The Biggest Roadblocks Preventing the Education Improvement We Must Have

In the last blog post I outlined several problems with our education system. How do we change the education system to lay the foundation for the improved performance that we desperately need? It boils down to two basic changes in how we manage our education empire. The two changes are to retool our education leaders to be competent change leaders and to retool the way legislators and the bureaucracy they create specify the education process. I am convinced that with great leadership from a “retooled” leadership cadre much improvement can be made. Greatly improved leadership ability would allow the education system to take the initial improvement steps that can be done without other facilitating changes. Greatly improved leadership will also lay the foundation to take advantage of the changes I propose in how the legislators and education bureaucracy manage our education process. Removing these two roadblocks to improved performance would facilitate our attempt to leapfrog the global competition effectively preparing our kids to compete well in the “real world.”

We differ from most of our competitor nations in that they tend to have education “ministries” in the central government that call the shots on curricula, standards, etc. without much outside interference. For our strongest competitors there is a large commitment to improving performance at a rapid pace because they realize that educating their children well is a competitive factor in the global arena. They decide what to do and implement it quickly. We talk problems to death so that ideas are often obsolete before our extremely ponderous process gets around to doing anything. The current “triple jeopardy” approach to managing and funding our education endeavors creates a straightjacket that greatly limits the freedom of educators to address their own unique situations and to prioritize their efforts accordingly. The Federal government, State government and the local School Boards all have to get their two cents into the equation. And oh, the time it takes and the convoluted approaches that result. The laws and the regulations written by the bureaucracy are a danger to the future of our kids. I find it ridiculous that on the one hand we say to educators, for example, “You must fix the achievement gap problem” and then specify a process so tightly that they have no freedom to make the changes required to meet that demand. It is like telling a man wearing leg irons that he needs to win the Olympic hundred meter dash or be penalized severely. Of course in the “soft management” environment of our education system the penalty for the educators is akin to 50 lashes with a wet noodle. However, the penalty paid by the kids who are not educated to their potential is a huge due bill that is a blight on our society.

The hubris involved in legislators (advised by “experts” from the education power groups all with vested interests to protect) believing they can specify a top down process that will work effectively and efficiently in all situations is ludicrous. This cobbled together, top down approach hasn’t worked for anything but continuing the status quo with glacial changes for the past many decades. The idea that you can specify and control the education process before hand adequately to provide for all of the myriad impediments that arise and cause the need for a detour from the original plan is idiotic. William Oncken Jr., the famous management writer and trainer, observed that you can only control performance when and where it is happening. That is, you need competent leaders free to act to achieve the desired result. Yet, whenever pressure builds to “solve the education problem” the players all revert to the same failed process that virtually guarantees that no real progress will be made. Thus, they form task groups, take testimony, hold meetings around the state to get public input and then the legislature specifies more tight processes which won’t work in the real world. Einstein’s quote about doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result being insane comes to mind.

If we would think about it with objectivity, the laws need to specify results not process. You see, it is the results that matter, not the processes by which they were obtained as long as they are ethical and legal. It is very likely that any number of processes can work to meet the goals. The advantage of specifying results is that you unleash the organizations to use creativity to develop new processes some of which will be far superior to those “dictated in the past by the legislators and their bureaucratic minions.” This, if the laws specified the desired results coupled with appropriate performance incentives would free the system to make very large improvements quickly. Most organizations will gravitate quickly to the best processes developed by the “creative winners” because the penalties for not performing well will demand it. This is a much cleaner approach from an organizational hygiene perspective as well. That is, people freed to really perform well instead of being in a “robot, do this, do that” rut will have much higher morale and also more fun in doing their jobs. This transformation of education workplaces from “sociological zoos” to productive and fun places to work and succeed is vital to serving the mission of educating our kids to their potential.

This type of improved process development is impossible within the time-honored “we’ll set up a blue-ribbon panel to study the problem and recommend a solution” approach that has been tried unsuccessfully over many decades. Competition among practitioners in the real world will develop superior methods to achieve the desired results much more quickly. This is our big opportunity to finally develop the methods to start beating the competition because we could tap into the vast creative resource that is currently ignored and suppressed. While our global competitors have a focused top down process that is more effective than our current diffuse top down process, they will not be able to compete with an education system that is free to develop positive alternatives in thousands of different organizations across the land where competent change leaders manage the teams required to make the improvements we desire.

