Parent Cortical Mass

PCM's Top Articles of the Week

Questions about students' privacy persisted this week. Should parents let for-profit companies use their kids’ personal school data for the collective benefits derived from big data technologies? That’s the default setting. Parents must make some noise to require parental permission. ● Two articles present different viewpoints of Carol Dweck's research on praising children. ● Get more knowledgeable about memory, competitiveness, creative intelligence, and the optimism bias. ● The backlash against excessive accountability testing continued its march through the states, impacting school board elections in L.A. ● Should states get relief from NCLB’s requirement that 100% of students be “proficient” by 2014? Do you think different percentages should be allowed for different races? Right now 23 states have answered yes. ● Heard of Sugata Mitra’s Hole in the Wall project? It’s the ultimate informal learning experiment. His fabulous TED talk has 1.28 million views.

Parenting

K-12 Student Database Jazzes Tech Startups, Spooks Parents - Stephanie Simon, Reuters

My Child's School is Fine, Too Bad Yours Stinks - Carol Lloyd, GreatSchools.org

20 Things Every Boy Should Know - Aaron Brinker, Dad Blunders

Why I Refuse to Feel Bad for Praising My Kids - Megan Francis, The Happiest Mom

Wrong Kind of Praise for Kids Can Backfire - Rick Nauert, PhD, PsychCentral

Why Teens Are Tiring of Facebook - Jennifer Van Grove, CNET

Fear, Anger or Pain: Why Do Babies Cry? - ScienceDaily

Learning

How Do We Remember and Why Do We Often Forget? - Kenneth Wesson, BrainWorld

Why Children Learn Faster Rereading Same Books - Andrew Levy, MailOnline

First, IQ, Then EQ, Now CQ--Creative Intelligence - Anita Hamilton, Time

Competition Can Sometimes Make Our Performance Worse - Annie Murphy Paul, Creativity Post

Can Gaming Make Us More Cooperative, Empathic? - Daniel Willingham, Science & Education Blog

High Schoolers, Don't Sacrifice Sleep to Late-Night Study - Allison Aubrey, NPR

Education

Standardized Testing Becomes the Great Divide in Ed Policy - Teresa Watanabe, LA Times

5 Common Myths About the SAT, Debunked. - Bob Schaeffer, Washington Post

The Learning Virtues - David Brooks, New York Times

$1Million Ted Prize Winner to Create a School in the Cloud - Anya Kamenetz, Fast Company

Is the Common Core an Attack on Progressive Ed? - Lisa Nielsen, Huff Post

Gifted Class Imbalance - Lisa Fleisher, Sophia Hollander, WSJ

Florida Officials Defend Racial, Ethnic Learning Goals - Lizette Alvarez, NYT

Gates, Zuckerberg: Kids, Learn to Code - Brandon Griggs, CNN

2 Year Tech Degrees Pay Off - Joanne Jacobs, Hechinger Report

Resources

Kids Code the Darndest Things: 10 Amazing Youth - Matt Petronzio, Mashable

5 Resources for Spring Parent Teacher Conferences - Matt Davis, edutopia

Fun Facts to Know About St. Patrick's Day - Katie Lepi, edudemic

109 Ways to Celebrate Math Lessons From Dr. Seuss - Miriam Sherin, Huff Post

What is the 'Parent Trigger'?

Parent Trigger describes state legislation that gives parents more power to change poorly performing schools. To pull the trigger, more than 50% of the parents in the school must sign a petition to initiate the process. Once the shot is fired, parents can implement one of 4 options:

    1) shut down the school,

    2) fire the principal,

    3) fire teachers, or

    4) hire a charter organization to take over the school.

Seven states have passed laws with versions of the parent trigger. But Florida, in March 2012, voted down parent trigger legislation in a hard fought battle between activists on both sides. As many as 20 more states are considering legislation. Why? One reason is that it improves states’ chances of being waived from certain accountability requirements in No Child Left Behind.

Here are 14 articles to help you get informed. 

