluation.

by nflanagan

Eight Ways We are Underestimating the Impact of the Pandemic on Public Education

Over the summer, I started tossing links about the impact of the COVID pandemic on public education into a file folder on my desktop, entitled Rebounding from the Pandemic. As of this morning, the file is five pages long, with over 50 links. My working theory is that a global health emergency has had a major impact on kids, their ability to see value in K-12 schooling, their trust in the society where they live to keep them safe, and their hopes and dreams for the future.

About a month ago, I wrote a piece with the same name—Rebounding from the Pandemic–listing some of the things we might have learned and acted on in K-12 education, from experiencing a pandemic:

  • The gross inequities in access to wireless capacity and devices.
  • The social necessity of being with other children and teenagers in maintaining mental health.
  • How faulty-to-useless testing data is in structuring relevant instruction that meets children where they are (which is supposed to be the point of standardized assessments).
  • How utterly dependent society in general is on school functioning as M-F childcare.
  • How much political leadership and privilege shape our approach to rebounding from a crisis.

All of these obvious issues strike me as an excellent theoretical framework for reconceptualizing public schools and school funding–creating healthy environments for children impacted by various academic and emotional stressors. Our goals right now should not be raising test scores to where they were in 2019 or bringing in thousands of trained counselors (who don’t exist) to deal with mental health problems. The goal is definitely not “getting back to normal.” “Normal” was (and remains) inadequate, inequitable and unprepared for change.

We now should know how frustrating it is, for example, for parents who must work not to have affordable day care available for their elementary schoolchildren. Calculating how much risk to take during a pandemic will vary from person to person—but misdirected anger toward teachers and their unions for not “opening” schools and risking adults’ health, has made entire school districts hotbeds of anger and toxic thinking.

This is what happens when people don’t get the services they feel entitled to, as American citizens. Change is hard.

In fact, the pandemic has changed the entire landscape of public services and social supports—and each of those factors has had an impact on K-12 schools, directly or indirectly. If you think schools have “returned to normal,” ask a teacher whether their current students are achieving at pre-pandemic levels. More importantly, ask whether students have developed the curiosity, communication skills and stamina to work together every day in class. Ask several teachers– have things changed? how?

Here are eight pandemic-driven outcomes impacting the functioning of public schools, as the health crisis fades.

1. Vaccination rates, already worrisomely dropping, now have hit their lowest point since 2011, in spite of laws requiring vaccinations for schoolchildren. You have to ask yourself why parents are not eagerly seeking a vaccination that undoubtedly saved countless lives and reduced hospitalizations: Health officials attributed a variety of factors to this drop in vaccinations, including families being less likely to interact with their family doctor during the pandemic and a “spill-over” effect from misinformation around the COVID-19 vaccine. 

2. Book banning, an issue that schools have perennially wrestled with, especially in conservative communities, has now spread to public libraries.  ALA President Emily Drabinski explained that while “attacks on libraries right now are shaped and framed as attacks on books” these efforts are really “attacks on people and attacks on children.” In retaliation for advocating against book bans, some conservative states — including Montana, Missouri and Texas — have announced they are “severing ties with the ALA.”

3. The four-day workweek and remote work elbowed their way into traditional M-F/face to face classrooms at the same time they were conceived as the solution to keeping a workplace open during a pandemic. For schools in rural areas where transportation eats up budgets, fewer schooldays and more Zoom classes can keep public schools alive: Hybrid work arrangements have killed the return-to-office hype. Employees equate a mix of working in the office and working from home to an 8 percent raise. They don’t have to deal with the daily hassle and costs of a commute. Remote work saves companies money. It cuts overhead, boosts productivity and is profitable. And what is profitable in a capitalist economy sticks. Remote work also has major benefits for society, including improving the climate by cutting billions of miles of weekly commuting and supporting families by liberating parents’ time.

4. Higher education also seems to be undergoing a metamorphosis, as high school graduates and returning-to-school adults have reassessed the value of a college degree: In a study conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, the majority of adults who had household members enrolled in college for the fall 2021 term said that their school plans changed.

32% said their classes would occur in different formats.

16% canceled all plans to attend.

12% took fewer classes.

It goes without saying that what impacts our colleges and universities will trickle down to K-12 public schools.