Therefore, it is imperative that we demand that the legislators move to a results orientation in the education laws they pass instead of the process approach they have been using ubiquitously. Also, because the retooling of education leaders to implant the skills and coaching needed to be truly effective change leaders is a prerequisite to leading that development of positive alternatives it must be done immediately as well. This two-pronged approach could make our education performance improve very quickly to the great benefit of the kids and our society.

Copyright ©Paul Richardson 2008

The Education Blizzard

If you are a typical busy person, you are bombarded with a blizzard of data on how our schools and especially the ones in your own neighborhood are performing. Occasionally you will see information on how our students do compared to their global peers, how well they are prepared for college, how our state compares to other states on the national achievement tests (NAEP), how certain curricula are “the answer” because they are “research-based” and on and on. This virtual blizzard of data makes it difficult to see the reality of our education performance unless you have the time and disposition to spend considerable effort working to boil down the mountain of data to information useful for understanding the reality of our education performance. I have been digging for over 5 years in great depth and believe I have a good “feel” for the reality of our education situation. Here are some truths I have uncovered:

• Education insiders virtually always put a positive slant on any information they provide on their performance and a negative slant on anything they use to justify less than stellar performance (their mantra is “we confess it is everyone else’s fault”). The “reports” from the educators contain errors of both commission and omission. That is, positive data are shown with a magnifying glass and negative data are ignored or suppressed.

• The education schools started with a bias emphasizing process or method and basically show very little concern for preparing their graduates to have a competent grasp of the subject matter to be taught. Any subject courses within education schools are so weak that they have little or no value. This has been going on for decades and won’t change as long as teacher certification is predicated on ed school training as the main requirement.

• School districts espouse fancy mission statements, long laundry lists of what they call goals but aren’t because they set no timeline or tight metrics to measure success or failure. These are often posted prominently in board meeting venues and on district websites but are ignored when it comes to acting to bring them about. For example, one local district with lots of “excellent” rated schools in the State Accountability Reports says, “The mission of . . . School District . . . , dedicated to national and international standards of excellence, is to educate every student through a comprehensive and academically challenging curriculum taught in a safe and nurturing environment. We challenge students to pursue dreams, succeed with integrity, and contribute meaningfully to a diverse society.” Being the best in Colorado is not good enough. Does being “among the best of the poor” in international terms fulfill the stated mission? Hardly.

• Colorado CSAP standards are very weak compared to the achievement test standards of many other states. Thus, we use a very short yardstick to measure performance. If you download The Proficiency Illusion, from the Fordham Institute and Assessing the Role of K-12 Academic Standards in States: Workshop Summary from the National Academies Press Online you will get access to information on how poorly Colorado ranks as to the rigor of our state achievement testing.

• Nationally our kids, as mentioned in the previous blog post, Walking in Place, do poorly versus their global competitors. When you couple that with the CSAP low standard you have a huge gap between what Colorado kids need in their education and what they are being provided.

• The State Accountability Reports give Excellent ratings to many schools. This is a “graded on the curve” approach which only says they are in the top tier of schools in Colorado. This says nothing about how they do compared to the “real” global standard our kids face today because that report would not be pleasant to behold and would generate pressure to improve greatly.

• The research-based assertion has to be treated with suspicion. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the What Works Clearinghouse at the US Dept of Education reports on all sorts of problems with education research. The two main categories in their findings are slanted studies to the benefit of the research sponsor (provider of book, curricula, etc.) and poorly done from a statistical rigor point of view. But the biggest problem I see (and one that I have seen no one else talk about) is that most education research starts with a poorly conceived research question which is the foundation upon which any research rests. For example, the constructivist math curricula I wrote about earlier does pass the test of the research question asked, “Do constructivist math curricula for elementary level students train students to be able to do simple math operations (with the help of a calculator) such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division?” The answer is yes, however, the research question that wasn’t asked but should have been is, “Do the constructivist math curricula train students in doing the simple math operations while providing a strong foundation for the further study of higher levels of math, starting with algebra? In other words is the new curriculum an improvement over the one that has been optimized over hundreds of years to provide a seamless transition to higher and higher levels of math study? The answer there is a resounding NO! One thing the constructivist math curricula do though is to mask the lack of math subject knowledge present in too many teachers which makes it a popular choice among the “education professional experts” because it is less demanding of them. Thus, my assertion is that the slant in education research is worst in slanting the research question.

