At the Iowa Education Summit this past Monday (available live stream,) we first heard Linda Darling-Hammond advise on the best ways to improve Iowa schools. Moments after her speech, we heard Gov. Chris Christie do the same. Their message and tone couldn't have been more different.
Linda Darling-Hammond made her slide-by-slide case for education reform, compiling a stack of research for what works and doesn’t work to improve student achievement. America, she said, must increase the effectiveness of teachers with a specific set of evidence-backed reforms. These include improving recruitment, training programs, mentoring, “job embedded” professional development, collaborative accountability and teacher evaluation systems. Additionally, she advocated using formative assessments, which target feedback to learners, saying they will help close achievement gaps.
During her speech she had some straight talk for educators about turnaround schools. Turnarounds were not something educators had much expertise in, she said, whereas in the business community, broader pools of turnaround experts were available, which the education community could tap. To take charge of a turnaround, "You have to love stress," she said.
She used a "persuade and persist" strategy to advocate for change--persuade policymakers and the business community with persistent exposure to current research. In contrast, corporate reformers fight for change with what she called "shame and blame." "It's a strategy," she acknowledged.
Gov. Chris Christie, providing the very example of the shame and blame strategy used by the "no excuses" education reform community, grabbed the audience of teachers and state politicians with moral muscle. In the first 10 minutes of his address he used the word "failure" as many times as can be said and still speak in full sentences. His strategy was to shame educators and policy makers to hold themselves accountable for higher student achievement, and to blame all for "failure factories," the phrase he used for worst performing schools. He did, however, start his speech saying reformers of all stripes need to focus on what unites us, and not demonize one another.
He used sticks. She used carrots. He used bold, negative rhetoric. She used science and work-ethic hope. He said money was short and educators needed to face harsh realities. She said to fix the school system would take a national investment and a more equitable distribution of resources. He was a fiery politician. She was a politically saavy academic.
David Driscoll, former Massachusetts Education Commissioner, spoke later in the Summit program. To describe his position on education reform, he said, "Take Linda Darling-Hammond on one pole, and Gov. Christie on the other pole; I'm somewhere in the middle, as are a lot of us."