Reference Articles

Hopes and Fears for Parent Trigger Laws - Room for Debate, The Opinion Pages, NYT

Five Minute Primer: Parent Trigger Laws - Donna Krache, Schools of Thought, CNN

Parent Trigger Laws in the States - National Conference of State Legislatures

Roundup of Leading Thinkers on Parent Trigger - Nick Pandolfo, HechingerEd

Opinions

Can Parents Take Over Schools? - Andrew Rotherham, Time

Putting Parents in Charge - Peg Tyre, New York Times

The Trouble With the Parent Trigger - Diane Ravitch, Education Week

Not Your Mother's PTA - Bruno V. Manno, Education Next

Support Parent Power - Gloria Romero, Los Angeles Times

No Magic Bullet for Schools - Editorial, Los Angeles Times

Why Florida's Parent Trigger Bill Failed in State Senate - Valerie Strauss, Washington Post

Michelle Rhee Interview About the Parent Trigger - Jeff Solochek, Tampa Bay Times

US Mayors Back Parent Trigger Legislation - Stephanie Simon, Reuters

Mayors Gone Mad - Diane Ravitch, Diane Ravitch's Blog

What is the 'Parent Trigger'?

Parent Trigger describes state legislation that gives parents more power to change poorly performing schools. To pull the trigger, more than 50% of the parents in the school must sign a petition to initiate the process. Once the shot is fired, parents can implement one of 4 options:

    1) shut down the school,

    2) fire the principal,

    3) fire teachers, or

    4) hire a charter organization to take over the school.

Seven states have passed laws with versions of the parent trigger. But Florida, in March 2012, voted down parent trigger legislation in a hard fought battle between activists on both sides. As many as 20 more states are considering legislation. Why? One reason is that it improves states’ chances of being waived from certain accountability requirements in No Child Left Behind.

Here are 14 articles to help you get informed. 

Reference Articles

Hopes and Fears for Parent Trigger Laws - Room for Debate, The Opinion Pages, NYT

Five Minute Primer: Parent Trigger Laws - Donna Krache, Schools of Thought, CNN

Parent Trigger Laws in the States - National Conference of State Legislatures

Roundup of Leading Thinkers on Parent Trigger - Nick Pandolfo, HechingerEd

Opinions

Can Parents Take Over Schools? - Andrew Rotherham, Time

Putting Parents in Charge - Peg Tyre, New York Times

The Trouble With the Parent Trigger - Diane Ravitch, Education Week

Not Your Mother's PTA - Bruno V. Manno, Education Next

Support Parent Power - Gloria Romero, Los Angeles Times

No Magic Bullet for Schools - Editorial, Los Angeles Times

Why Florida's Parent Trigger Bill Failed in State Senate - Valerie Strauss, Washington Post

Michelle Rhee Interview About the Parent Trigger - Jeff Solochek, Tampa Bay Times

US Mayors Back Parent Trigger Legislation - Stephanie Simon, Reuters

Mayors Gone Mad - Diane Ravitch, Diane Ravitch's Blog

Teacher Effectiveness and Education Policy

Teacher effectiveness policy stirs up more controversy and debate than any other education policy.  Two camps, each with charismatic leaders and top researchers, battle to win over public opinion.  Both camps agree that classrooms should be lead by effective teachers.  But, they disagree on how to make that happen.

A decade ago educators, researchers and lawmakers agreed that low standards caused the poor performance of America’s public schools. That consensus let No Child Left Behind pass with full bipartisan support. Now, education reformers say the problem is less about standards and more about ineffective teaching. 

Even though research shows that student achievement is most closely tied to family factors, of all the possible school factors, the quality of teaching is the most important to student learning.

From Highly-Qualified Teachers to Teacher Effectiveness

Research shows that certified teachers produce higher student achievement than uncertified teachers.  But certified teachers are not distributed fairly throughout America’s schools.  To address this, No Child Left Behind required states to put a “highly-qualified” teacher--one with a college degree, certification, and subject expertise--in every math and language arts classroom or risk losing federal funding. This rule made little sense to educators at ground level who knew qualified teachers, especially in math, were in short supply.

Why don’t rural schools and urban schools serving poor neighborhoods get a fair share of highly-qualified teachers?  For the straightforward, free-market reason that these schools lack funds to make competitive offers. The short supply of certified teachers compelled the Education Department to waive the highly-qualified rule and allow teachers with track records of effectiveness to continue teaching.  The education community began focusing on a new question, “How do you determine if a teacher is effective?”

Teacher Effectiveness and Value-Add Assessment

Everybody knows that qualified teachers are not equally effective. When economists started working on how to identify effective teachers, they figured effectiveness should be defined as student “learning growth” since that was the goal.  The best measure of learning growth available was the standardized test score.  The most effective teachers, they reasoned, would be those who increased test scores the most.