Okay, we have some problems that if not addressed mean our kids will not be able to compete well in the global economy. If it were up to me there are several things I would change immediately. However, it isn’t up to me, but it is up to us. I recommend as a first step that we demand that Colorado set the CSAP standards to the level of the state doing the best on the NAEP tests immediately. We don’t need another time wasting task force to determine what to do. Of course, the whining from the education establishment would be very loud. However, not taking the action because it might inconvenience some educators for the benefit of the kids is not acceptable to me and shouldn’t be to you.

Many other steps should be taken but the above is a good first step and by itself would cause lots of other problems to be faced objectively for the first time.
Copyright ©Paul Richardson 2008

Walking in Place

Two reports on our K-12 education performance have come out in the last few days. The first was the report on the latest round of TIMSS testing. That is, the Trends in International Math and Science Study test assesses the performance of students in 4th and 8th grades providing an international comparison allowing us to compare how American children are doing against their peers in 35 other countries that participate. TIMSS classifies student into four categories: advanced, high, intermediate, and low. On the surface the results look good; for 4th grade 10% of our kids scored advanced which is twice the rate for the median, for 8th grade 6 percent of our kids were advanced, our scores were significantly higher than in the last test cycle. Sounds pretty good, right? The other international test of significance is the PISA which includes the OECD countries who are our biggest trading partners and also our biggest competitors. The TIMSS testing includes other countries both at the high end and at the low end. On the high side; Chinese Taipei, Singapore and Hong Kong SAR, but also includes less developed countries like Jordan, Romania, Morocco, and South Africa and only about a dozen of the 30 OECD countries.

What difference do we see between the tests? Our 8th graders scored 508 on TIMSS math versus the average of 500. On the PISA, though, our 15 year-olds were 24 points below the OECD average math score. Thus, the overall competition in the OECD countries (those that matter most if we are to compete effectively) is tougher. A couple more stats to round out the picture include that the 90th percentile of 23 of the 30 countries is higher than for our kids. Also, only 1.3% of U.S. students were in the highest proficiency level in 2006 PISA math (the last time it was given). This was half the OECD average, in the same range as Greece, Mexico, Portugal and Turkey.

Mark Schneider of the American Institute for Research computed effect sizes for some of the education performance of different entities. Effect size as he uses it is the “standardized difference” between the means of the distributions of different groups. It is expressed in standard deviation terms. Thus, when he reports an effect size of 1.1 for U.S. versus Hong Kong for 4th grade math he means that the mean of Hong Kong 4th grade math scores is 1.1 standard deviations above the mean of the U.S. students. This is a huge difference meaning that 86.4% of Hong Kong students score above the mean U.S. score. Other comparisons for 4th grade he gives are the effect size for Massachusetts vs. Mississippi of 0.8 based on the NAEP, effect size for U.S. public schools with lowest levels of poverty vs. U.S. schools with the highest levels of poverty is 1.5 based on TIMSS data. This means that in the lowest poverty schools 93.3% of kids would score above the mean score for those in the highest poverty schools. He gives other examples for 4th and 8th grade students but you get the picture. We have a huge amount of improvement to make to prepare our kids to compete with their global peers.

The second big report coming out this week was the college remediation report from The Colorado Commission on Higher Education. The title of the press release, “College remediation rates stuck at 30 percent” well summarizes the report's finding that remediation levels are not improving. This report gives lots of data from both 2 year and 4 year colleges. “At two-year schools, 53 percent of students had to take at least one remedial course. The overall rate was about 21 percent at four-year schools. The biggest remediation required is for math although reading and writing have significant levels as well. The report also tabulates remediation rates by where students went to high school. The lowest rate was 5.6 percent at Jefferson County’s D’Evelyn High School; the highest was 80.8 percent at Denver’s West High. Also, remember that the report probably doesn’t capture the full extent of the remediation problem. The document notes “the data do not include recent graduates who enrolled in an out-of-state college, delayed entry into higher education for at least one year after completing high school, were not assessed [for remedial needs],” or for whom data was missing.”

For more data on your own school district and high schools you can download the full report “2008 LEGISLATIVE REPORT ON REMEDIAL EDUCATION December 11, 2008” The best performing high schools in the Pikes Peak Region appear to be in the 15% range for remediation while the rest range significantly higher.