5. Shifts in the need for labor and workforce development have impacted the need for teachers, and what teachers are willing to work for, especially in long-term careers in education. Perhaps Sean Fain, leader of the UAW best expressed this: “Our fight is not just for ourselves but for every worker who is being undervalued, for every retiree who’s given their all and feels forgotten, and for every future worker who deserves a fair chance at a prosperous life. We are all fed up of living in a world that values profits over people. We’re all fed up with seeing the rich get richer while the rest of us continue to just scrape by. We’re all fed up with corporate greed. And together, we’re going to fight to change it.”

6. The incessant media drumbeat of “learning loss” has persuaded people that test scores are more reliable than our own observations about what students are learning, how they’re progressing. From a brilliant article in Rethinking Schools: Shifting blame away from the for-profit healthcare system and the government’s response to the coronavirus is part of what makes the learning loss narrative so valuable to politicians who have no interest in challenging existing patterns of wealth and power. It is a narrative meant to distract the public and discipline teachers. Here’s the recipe: 1. Establish that closing schools hurt students using a narrow measure like test scores; 2. Blame closure of schools on teacher unions rather than a deadly pandemic; 3. Demand schools and teachers help students “regain academic ground lost during the pandemic” — and fast; 4. Use post-return-to-normal test scores to argue that teachers and schools are “failing”; 5. Implement “teacher-proof” (top-down, standardized, even scripted) curriculum or, more insidiously, argue for policies that will mean an end to public schools altogether. 

7.  School leaders and the education community, used to hard-trimming back budgets year after year, have now witnessed unprecedented levels of greed and corruption in corporate and political circles, taking tax dollars away from struggling schools.  From Heather Cox Richardson’s August 24th newsletter:  The Department of Justice is bringing federal criminal charges against 371 defendants for offenses related to more than $836 million in alleged COVID-19 fraud, most of it related to the two largest Small Business Administration pandemic programs: the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans. It’s hard not to wonder how many library books, STEM kits and teachers that $836 million could have bought, as we all rebound from disaster.

8. A mishandled pandemic will likely be followed by political unrest—or, at least, uncertainty. In Ottawa County, Michigan, always a solidly red, conservative county, the 2022 election overturned a more moderate governing board and put in place a collection of people who were angry—furious, in fact– about what happened during the pandemic. Here’s a well-written, balanced story on the impact this political shift is having on people in Ottawa County—a young woman who delivers food to families who need it, a local health department administrator, and other essential programs:

The new budget rejected about $2.2 million in federal covid grants that helped pay for immunizations and could be used tohelp track the spread of hundreds of communicable diseases. It also cut about $400,000 from the department’s health education division, which housed programs that aimed to curb youth suicide, substance abuse and the spread of sexually transmitted disease. The Ottawa Food program was part of that division. County health officials pressed the board to explain the rationale behind the cuts. The answer came in a news release which described how the pandemic had awakened the county’s residents to the “tyranny of public health.” The health department’s misdeeds extended beyond its covid response. Liberal forces throughout government, academia and the nonprofit world were using the department to foist their agendas on his conservative county. “Climate change, gender affirming care, abortion, racial equity and social justice are increasingly identified as public health concerns.”

Pausing here to reflect on the “tyranny of public health,” a phrase that I find chilling, as a veteran teacher.

In the 1970s, Alvin Toffler introduced us to the idea of future shock—too much change in too short a period of time. He made a convincing case that the human psyche was being overloaded, that we weren’t designed to handle so much renovation to our values and habits.  And that was before the internet, cell phones and social media transformed the way we communicate and do business, and changed what we expect public education to do for our children. 

Something’s happening here, and—as usual—schools are a staging area for political and social change. Some of these changes may ultimately have benefits, strengthening public education. But others are glaring red flags, further chipping away at the commons.

by nflanagan

Rebounding from the Pandemic

I just secured appointments for the new COVID vaccine, plus my annual flu shot. In science, we trust— no hesitation or overthinking. Several of our friends and colleagues have recently tested positive, been treated and recovered, eventually. Accessing the new vaccination is a no-brainer. And as the former saliva queen of my middle school band room, I have been a flu shot devotee since the 1970s.