Economists and statisticians began to apply “value-add” measures to the data generated from years of NCLB testing.  They developed models that took a student’s year-over-year test scores, figured the before-and-after difference, filtered out family and peer factors, then matched the differences to specific teachers. Teachers could then be given percentile scores based on how much value they added to students’ tests scores.

Researchers could also determine each student’s “learning gain.” Was it the expected year’s worth? More than expected? Or less?

Teacher Effectiveness and the Achievement Gap

The results from value-add studies inspired economists and statisticians to make bold statements.  A few years in a row of effective teachers, they said, could close the achievement gap.  Various studies put the time needed to close the gap between 3 and 5 years. These claims fueled optimism in one camp and incredulity in the other.

Are value-added assessments of teachers reliable?  The research is still inconclusive.  Most everyone understands that some teachers produce stronger gains in test scores than other teachers.  But, year-to-year, a teacher’s effectiveness can swing from the highest to the lowest quartile, or vice versa.  Research is also unclear if a succession of strong teachers accumulates to close achievement gaps. 

Teacher Evaluation and Compensation

The way we evaluate and compensate teachers currently is based on verifiable paper credentials and was negotiated over decades by teacher unions and school districts. A policy shift from qualifications to effectiveness requires a whole new evaluation and compensation system.  That’s why teacher effectiveness policy is a game changer.

One camp argues that value add assessments are too unreliable to use in the high-stakes personnel decisions of firing and pay.  The other camp argues that the current system based on qualifications is even less reliable, if the goal is to reward effectiveness.

What Teacher Effectiveness Means for Parents

Teacher effectiveness policy is being hashed out right now at the local level. In your kids’ schools, the district might be wrangling over value-add assessment, Last In First Out tenure policies, merit pay, and teaching to the test.

Both camps include parents and teachers, and Democrats and Republicans. To better understand the issues, ask yourself three questions:

• How do you determine the effectiveness of a teacher?
• Do value-add measures identify effective teachers?
• Should standardized tests be the measure of student learning?

Maybe just reading these questions clarifies where you stand. If not, additional information below on the pros and cons of value added assessment might be useful.

 

Additional Information:

What Studies Say About Teacher Effectiveness, by the Education Writers Association, summarizes over 40 different studies, as well as interviews with researchers, to better understand the relationship between teachers and student achievement.

Passing Muster: Evaluating Teacher Evaluation Systems, a report by the Brookings Institute, presents the pros of using value add measures to evaluate teachers.

Problems with the Use of Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers, a report by the Economic Policy Institute, presents the cons of using value add measurements to evaluate teachers.

  -- Go to PCM's Top 10 Education Policies List --

Will NCLB Be Reauthorized in 2011?

The No Child Left Behind Act expired in September 2007.  But the Act provides for automatic extensions until Congress can fit reauthorization on their agenda.  For the past few years, the recession and health care reform have consumed the Congress' attention, but recent statements from the President and House and Senate leaders signal that 2011 is the year to tackle education reform.

In the State of the Union address, President Obama gave the first signal.  He made the case that America should invest in educational innovation “as we replace No Child Left Behind with a law that is more flexible and focused on what’s best for our kids.”  Last year the Education Department published A Blueprint for Reform—the administration's outline for a new bill.

A day after the State of the Union address, Sen. Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said the Senate was taking on a comprehensive revision of NCLB.  After ten hearings held last year, Harkin said the committee was now writing a bill for mark-up, and he expected the floor debate to start by early summer.  Given the extent of bi-partisan agreement about what needed revising, Sen. Harkin was hopeful that a bill could pass the Senate by the end of summer. 

In early February, Rep John Kline, (R-MN) the new Chairman of the House Education Committee announced that the House would start committee hearings soon.  Rep. Klein declared his preference for making incremental instead of significant changes in NCLB, especially since legislators could isolate the most glaring problems with the law.  Rep. Klein asserted that he would watch that “investment” in educational innovation wasn’t unrestrained spending.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has reiterated at multiple events that he will give an all-out effort to NCLB reauthorization in 2011 because does not think it could pass in 2012, an election year.  Optimistic about bi-partisan cooperation, Sec. Duncan says, “Everybody sees what’s not working. Everybody sees the disincentives or perverse incentives in the current law.” 

Will debate in the House and Senate expose familiar party clashes underneath a fragile bi-partisanship--clashes over spending, teacher’s unions and the reach of federal government?  Or, will legislators constrain this debate in order to fix NCLB's punitive accountability that will likely give an unsatisfactory grade to as many as 80% of public schools?

