Sunday, November 15, 2009
NATIONAL Heavy Lifting MEET the PRESS (Arne Duncan) Sunday, November 15, 2009
ON EDUCATION begins at 19:30 of Video (PATIENCE PLEASE)
LEGISLATIVE Heavy Lifting GOVERNOR GRANHOLM
COMMENTARY
Education cuts put recovery at risk
Disinvestment in schools will discourage employers
BY JENNIFER M. GRANHOLM
This past week, superintendents, teachers and parents journeyed to Lansing to demand that the Legislature raise money for the School Aid Fund to prevent the deep cuts that will begin impacting our schools within weeks. I strongly support their efforts to prevent these cuts from happening. You don't need to have kids or grandkids in public schools to know that funding for education is vital to Michigan's economy.
This past week, superintendents, teachers and parents journeyed to Lansing to demand that the Legislature raise money for the School Aid Fund to prevent the deep cuts that will begin impacting our schools within weeks. I strongly support their efforts to prevent these cuts from happening. You don't need to have kids or grandkids in public schools to know that funding for education is vital to Michigan's economy.
Michigan is undergoing an unprecedented, historic economic transformation. The global manufacturing economy has shifted, and Michigan must accept the change and adapt. There's no time for denial, blame or finger-pointing; we must face this new reality head-on. What is the fundamental strategy for success in overcoming this challenge? Education, education, education.
An educated work force is the single most important asset we can have if we want to attract new investment and new good-paying jobs to our state in this knowledge-driven economy. Without action by the Legislature now, schools will have to disinvest -- laying off teachers and increasing class sizes. It has been estimated that these cuts could eliminate three thousand to five thousand jobs in our schools. The Legislature would justifiably do back-flips to bring a major employer with that number of jobs to our state. But so far, with an equal number of jobs at stake in our schools, the Legislature appears to be sitting on its hands.
The cause of this financial crisis in our schools could not be more clear. When our largest employers go bankrupt and citizens lose their jobs, state budget revenues plummet. It's particularly true for the school budget, which is funded in large part by the sales tax. When people don't shop during a recession, money for schools disappears. That's why our School Aid Fund is in deep trouble. Both of the state's nonpartisan fiscal agencies have issued warnings: There is not enough money to fund schools at current levels. The law mandates that when the money is not in the bank, school funding must be cut. But the story doesn't have to end there.
I have asked the Legislature to do two things. First, pass an immediate solution now. Second, work with me on long-term solutions to stabilize funding and reform our education system. In the short term, the Legislature can pass three targeted revenues to soften the blow to schools: freeze the personal exemption on the income tax at this year's level ($55 million), reduce special interest loopholes as much as we have reduced state government departments ($150 million) and tax loose tobacco and flavored cigarillos as we tax cigarettes ($35 million). These three, narrow measures would be a small price to pay to prevent devastating mid-year cuts to our schools.
Schools understand that they will have to accept some cuts this year. They will have to share services and consolidate. Teachers and administrators all must have skin in the game to channel every available cent to the classroom. But the additional deep cuts the Legislature is forcing on these schools cannot stand.
In addition to closing the gap in our School Aid Fund, the Legislature must act now to restore the Michigan Promise scholarship. In order to move our economy forward, we set an audacious goal of doubling the number of college graduates. The Michigan Promise scholarship, promised to almost 100,000 college students this year alone, has been a key part of that strategy. The Legislature eliminated it in the budget, making it much harder for Michigan students and Michigan families to afford higher education. I am asking the Legislature to raise the funds to keep that Promise. It is not too late.
Whether it's in our K-12 schools or in our colleges and universities, we must commit Michigan to educational greatness, not mediocrity. Every economist agrees that if we want a vibrant, diverse economy, we must have a skilled, educated workforce.
That's why I am joining with students, parents, educators and citizens across our great state to fight for a stable stream of revenue to ensure that goal is met. There's no more important issue in our state today if we want to promote economic recovery and more good-paying jobs in Michigan.
Jennifer M. Granholm is governor of Michigan.
HEAVY LIFTING: New Information on "Success Factors!"
School Districts to Be Big Players in Race to the Top Contest
It's clear now in the final rules for the Race to the Top grants that states will have to guarantee some big time buy-in from local school districts if they want to snag a slice of the $4 billion prize.
A state's "success factors," which include securing commitments from local districts, is worth 125 points of out of a total of 500. That's second only to teacher and principal effectiveness, worth 138 points. And of those 125 points, 65 are connected to how well a state can guarantee that local districts will carry out whatever reform agenda it proposes.
As Michele McNeil writes in her story today, the support of local school districts is so key that if there's a tie between states, and not enough money to award both of them, then the strength of the districts' commitment is the tiebreaker.