It’s pretty clear that we’re seeing COVID aftershocks; the pandemic isn’t over. That’s not an arguable question. What to do about the unpredictable tail of this pandemic—how to protect, how to exercise caution, what lessons have come from the crisis, and what is forever altered—that’s what we should be pondering right now. 

Last week, we saw Ed Yong at the National Writers Series (one of the best things about living in Traverse City). He and his interviewer came out on the stage wearing KN95 masks. I have been following and admiring Ed Yong, ever since I read his pieces about COVID in Atlantic Magazine, and saw him on MSNBC. Once he started speaking, with his British accent, impeccable logic and vocabulary, the mask (and his twinkling eyes) only served to accent his keen intelligence.

He was there to talk about his latest book, An Immense World,  which is wonderful, by the way, highly recommended. But about an hour in, there was a shift to questions about the pandemic. Yong said he would not sign books, face to face, after the talk, one of the perks attendees clutching their own copies usually enjoy. He was protecting his health, he said—too many early flights, airports and being shorted on sleep.

Then, he talked about how difficult it was to be a science writer, researching the causes and outcomes of a global health crisis, interviewing people on or after the worst days of their lives. He stressed how essential it was to consider something like a worldwide pandemic with an open and curious mind, as well as deep empathy. No preconceptions, and a focus on human beings.

For the first time, his words did not come rushing out, as he talked about political mistakes that cost human lives and societal forces resisting justice and equity, not to mention unethical practices in science. He’d seen too much suffering, he said. He needed a break.

Then, taking a deep breath, he said he’d gone for a short walk that afternoon, to a bridge over the river that runs through downtown Traverse City. Standing on the bridge, he’d seen a hawk. In the middle of the bridge, looking east, you can see the hawk’s nest on the left bank, he said, third or fourth tree down. Every person in the audience could picture that bridge—only a half-block from the Opera House, where we were sitting.

A hawk’s nest!? Downtown? Cool.

Yong talked about how many more things he noticed, during the pandemic, when traffic died down and people stayed home. Things that were always there, but became obvious when we had time to look. To breathe, and appreciate how good breathing feels. Small joys.

It was an inspiring moment.

It struck me that most of us have no clue how much has changed, in the larger world. How many times have you heard someone wistfully expressing their desire to return to the past—a past that we label “normal”? If only things could go back to the way they were.

But normal is dead.

Normal is dead in politics, in labor and manufacturing, in medicine, in travel and hospitality.  And of course, there’s no more normal in education. Chasing normal in education is a fool’s game—what we had before the pandemic should not function as aspirational goal for the future.

If business as usual has been altered in public education, that could be a good thing. At the very least, temporarily gutting the system—closing schools, shifting instruction to online platforms—should have served as a seat-of-pants instruction manual in the limitations of on-line relationships.

Here are a handful of things we might have learned about public education by experiencing a global pandemic (but probably didn’t):

  • The gross inequities in access to wireless capacity and devices.
  • The social necessity of being with other children and teenagers in maintaining mental health.
  • How faulty-to-useless testing data is in structuring relevant instruction that meets children where they are (which is supposed to be the point of standardized assessments).
  • How political leadership matters in rebounding from a crisis that involves an entire slice of citizens: our children.  
  • How utterly dependent society in general is on school functioning as M-F childcare.
  • How much privilege matters in reshaping public education practices—Who has grabbed the microphone and the media as the disease recedes? Who is left out, once again?

I could go on. In fact, I’m planning a series of “what did we learn from the pandemic” blogs over the next few weeks. As Ed Yong noted, a global cataclysm needs to be approached with an open and curious mind, and deep empathy for our fellow humans and creatures. I’m not seeing that deep caring, or willingness to explore change, in education.

In the NY Times today, there was an interesting article on the upcoming population peak—the point at which the number of humans on the planet begins shrinking. Scientists think this will happen in 50 years or so—and that now is the time to think about the impact of fewer people on the health of the planet, as family size shrinks.

The planet is down about seven million people, courtesy of COVID. That’s a fact. Here’s an assignment for your students: What impact might those seven million people have had on making the world a better place? What can YOU do to make the world a better place? What would make your schooling more useful in pursuing that goal?

What could we learn from asking those questions?

by nflanagan

There IS such a Thing as a Free Lunch– a Good Thing.