Should we be satisfied with either the international testing results or the remediation results? NO! It is difficult to sort through the School Accountability Report "excellent" ratings for some local schools and realize that the criteria are weak compared to the "real world" that our kids face when they get out of school. But it is clear that until the public demands better the huge inertia in the education establishment will make any improvements at a walking pace which might barely maintain our poor place in the global education comparisons. We will need to make our pace of change much faster if we hope to gain on the competition. The current ostrich mentality of “maybe if we ignore it, the problem will go away” isn’t working.

Reviewing the leadership research for business and education

If you are familiar with the major developments in leadership/management practice over the last hundred years you will see that the best techniques have evolved greatly over that time. A hundred years ago you had the top down, directive, “scientific” style espoused by the likes of Taylor, Gantt and others. Since then those interested in performing well but also offering much higher levels of satisfaction for those in the organization have morphed into a participative leadership style where all inputs are valued and people have the chance to fully contribute to organizational excellence in its mission accomplishment. This participatory approach is vital to being able to effectively pursue a continuous improvement approach. The research suggests that in most organizations there is distrust for management and there is a call for a different kind of leadership--one that spreads the power (however one defines it) and responsibilities among the workforce.

Following are some excerpts from various writings about the research and conclusions of the journey from the old beliefs to the more modern and liberating ones of today.

Peters and Waterman [In Search of Excellence] (1982) stated the complaints against American management seem to fall into 5 main categories:
1. The business schools [and education schools] are perpetuating a top-down mentality;

2. Managers lack the right perspective;

3. Managers do not personally identify with what their companies do;

4. Managers do not take enough interest in their people; and

5. Top managers have become isolated from line workers.

They concluded, “Far too many managers have lost sight of the basics, in our opinion: quick action, service to customers, practical innovation, and the fact that you can’t get any of these without virtually everyone’s commitment”.

William Abernathy, in a Forbes interview, shared: “The Japanese seem to have a tremendous cost advantage. . . . They have developed a ‘people’ approach . . . . They have a work force that’s turned on, willing to work, and is excited about making cars”. Economists and sociologists warned American businessmen, as far back as the late 1940’s, that its adherence to specialized division of labor and aloof leadership would ultimately reduce productivity and result in the loss of a competitive edge. It wasn’t until Japan emerged as a formidable competitor that businesses started to re-examine the nature of and structure for leadership (Lewis, 1993).
Lewin and associates concluded that companies that have a more democratic attitude where workers actively participate in decisions are more productive and are more satisfied with their work as compared to groups under a more authoritarian structure.

Selznick, Barnard, and Follett, in addition to having a tremendous effect in moving management theory from the classical to a more social, “humanistic” approach, were probably collectively responsible for the introduction of the bottom-up or “participatory” style of management. This would influence the theory, which followed in what is called the “Participatory Management Model”

According to Argyris, “Following bureaucratic or pyramidal values leads to poor, shallow, and mistrustful relationships. Because these relationships do not permit the natural and free expression of feelings, they are phony or nonauthentic and result in decreased interpersonal competence” Argyris believed that in a humanistic-democratic value system, trusting, authentic relationships will develop among people and will result in increased interpersonal competence, intergroup cooperation, and flexibility, which will result in increased organizational effectiveness.

Sergiovanni takes the concept a step further and suggests, “When moral authority transcends bureaucratic leadership . . . the outcomes in terms of commitment and performance far exceed expectations”. Sergiovanni believes neither bureaucratic nor personal authority create innate reasons for people to follow leaders. Rather, he states: We ought to follow our leaders because they’re people of substance, because they have compelling ideas, because they’re able to share with us insights. Those who make a commitment to ideas and ideals together then have a moral obligation to meet . . . commitments to those ideas.

Gaining insight from the studies of Mayo, Barnard, McGregor, Argyris, Likert, Ouchi, Deming, and others, theorists of the nineties are defending the turn from bureaucratic, top-down managerial attitudes to a philosophy that provides individuals a greater voice in the work that affects their lives. In recent years, there have been many authors expressing dissatisfaction with top-down, autocratic methods of managing organizations and its workforce.