So, just how will a state's school district commitments be judged? According to the rules, states will have to show that districts, through binding agreements, have committed to "implement all or significant portions of the work outlined in the State's plan." On those agreements, Race to the Top judges will be looking for signatures of superintendents, school board presidents, and local teachers' union leaders, as well as "tables that summarize which portions of the State plans [local districts] are committing to implement and how extensive the [local district's] leadership support is."
I scoured the rules to find more on this, and, on page 223, found language explaining that once a state wins an RttT grant, its local districts will have three months to detail how they will implement the state's chosen reforms by completing "specific goals, activities, timelines, budgets, key personnel, and annual targets for key performance measures."
And if you look on page 768 (yes, I said page 768) of the full lineup of rules, you will find a "model" Memorandum of Understanding that the department would consider to be a strong agreement between states and their local school districts.
Judges will also be looking at not just how many districts have bought in, but how broad an impact they will have on student outcomes, which is probably good news for a state like California where it would be next to impossible to corral agreement from more than 1,000 school districts.
If California can get a few of its massive districts such as Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Long Beach, Sacramento, and Fresno to commit, the potential statewide impact would be broad indeed. Those six districts alone educate roughly 1 million of the state's 6 million public school children.
But would that be looked on as favorably, say, as a state like Colorado, where more than half of the 178 school districts have already signed letters of intent to indicate that they are on board?
HEAVY LIFTING: Underpinnings and Tent-poles
Full Report PDF Findings Recommendations State Profiles Methodology & Data FAQs Help 2007 Report Card
Overview
Two years ago, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for American Progress, and Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute came together to grade the states on school performance. In that first Leaders and Laggards report, we found much to applaud but even more that requires urgent improvement.
In this follow-up report, we turn our attention to the future, looking not at how states are performing today, but at what they are doing to prepare themselves for the challenges that lie ahead. Thus, some states with positive academic results receive poor grades on our measures of innovation, while others with lackluster scholarly achievement nevertheless earn high marks for policies that are creating an entrepreneurial culture in their schools. We chose this focus because, regardless of current academic accomplishment in each state, we believe innovative educational practices are vital to laying the groundwork for continuous and transformational change.
In this follow-up report, we turn our attention to the future, looking not at how states are performing today, but at what they are doing to prepare themselves for the challenges that lie ahead. Thus, some states with positive academic results receive poor grades on our measures of innovation, while others with lackluster scholarly achievement nevertheless earn high marks for policies that are creating an entrepreneurial culture in their schools. We chose this focus because, regardless of current academic accomplishment in each state, we believe innovative educational practices are vital to laying the groundwork for continuous and transformational change.
And change is essential. Put bluntly, we believe our education system needs to be reinvented. After decades of political inaction and ineffective reforms, our schools consistently produce students unready for the rigors of the modern workplace. The lack of preparedness is staggering. Roughly one in three eighth graders is proficient in reading. Most high schools graduate little more than two-thirds of their students on time. And even the students who do receive a high school diploma lack adequate skills: More than 33% of first-year college students require remediation in either math or English.
We think of educational innovation not as a fad but as the prerequisite for deep, systematic change, the kind of change that is necessary--and long overdue.
But we also believe that reinvention will never be accomplished with silver bullets. Our school system needs far-reaching innovation. It is archaic and broken, a relic of a time when high school graduates could expect to live prosperous lives, when steel and auto factories formed the backbone of the American economy, and when laptop computers and the Internet were the preserve of science fiction writers. And while the challenges are many--inflexible regulations, excessive bureaucracy, a dearth of fresh thinking--the bottom line is that most education institutions simply lack the tools, incentives, and opportunities to reinvent themselves in profoundly more effective ways.
By "innovation" we do not mean blindly celebrating every nifty-sounding reform. If anything, we have had too much of such educational innovation over the years, as evidenced by the sequential embrace of fads and the hurried cycling from one new "best practice" to another that so often characterizes K-12 schooling. States and school systems, in other words, have too long confused the novel with the useful. Rather, we believe innovation to be the process of leveraging new tools, talent, and management strategies to craft solutions that were not possible or necessary in an earlier era.
Our aim is to encourage states to embrace policies that make it easier to design smart solutions that serve 21st century students and address 21st century challenges. The impulse to either dictate one-size-fits-all solutions from the top or simply to do something--anything--differently will not address our pressing needs. Instead, this report seeks to foster a flexible, performance-oriented culture that will help our schools meet educational challenges.
Today, various organizations are addressing stubborn challenges by pursuing familiar notions of good teaching and effective schooling in impressively coherent, disciplined, and strategic ways. Some are public school districts, such as Long Beach Unified School District in California and Aldine Independent School District in Texas. An array of charter school entrepreneurs are also working within the public school system and seeing encouraging results, such as the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Academies, YES Prep, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, and Achievement First. Other independent ventures have also devised promising approaches to important challenges, including Citizen Schools, EdisonLearning, The New Teacher Project, K12 Inc., Blackboard Inc., Wireless Generation, Teach for America, and New Leaders for New Schools.