So—Michigan just adopted a policy of offering free breakfast and lunch to all K-12 public school kids. Charter school kids, too– and intermediate school districts (which often educate students with significant disabilities). More than half of Michigan students were already eligible for free-reduced lunch, which says a lot about why free at-school meals are critical to supporting students and their families.  Why not streamline the system?

Schools have to sign up for the federal funding that undergirds the program, and still need income data from parents to determine how much they get from the feds. Nine states now have universal breakfast-lunch programs, and another 24 are debating the idea, which—in Michigan anyway—is estimated will save parents who participate about $850 year. That’s a lot of square pizza, applesauce and cartons of milk. Not to mention reducing stress, on mornings when everyone’s running late for the bus and work.

Cue the right-wing outrage. 

Headline in The New Republic: Republicans Declare Banning Universal Free School Meals a 2024 Priority.  Because?  “Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, allows certain schools to provide free school lunches regardless of the individual eligibility of each student.”

It’s hard to figure out precisely what they’re so honked off about: Poor kids getting something—say, essential nutrition– for nothing? Kids whose parents can well afford lunch mingling with their lower-income classmates over free morning granola bars and fruit? No way to clearly identify a free lunch kid in the 6th grade social hierarchy? The kiosks at the HS, where kids can grab something to give them a little fuel for their morning academics?

How will this all work out? It will take a couple of years, but school lunch services think they can figure out how to adapt. It will be a relief not to have three lunch lines. The kids who ran up lunch debt and were given a peanut butter sandwich will go incognito, and they can stop sending threatening emails to errant parents. All good.

Long-term, there is evidence that free, in-school breakfast and lunch improve learning and focus.Feeding them reasonably healthy snacks makes it more likely they’ll have fewer health problems. In fact, a wide array of research studies have tracked better attendance, fewer discipline events, and even benefits for families, giving them more money to purchase needed food and household goods.

Isn’t that what we’re all aiming for, as public school educators and government service providers?

The child poverty rate plummeted in 2021, thanks largely to a major, but temporary, boost to the child tax credit in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act. It beefed up payments to $3,600 for each child up to age 6 and $3,000 for each one ages 6 through 17, for lower- and middle-income families for 2021. That boost lifted 2.1 million children above the poverty line in 2021, according to the Census Bureau.

Now that the money is no longer coming in to struggling families, free breakfast and lunch, M-F, for the kids, would be a nice cushion, indeed. And schools, once again, are stepping up, to be the delivery system for an essential public good: feeding kids.

It’s what a rich nation—or state, at least— should be doing. Or so I think.

And yeah, I know about catsup is a vegetable and the fact that some school lunches are pretty unbalanced. I also know that some kids will never eat a school lunch, both kids whose mothers pack them delicious lunches, and kids who skip lunch because the cafeteria is a social nightmare.

None of that matters.

Do what we can to help feed kids. It’s the right thing to do.

by nflanagan

What Feeds Bias in Education World?

One of the most genuinely enlightening experiences of my professional career was the multi-day bias training offered (at that time) by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, required of teachers who were training to score portfolio entries of candidates seeking National Board Certification. The first thing we learned was that bias was inevitable in human judgment—and could be positive as well as negative.

That’s important to remember. Bias is often reflexively construed as harmful. Prejudice, a synonym for bias, is not a word we associate with healthy human interaction. All people, however, bring a basket of predispositions into every aspect of work and life, and it’s hard to extinguish those, even when we’re paying attention. Still, some of those characteristics can be constructive.

The trick is recognizing your own biases, as they emerge, and figuring out where those inherent preferences, dislikes and false beliefs are leading your responses. Not easy to do. But important. As Patricia Devine, a psychology professor and director of the Prejudice Lab at the University of Wisconsin in Madison says:

“There are a lot of people who are very sincere in their renunciation of prejudice. Yet they are vulnerable to habits of mind. Intentions aren’t good enough.”

Worth repeating: Intentions aren’t good enough.

It strikes me that much of what we see in mainstream media about schools, teaching and student achievement is fed by widely held biases. Things like:

Public schools aren’t as good as private schools (because you get what you pay for).

Teachers in high-poverty schools aren’t as skilled as teachers in the well-heeled suburbs.