Peters and Waterman researched successful American companies and concluded that there are eight attributes that characterize innovative companies. They:
1. Have a bias for action--when a problem presents itself, this company acts quickly to move forward;
2. Are close to the customer--products are the result of customer satisfaction;
3. Foster autonomy and entrepreneurship among all workers--individuals are encouraged to make a contribution that will benefit the customer and the company;
4. Consider productivity results through the efforts of people--workers are empowered to do their job and to build-in quality up front;
5. Are “hands-on” and value-driven companies that care about their people and not only doing the right thing, but doing it the right way;
6. Stay close to what they know and build upon their strengths;
7. Have simple organization and lean bureaucratic structures--matrix organizational structures are too complex; and
8. Are both centralized and decentralized--autonomy is centered on the workforce.

Jim Collins in his seminal work Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t suggests great leaders are “level 5” leaders. These individuals build “enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.” Collins further stated: We were surprised, shocked really, to discover the type of leadership required for turning a good company into a great one. Compared to high-profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good-to-great leaders seem to have come from Mars. Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy—these leaders are a paradoxical blend of humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar.

Further, Level 5 leaders “channel their ego needs away from themselves and into a larger goal of building a great company. Collins explains that Level 5 leaders have ego and ambition, “but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.” In his opinion, “Humility + will = Level 5” leaders. “Good-to-Great” leaders and companies share the following characteristics. They:

1. Hire the right people and assemble a competent team. “The old adage People are the most important asset” turns out to be wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are.”
2. Maintain an unwavering faith that you can and will prevail. In support of this Norman Vincent Peal, in his popular book titled The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) once stated: “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. But with sound self-confidence you can succeed.”
3. Confront the “brutal facts” about your current reality. Level 5 leaders take an objective view of the company’s strengths and weaknesses and base decisions on data.
4. Transcend the curse of incompetence. Great companies are never satisfied to be good in their status with success. They continually seek to build quality in their product and by seeking input from the workers and the customers their products continue to meet the current and emerging needs.
5. Having a culture of discipline is imperative. “When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance.”
6. Apply technology carefully and never use it as the primary means of eliciting transformation. “We learned that technology by itself is never a primary, root cause of either greatness or decline.”
7. Success is not based on a quick fix, but rather organized sustained effort, that gradually reaches such a momentum as to create a great cultural change

Educational leadership theory seems to be lagging behind business in its grasp and implementation of leadership theories that are proven effective. Similar to the frustration Deming must have felt when he tried to convince American business leaders following World War II, enlightened business leaders, having heeded the suggestions of Deming and Peters and Waterman, are now growing increasingly impatient with the indifference of public schools. There is some evidence in literature that educational leaders have been unaware or uninterested in the benefits of a change in leadership style. Robert Greenleaf, in particular, stated, “I have spent a great deal of time and energy trying to persuade educators to accept the obligation, and I am certain that, generally, they recognize neither the obligation nor the opportunity. Thus far in my experience, they appear unpersuadable”. The confidence level in public education and its leadership is decreasing according to such notables as Philip Schlechty who suggests private partnerships may result if public educational leadership will not listen and respond to the current needs of the customers.

Lessons from exemplary companies as outlined by Peters and Waterman and the reform measures suggested by Deming serve as a “call to action” for public education. The call is out for a more human-centered leadership style that has a clear understanding of its purpose and its customer, basing its foundation in providing quality service, not in being served.

Conyers and Ewy in their book Charting Your Course: Lessons Learned During the Journey Toward Performance Excellence suggest two important characteristics of educational leaders are will and courage. Peter Block stated of these two characteristics:

We need to stop asking how? We now have all the knowledge, the skills, the methods, the tools, the capacity, and the freedom to do whatever is required to serve all students well. All that is needed is the will and courage to choose and move on.
Educational leaders need to accept the model of their peers in business by observing forecasts (trends) for the future and meet the emerging demands. Educational leaders will need skills beyond their training. Reviewing trends and research and remaining current with what is effective is necessary for any leader wishing to be great.

Needed—skilled cross country race drivers

Whether you are talking about the famous Baja races or the ones run in other parts of the world (Sahara desert, etc.) these races put a premium on driving skill. The drivers need to be prepared to deal with any condition that arises from torrential rain, to wind driven sandstorms, to mud, to ruts, to rocky terrain, to crossing streams, to rutty suspension breaking roads, etc. Every race offers a different set of circumstances that the drivers must face and cope with. The winner is most often the most skilled but luck and educated risk-taking play a role in determining the winner in each race.