Even these marquee reformers, however, struggle to sidestep entrenched practices, raise funds, find talent, and secure support. Moreover, these highly successful ventures often pale when viewed beside the larger K-12 enterprise. The 80-odd KIPP schools, approximately 130 school leaders trained annually by New Leaders for New Schools, and 2,200 teachers trained each year by The New Teacher Project are dwarfed by the nation's 14,000 school districts, 100,000 schools, and 3.2 million teachers. The challenge is to boost the chance that creative problem solvers will ultimately make a real, lasting difference for our nation and our children.
Fortunately, our report comes at a time when national attention to educational innovation is on the upswing. The new federal Race to the Top Fund has brought additional attention to the need to rethink our system, for instance, while numerous other efforts are under way at the state and local levels. It is far too early to endorse any particular plan or to say which ones will be effective. But now is the time for state leaders to show the political will to pursue reform.
Along the way, high standards, accountability, and sensible progress measures are essential. But care must be taken not to allow familiar modes of measurement to smother reform. Too often, reformers tend to embrace only those advances that we can conveniently measure with today's crude tools, such as grades three-to-eight reading and math scores. The principal virtue of the No Child Left Behind Act, for example--a much-needed focus on outcomes and transparency--has been coupled with a bureaucratic impulse and an inflexible, cookie-cutter approach to gauging teacher and school quality. We must not retreat from the promise of high standards and accountability. But we should also embrace what might be called smart quality control. That means measuring the value of various providers and solutions in terms of what they are intended to do--whether that is recruiting teachers or tutoring foreign languages--rather than merely on whether they affect the rate at which students improve their performance on middle school reading and math tests.
Improved accountability and flexibility, while vital, will not be enough to achieve the changes we seek: Capacity building is also crucial. We define this overused term to mean the need for a variety of new providers that deliver additional support to educators in answering classroom and schoolwide challenges. More broadly, however, this effort must be complemented by giving new providers the freedom and encouragement they need to promote high-quality research and development, and to develop innovative "green shoot" reform ventures that pioneer more effective tools and strategies.
Ultimately, though, the key to improving results will be to help schools not only to avoid mistakes, but to position themselves better to adopt imaginative solutions. In brief, for reform to take hold our states and schools must practice purposeful innovation.
To examine the degree to which states have developed such a culture, we focused on eight areas:
- School Management (including the strength of charter school laws and the percentage of teachers who like the way their schools are run)
- Finance (including the accessibility of state financial data)
- Staffing: Hiring & Evaluation (including alternative certification for teachers)
- Staffing: Removing Ineffective Teachers (including the percentage of principals who report barriers to the removal of poor-performing teachers)
- Data (including such measures as state-collected college student remediation data)
- Technology (including students per Internet-connected computer)
- Pipeline to Postsecondary (including the percentage of schools reporting dual-enrollment programs)
- State Reform Environment (an ungraded category that includes data on the presence of reform groups and participation in international assessments)
Our data come from a wide variety of sources, from federal education databases to our own 50-state surveys. We should note that the data limitations we encountered were a significant hindrance to our efforts, even more so than when we prepared our first Leaders and Laggards report.
We received invaluable assistance from an outside panel of academic experts. We shared our methodology with Jack Buckley, professor of applied statistics at New York University; Dan Goldhaber, research professor at the University of Washington; Paul Herdman, president of the Rodel Foundation of Delaware; Monica Higgins, professor of education at Harvard University; and Richard Ingersoll, professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. The panel reviewed our approach and results, and provided helpful feedback. However, our research team takes full responsibility for the methodology and resulting grades.
In many respects the recent troubles of the auto and newspaper industries provide a cautionary tale for today's education policymakers. Analysts predicted structural challenges in both industries for decades. Outside consultants urged major change. Yet altering entrenched practices at businesses from General Motors to the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News proved enormously difficult. And the results of inaction for both organizations were disastrous. The same must not happen to our nation's education system. The stakes are just too high.
The findings and recommendations detailed in the following section cover everything from the need for more thoughtful use of technology to the overarching importance of giving educators flexibility in meeting shared student-achievement goals. In particular, we believe that reform requires a nondoctrinaire emphasis on overhauling the status quo and replacing it, not with some imagined one best system, but with a new performance-oriented culture that may take many forms. In the end, we think of educational innovation not as a fad but as the prerequisite for deep, systematic change, the kind of change that is necessary--and long overdue.
As we observed two years ago in our first Leaders and Laggards report, even as businesses have revolutionized their practices, "student achievement has remained stagnant and our K-12 schools have stayed remarkably unchanged--preserving, as if in amber, the routines, culture, and operations of a 1930s manufacturing plant." Now, as we look forward, our aim is nothing less than to crush the amber. That is the challenge before us.
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