Getting into a selective college should be every HS graduate’s goal.

Most teachers come from the bottom of the academic barrel, and would have chosen another occupation, if they could.

The “learning loss” children have experienced due to a global pandemic is a crisis and must be fixed immediately; test scores will tell us when all is well again.

I could go on, pretty much ad nauseum. If an education journalist attended a pricey private high school and university, growing up with financial security and a well-fed ego, nurtured in school, it would be natural to carry those biases into reporting on education, making assumptions about the people and institutions who are most responsible for educating the nation’s children. Assumptions, that is, based on nothing more than ground-in thinking, and lack of personal time spent in schools where everyone’s on free and reduced lunch and the textbooks are 25 years old.

And yes—I realize that my own biases about why mainstream reporting on schools and teachers is so often inaccurate are glaringly obvious here.

The situation is worse in state legislatures, where “information” about “policies that work” is sponsored by deep-pockets funders with even deeper biases about the children who most need high-quality instruction, curriculum and resources in the classroom.

And we haven’t even started to talk about racial bias.

Is school the place to start chipping away at biases? Could we—and by “we,” I mean our racist American society—make a dent, a difference, a change in embedded biases by deliberating structuring anti-bias activities and mandating them in public education? Not if a host of Republican hopefuls have their way.

I’m not naïve enough to think that schools could turn hearts and minds in a K-12 generation. But could they do significant good, given the right tools and incentives?

Research doesn’t give us a lot of hope around this question. A study found that pre-school teachers expect bad behavior from black children, especially black boys—and the data indicate that black children are 3.6 times more likely than white children to be suspended. The bias begins in pre-school and plays itself out, endlessly and increasingly as children get older, a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s hard to see just how bias training could turn this around. But maybe it’s worth a shot.

The most surprising part of the study:

Teachers [were given] a one-paragraph vignette to read, describing a child disrupting a class; there’s hitting, scratching, even toy-throwing. The child in the vignette was randomly assigned what researchers considered a stereotypical name (DeShawn, Latoya, Jake, Emily), and subjects were asked to rate the severity of the behavior on a scale of one to five. White teachers consistently held black students to a lower standard, rating their behavior as less severe than the same behavior of white students. Black teachers, on the other hand, did the opposite, holding black students to a higher standard and rating their behavior as consistently more severe than that of white students.

In the bias training for National Board Certified Teachers, there was a vignette describing a first grade classroom with straight rows and silent, head-down children receiving explicit direct instruction from the teacher: Put your finger on the X. Circle the X. Put your pencil down. All the children receiving direction are black—and the teacher is white.


Invariably, when asked about the quality of the pedagogical strategies, white teachers in the training (all of whom were experienced and interested in improving their practice) responded negatively to the rigid, low-level instruction:

Those poor kids! There’s no warmth or creativity! It’s clear that the teacher has low expectations for these kids.

When the training was held in Prince George’s County, Maryland, however, most of the teachers in the room were black–perhaps 80%. When they read the vignette, they thought the teacher must be doing something right, because all the children were quietly focused. When probed–Isn’t the teaching insultingly simple? —they agreed that yes, this lesson left little room for individual thinking or joy.

They were clear, however, that all children need to be taught to behave respectfully in a classroom, to follow conventions—for their own benefit and safety. They’re black children in a public school where their next teacher may give up on making demands on them all too quickly, teachers said. Plenty of time for creativity and laughing, down the line, but these children don’t seem threatened, simply willing to follow the teacher’s guidance. If you genuinely care about children, you’ll insist that they behave properly.

It was probably the most important thing I learned in bias training—good teachers don’t all see things the same way. What seems obvious to one teacher isn’t clear at all to another, equally committed and skilled, but working with a different set of biases—positive, this time.

Applying that principle of positive bias—let’s let this teacher decide what works best for these kids—is the fundamental building block of teacher professionalism. I may be biased, but I’m always going to cheerlead for teacher judgment and autonomy.

by nflanagan

Holding Kids Back

When Michigan passed a mandated retention law for third graders who were not testing at grade level, back in 2016, I thought it was a terrible idea. I wrote about it, in several venues—the idea that children who wanted to master reading, but had been unable to, for whatever reason, would be socially identified as “behind” by being retained. When they were eight years old.