The above is a good analogy to being a leader in any organization that must perform against its competition. In today’s increasingly competitive global environment leadership skill can make the difference between surviving or not. While every good leader spends significant time planning their road to success, they know that they must be prepared to alter their plan to fit the unanticipated situations that arise in any endeavor.

When you look at our education system we have a “programmed to fail” situation. Processes are specified rigorously. Follow the recipe or you will be penalized by loss of funds or other sanctions. The whole enterprise is one of legislators and the bureaucracy they create with their legislation creating a lockstep army of educators who are not allowed to deviate from their process even if they are about to march over a cliff. The concept that anyone can specify the detailed operational regimen of such a large and complex operation is ludicrous. Of course, it isn’t funny at all, because it designates a process that is ineffective in providing the results that are imperative to serving our kids and our society well. The approach used in education has created a system where change is not allowed unless it is specified from on high. It is like the race driver in the above example getting to a river with a bridge washed out. In the education process example he would have to wait until the bridge was repaired because deviations from the process plan were not allowed. In an organization where the race driver (leader) has the end goal as the driving force there is freedom to detour to the nearest bridge to solve the problem that wasn’t anticipated when the plan was made.

If we were as serious as we say we are about improving education performance, we would do two things. Greatly improve the skill level of education leaders (retool them as Levine says is needed in his Educating School Leaders), AND take away much of the bureaucratic Gordian Knot approach of specifying process to nine decimal places, replacing it with a system that specifies desired results with incentives and penalties based on achieving those results.

Perfect Storm of Bad Educational Ideas

I wrote this in July 2006 after reading "The Knowledge Deficit" by Hirsch. It is still very timely. It contains direct quotes from his work.

The Infamous Four
They Sound Good But They Don’t Work
Why Johnny Can’t Read

E. D. Hirsch Jr. in his new book, The Knowledge Deficit, points out why American education is not succeeding in educating our kids well and why the achievement gap between minority and low income students is not responding to the current methods.

Hirsch calls the current situation a “perfect storm” of Bad Educational Ideas. The Four on his list include:

• Naturalism—“The reason for this state of affairs – tragic for millions of students as well as for the nation – is that an army of American educators and reading experts are fundamentally wrong in their ideas about education and especially about reading comprehension. Their well-intentioned yet mistaken views are the significant reason (more than other constantly blamed factors, even poverty) that many of our children are not attaining reading proficiency, thus crippling their later schooling. …[A] complacent faith in the benefits of nature. …reading is or should be natural.” Other names that are synonymous are romanticism, transcendentalism, progressive as in John Dewey. Caused Hirsch to write Cultural Literacy which pointed out that reading comprehension – literacy itself – depends on specific background knowledge. “The dominant ideas in American education are virtually unchallenged within the educational community. American education expertise (which is not the same as educational expertise in nations that perform better than we do) has a monolithic character in which dissent is stifled. This is because of the history of American education schools…the history of these schools, which are institutions that train almost all of the teachers and administrators who must carry out the provisions of NCLB, is the history of intellectual cloning. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the parent organism, Teachers College at Columbia University, exported professors and the romantic principles…resulting in an intellectual sameness across the nation’s education schools. Even today criticism of those fundamental ideas is hard to find in these institutions.”

• Formalism—“A lot of dead information is to be replaced by all-purpose, how-to knowledge (formalism). Naturalism and Formalism are the two principles that constitute a kind of theology that is drilled into prospective teachers like a catechism. In practice the two principles are not always compatible. …the how-to notion of reading comprehension that stresses clarifying, summarizing, questioning - will inevitably lead to drill-like activities which will be anathematized by the naturalistic principle that learning should be an engaging activity. The dominant principles of naturalism and formalism, being opposed to the systematic teaching of a great deal of information, are deadly enemies of the reading goals of NCLB. Advances in reading will depend on students gaining a great deal of information. This conflict of ideas is, then, the root cause of the impasse between the NCLB law and the schools, for the only way to improve scores in reading comprehension and to narrow the reading gap between groups is systematically to provide children with the wide-ranging, specific background knowledge they need to comprehend what they read.”

• Determinism—the belief that demographics determine ability to learn. “Determinism is nonetheless a flawed and dismal theory, which, while conveniently exculpating the schools, undermines the founding principles of democratic education.”