    Background Information:

    PCM Core Article: What is No Child Left Behind?

    PCM Top 10 Education Policies

What is No Child Left Behind?

“No Child Left Behind” is the name of the current federal law regulating K-12 public education.  It passed in 2001 with overwhelming bi-partisan support, and was the sixth reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

Two Achievement Gaps

NCLB set a bold new direction for federal government funding of public education.  For the first time federal law held states strictly accountable to deliver higher student achievement in their public schools.  Congress made it clear that despite billions in federal spending, an unacceptable achievement gap persisted between low-income and affluent students and between white and minority students.  Furthermore, the gap between America and top-ranking nations on international test scores was not closing.  NCLB was enacted to close these gaps.

Accountability

To fulfill America’s promise of access to an equal education, and to close America’s global achievement gap, NCLB established an unprecedented accountability system.  All public schools were required to make “Adequate Yearly Progress” on benchmarks of student achievement, and to publish an annual report card on each school’s progress, or lack of progress.   

 Schools that fell short of adequate yearly progress would be labeled “failing” and would face increasing punitive measures.  If a school was failing, Congress gave parents the choice to remove their children from the school and send them to more successful schools.  Putting “choice” into the school system, it was argued, forced schools to improve student outcomes or risk losing them to better performing schools.  To give parents even more choices, NCLB increased opportunities for qualified organizations to start charter schools.

State Standards and Tests

NCLB required each state to create high standards for reading and math curriculum and to develop tests to measure if students achieved those standards at a basic, proficient, or advanced level. 

Implausibly, the law mandated that all students in America score at the proficient level in both math and reading by 2014.  They reasoned if not all children, then some would be left behind.

Highly Qualified Teachers

In addition to requiring higher standards, new assessments, annual testing, Adequate Yearly Progress, and choice, NCLB also mandated that every student have a “Highly Qualified Teacher” in every math and reading classroom.  Because low performing schools were more likely to be staffed with uncertified teachers, the law intended to rectify that inequality of access to effective teachers.

Why is NCLB So Poorly Regarded?

Over the ten years NCLB has been in effect, accountability and choice have undoubtedly increased, but these measures did not produce the levels of improvement in student achievement Congress believed would result.  Over the years it became clear that some of NCLB provisions actually created perverse incentives that caused teaching to the test, encouraged cutting back arts and history, led to cheating scandals, and in some cases even motivated states to actually lower their academic standards.  

Educators point to the mandate that all students be proficient by 2014 as evidence that legislators were naively out of touch with the complex realities teachers face in classrooms every day.

When NCLB is Reauthorized Will These Problems Be Fixed?

Though NCLB’s accountability system didn’t close the achievement gaps as hoped, it has produced massive amounts of valuable test data and pockets of success that will inform efforts going forward.  By now, all politicians agree that NCLB needs to be fixed.  Of course, they don’t all agree on the best way to fix it.

In his 2011 State of the Union speech, President Obama made investment in American education a priority.  Senate leaders announced plans to move reauthorization of NCLB through the Senate by the end of summer.   There is bi-partisan support to fix the bill, and debate about how to fix it is expected to start in early summer.

Rep. George Miller, a drafter of the 2001 bill, called No Child Left Behind the “most tainted brand in America.” Because most legislators agree with him, expect the reauthorization to get a new name.

 

Additional Resources:

To learn about the pros and cons of NCLB’s policies, check out the five education books listed on PCM’s Top 10 Books for Parents:  Whatever It Takes, The Knowledge Deficit, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Disrupting Class, and The Flat World of Education.

To read a concise statement of the Obama Administration plans for fixing NCLB, read Sec. Duncan’s statement given at the Senate Committee Hearing on the Reauthorization of NCLB in March 2010.  Or, view Duncan’s 45-minute testimony in its entirety.

For non-partisan citizen information on NCLB, see Public Education Network’s “Everything You Wanted to Know About NCLB.”

-- Go to PCM's Top 10 Education Policies List --

Rep. George Miller on No Child Left Behind

During "Education Nation" last fall Rep. George Miller discussed briefly the "new take" on No Child Left Behind. New ideas includes setting national "college and career ready" standards, developing better assessments than fil-in-the-bubble tests to measure student learning, and getting greater teacher and parent buy-in to the changes.

   

Watch his two minute explanation of how problems with NCLB might get fixed when it goes up for reauthorization.