I still think mandatory retention laws, no matter how they’re structured, are a punitive response to children who don’t deserve to be penalized. What surprised me most in writing those columns, however, was the number of people who shared what they considered positive stories about retention—how it was just the ticket for one of their children, a grandchild, a student with limited English, a student who had transferred from another school and used the shift to repeat a grade, etc.

Nearly all the stories had the same elements: The retention happened very early in the child’s school career. The child in question was either among the youngest children in the class, or simply immature—or had mitigating characteristics (like learning the language, or a physical disability). The parents, teacher and school leaders had all agreed that another year of, say, kindergarten would be beneficial.

Michigan has just excised the mandated third-grade retention policy from the School Code, keeping the language around supporting early literacy in public schools. This is excellent news, given the mainstream media’s obsession with the Faux Science of Reading and how Mississippi raised its fourth grade reading scores by flunking third graders who were struggling the previous year.

From a Chalkbeat article, yesterday: Should struggling students be held back a grade? Why researchers don’t have a clear answer. Despite decades of research, there’s no clear answer on whether grade retention in early grades is a good idea. Existing data is open to competing interpretations, and big questions about the policy remain unanswered.

The long-run effects of early grade retention are not clear. Perhaps the more important question about holding students back is how it affects them in the long run. 

For later grades, the research is fairly clear. Multiple studies have found that holding back middle schoolers increases their odds of dropping out of high school.

As a long-time middle school teacher, I sat numerous times with parents around a table in the office, after it became clear that their seventh grader would be failing three or four classes. Nearly always, the outcome was the same: every possible strategy, from tutoring to summer school to what might politely be called “incentives” (read: bribes), would be employed so that Jason would be entering the eighth grade, come fall.

A couple of times, however, parents dads wanted to retain kids who were passing all their classes with Bs and Cs, in order to give their child another year of physical growth so they could be more competitive in high school sports. Think about that—have there been studies on using retention to ensure that your child was beefier than other physically diverse freshmen?

Or this case: a fifth grade teacher I met in Louisiana, where the district mandated retention, had a fifth grader who turned 14 and was eligible for drivers training. He also had a mustache. The other 5th graders were afraid of him.

I’m with the Chalkbeat article: Existing data is open to competing interpretations.

What I do think: We have pushed all our typical benchmarks and expected yardsticks for intellectual growth and academic capacities down, and have accepted standardized testing data as Truth, when describing students and thinking about the best ways to educate them.

Just because some children can read at age four, or perform abstract algebraic calculations in sixth grade doesn’t mean that we should reorganize the curriculum to encourage more pushing down. Conversely, just because a child isn’t reading at grade level (whatever that is, and however it’s measured) doesn’t mean that repeating a grade will do anything for the child personally, even if failing a cluster of children artificially raises collective test scores.

It’s become a cliché—but note that Finland doesn’t start formal reading instruction until students are seven years of age, a year before we have decided that some of them need to be “held back.”

Even the language matters—isn’t it ironic, as we strive to leave no child behind, that we hold some of them back?

My school, twenty years ago, had a four-option plan for students entering the district as kindergartners:

  • Developmental kindergarten— a half-day “young fives” program for kids who may not be ready for regular kindergarten work, ascertained through Gesell screening for every child
  • Regular kindergarten—2 ½ days per week, in various schedules
  • Jr. First Grade—for students whose kindergarten teachers identified them as not yet ready for first grade work
  • First Grade

The majority of kids went to kindergarten and first grade. But students could utilize any two or three options, depending on their rate of development. It was an exit ramp off the sequential school conveyor belt without anyone being “held back”—an extra year to grow, with other kids who also needed that time. All placement decisions were made cooperatively by parents, teachers and school leaders.

It was an expensive program (as are all mandated retention programs, it should be noted—requiring an extra year of third grade is costly). And because of that, the bottom line, it was eliminated.

If kids can’t read by third grade, we can always retain them then, right?

by nflanagan

Things that Make Teachers Go Hmmm

For flat-out exhausted teachers, finishing a school year filled with unjust accusations and pointless restrictions, the headline must seem ludicrous: Want to Make $100,000 a Year? Here’s Where You Should Apply.

Turns out it’s a charter school in Detroit, and the spiel initially sounds like they’re seeking the best and brightest teachers (at least 18 of them, anyway) with “strong criteria” to “meet student needs.” The strong criteria? They need to be licensed and certified to teach in Michigan, have five years of experience, and have been rated “highly effective” twice.

It also turns out that only 35 percent of the current staff at the Hundred Grand School is, in fact, certified to teach in Michigan. The charter is essentially soliciting, or perhaps poaching is the more accurate term, a more experienced staff by offering them huge salary increases. Because two-thirds of their professional staff is uncertified. No word on whether any of the current teachers would be considered for the $100K.

My first thought? Where are they getting the money?

Closely followed by imagining a scenario where 18 teachers, identified on Day One by their much-fatter paychecks, are parachuted into an existing staff. And– if you think esprit de corps isn’t really a factor in teaching, you would be wrong.

The tight market for high-quality teachers even seems to be leading Teach for America to a rebranding. A few months ago, TFA was shrinking–Oh No!– but now they’re (get this) focused on training new teachers. Really! I’m serious. Twenty years of asserting that in-depth teacher preparation wasn’t really necessary if the person was smart and well-meaning, and now they’re experts in professional preparation?

The organization said it aims to recruit, retain and develop about 700 teachers in Michigan over the next five years. The announcement comes as Michigan, like other states, struggles to retain qualified teachers, particularly in high-poverty schools, and as far fewer college students choose education as a profession. 

Teach for America was always good at recruiting and marketing. But retaining teachers? And professional development?

The chief complaint about TFA has always been that it was most often a two-years (or less) then-out prospect. Something to burnish the resume’ when you seek a grown-up job in a few years. And TFA teachers had to learn on the job. None of this coursework or field experience nonsense. You’re smart—you’ll figure it out. Catch up.

None of the things Teach for America says it can do in this project—which amount to professionalizing teaching—is in Teach for America’s wheelhouse/origin story. Their job (and they’ve been spectacularly good at getting money and good PR to keep this initiative going) has always been promoting a small group of recent graduates who want to do something different (and, presumably, useful). Save our schools, yada yada, by bringing in some elite temps.

But there has never been a critical mass of practicing TFA teachers in the profession to use their hard-won experience to push for necessary policy change. They take other jobs (easier, better-paying jobs) in education because they can. Or they go to law school. Or work at Morgan Chase.

Teach for America has never been a positive force for change in the teaching profession.  What makes them think teachers will turn to them now?

Hmm. Maybe it’s the $35K bonus teachers earn for being part of Teach for American’s new professional development and teacher leadership programs.

I know all about businesses needing to be nimble and pivot quickly when people stop signing up for your prestigious product, but real professional growth for teachers takes time and experience. You can’t manufacture excellence or buy it. It comes from persistence and dedication. That esprit des corps thing matters, too.

Meanwhile: A bill introduced in the state Senate last month would remove provisions in the Revised School Code that say all teachers and staff in the Detroit Public Schools Community District hired after September 2019 must have their compensation based primarily on job performance, rather than seniority or educational credentials. 

Worth noting: Only teachers in Detroit—not in other districts around the state— were subject to this provision. A financial thumb, pressing down on Detroit public educators, tying them and only them to student test scores, built into the school code.

The common link in all these examples? Money.

Money as teacher lure, money paid to an organization founded on undercutting teacher training and preparation, money for improved testing data, but only if you teach in Detroit.

Hmmm. Maybe we should significantly raise teacher pay across the board. Or recruit candidates by promising better working conditions and sweeping investment in public education. One can dream.

In the meantime, a hearty thank-you to teachers everywhere, winding down.

by nflanagan

Would You Recognize a Good Lesson If You Saw It?

Here’s a scary headline: Michigan Democrats Look to Change Teacher Evaluation System.

Not so much the “Democrats” part—although I’d argue that not having a clue about evaluating teachers is common in both parties—but the implication that way fewer than 99% of public school teachers are doing acceptable work:

Consider: During the 2021-2022 school year, 99 percent of Michigan teachers were ranked either highly effective or effective on evaluations.

State Rep. Matt Koleszar, D-Plymouth, chair of the House Education Committee, told Bridge Michigan the state’s teacher evaluation system often leads to school administrators “checking a box” as they monitor teachers rather than using the process to help struggling teachers improve.

“I think when you have a better evaluation system and you’re supporting someone who needs that help and needs (those) resources, that ultimately is going to (filter down) to the student.”

I am decidedly NOT a fan of basing any percentage of a teacher’s evaluation on standardized test scores (it’s 40% in Michigan, under our current, Republican-developed system). And I am a true believer in the statement that teacher practice can be improved—and a good evaluation system (plus—key point—the time, trained personnel and resources to implement such a system) could help.

With so many moving parts, and the current handwringing (and bogus data) around low test scores in students emerging from a global pandemic, re-doing teacher evaluations which might be in place for decades seems precarious at the moment.

The questions, really, are: What are we looking for, in a teacher? What skills and qualities do good teachers exhibit—and are they measurable, with the tools we currently use? What outcomes are most critical for students—and what (easily measured) outcomes disappear quickly?

When the legislature can agree on answers to these questions—with input from the education community and invested parents, of course—let me know. Cynicism aside, how do we streamline teacher evaluation in ways that make it easy to capture and share expertise, help promising teachers build their practice, and excise the folks who shouldn’t be there?

There is, by the way, no shortage of ideas and research around teacher improvement; our international counterparts are already doing a better job of this. Anyone who’s looked at Japanese Lesson Study models, or meta-analyses on building effective learning environments knows this—but investing in viable teacher evaluation systems that also build capacity will not come about with a new written tool or protocol. It will take a new mindset.

Because I spent many years looking at videos of music teachers, while serving as a developer for the National Board’s music assessment, I also understand that there are limitations in evaluating teachers by observing their lessons.

For example: You have to know what the teacher’s learning goals were, going into the lesson, and have some context around who’s in the room. The core competency for nearly all teaching is knowing the students in front of you. You can’t build effective lessons without that knowledge. And that’s hard to evaluate.

I used to teach with a man who didn’t bother to learn the students’ names, because the classes were large—60 or more. His rationale was that learning names was time that could be better spent delivering content. He delivered a whole lot of content, all right, but never got great results, because there was no human relationship glue inspiring students to use that content.

Try to put that into an evaluation tool.

Dr. Mary Kennedy, one of my grad school professors, had a video library of teachers teaching. She would usually show two videos, and then ask us to compare and contrast—and roughly evaluate.  One pair of videos (and discussion) that I remember:

  • A man in a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts and flip-flops is facilitating a hands-on science experiment with a half-dozen groups of middle school students, clustered around lab tables. The room is noisy as students manipulate equipment and fill out lab reports, but the teacher is wearing a mic that picks up his comments and students’ questions as he moves from table to table. Several times, when students ask a direct question, he turns it back to them—What do YOU think? Why? Once, he claps his hands and asks the entire class to re-examine the stated purpose of the experiment. There is a beat of quiet, and then students are back to talking and writing. The video picks up students who appear to be off-task, as well, looking at the camera or talking to someone at another table.
  • A young woman is teaching a HS literature class. She is well-dressed and very articulate. The video begins with a Q & A exchange about the assigned reading, with a young man wearing a navy blazer and tie. The questions probe facts from the text—Who is the real victim in this chapter? Does this take place before or after the barn-raising scene and why is that important to the narrative? —and the young man has clearly done the reading, as his answers are all correct. The camera moves back and we see there are about eight teenaged boys in the class, all in blazers. She cold-calls the students, in turn, and they all answer her questions correctly. Other than the questions and short answers, the class is silent.

After watching the two videos, Dr. Kennedy asked: Which was the best lesson? Who was the best teacher? The class was vehemently divided—and remember, these were all graduate students in education. Imagine showing two similar videos to a legislator or one of the Moms 4 Liberty— then asking them to pick out the “best” teacher.

Ironically, the current quest to limit controversy and hot topics in public school classrooms makes it even more difficult to evaluate teacher practice. The best lessons—the ones that stick—are often messy and hard-won. And our best teachers—articulate, student-focused and creative—are being shut down by the very people designing their evaluation procedures.

We used to laugh at the inadequate teacher evaluation checklists—Is the teacher dressed neatly and well-groomed?—prevalent in the 1970s. But we haven’t solved the problem of how to evaluate all teachers fairly and productively. Yet.