• Localism--"Along with the terrible trinity of naturalism, formalism, and determinism, localism deserves a dishonored place in American education. Among the wider public it may be the most powerful educational idea of all. On the surface it just implies that our state or our town will decide what should be taught in our schools. It says nothing about what those things should be, so localism is another content-free idea, and as a practical matter it powerfully reinforces an approach that is short on content. It brings liberals and conservatives together to collaborate in support of anti-content, process oriented ideas about education."

"This suspicion fed collaboration between liberals and conservatives helps explain why the process point of view has persisted despite its inability to raise achievement or attain fairness. Educationist, process ideas thrive on the liberal-conservative standoff, and our schools and school boards operate under a gentleman's agreement that unites these groups behind the process-oriented creed."

“The failure of romantic [naturalism, progressivism, constructivism, etc] ideas to improve educational achievement is an inevitable result of their scientific inadequacy and inaccuracy. Reading is not, as romantics hold, either a natural acquisition or a formal skill. But mere scientific inadequacy can be a practical irrelevance in American education. Professors, including those who teach our teachers, do not easily give up their long-asserted ideas, even under the pressure of unfavorable scientific evidence.” Thus, the professors blame society because they won’t face the lie they are telling themselves by ignoring the scientific evidence.

“Old people grow blunt; they haven’t time for slow niceties. Let me be blunt about the implication of the intellectual history I have traced…If its recommendations are followed, reading scores will rise for all groups of children, and so will scores in math and science, because, as common sense would predict, reading is strongly correlated with ability to learn in all subjects. Equally important, social justice will be served, because the reading gap between social groups will be greatly narrowed by following the …pro-knowledge recommendations.”

Adding the Missing Ingredient in the Achievement Gap Reduction Cake

The Final Report of the Colorado Closing the Gap Commission issued in November of 2005 is a 42 page report that identifies the achievement gap problem in general terms and recommends a list of changes that they believe will solve the shameful gap problem. First some quotes from the report defining the problem:

There is a lion in the streets. It threatens every citizen. It endangers the future of our society in a world that grows ever smaller as technology and trade bind us closer together in a competitive global economy.

This threat is the deplorable level of educational attainment that currently is the fate of the great majority of our poorest and most vulnerable children, a population disproportionately black and Hispanic.

More than one third of a century after he decried this situation as a “stain on our national honor” the educational conditions Robert Kennedy described are demonstrably worse.

Pouring billions of dollars into a search for solutions has eased the conscience of the fortunate but has not succeeded in saving those children who continue to be victimized by our abject failures.

To some ears, the words of the Commission may seem unduly harsh. However it is our collective feeling that nothing less than language such as this will suffice to summon that true sense of urgency so long overdue.

Following the assertions in the Forward are a list of elements that the commission believes will fix the problem; Data and Assessment, High Expectations, Higher Education, Administrator/Teacher Qualifications and Professional-Development, Parent and Community Involvement, and Best Practices. We could criticize the details in their list because much of it is tangential to the problem. If it were otherwise we would have seen some dramatic improvement. Thus, I conclude that the commission was another expensive waste of time and another exercise to convince the public that we are serious about the problem. Results are the test and they say loudly that we only talk about reducing the gap and avoid the pain and changes required to really fix the problem. The approach is like a magician waving his hand to take attention away from what he is doing with his other hand.

Why haven’t the billions spent as mentioned in the forward resulted in improvement? Because it follows the time honored and tragically wrong approach America takes to educating our kids. We have created a bureaucratic monster that is a top-down, one size fits all, directive approach. It has far more in common with the Soviet-style central planning approach to managing their economy than it does to a culture where desired results are specified and people are expected to meet them but given freedom to adjust methods to their own local challenges. The current approach is making it very difficult to turn in improvements in performance. When you couple that with the almost total lack of change leader competence in the education arena you have a mired in place disaster.

The education fiefdom (delusional, defensive, insular and inbred) is very adept at ignoring input from outside the walls of the fiefdom, especially if it is true. Arthur Levine in his Educating School Leaders (2005) points out that the education school leadership programs are poor. His report is over a hundred pages long in 8.5 by 11 format. Some of the conclusions are that the ed school leadership programs “confer masters on those who display anything but mastery and doctorates in name only. They engage superintendents and principals in studies irrelevant to their jobs.” He said we have an urgent need to “retool” our education leaders. I have talked to many ed leaders over the last 5 years while researching a book. Levine is right. I didn’t find one superintendent in the six states I sampled (including state supes of the year) that I would consider competent.

Leadership competence is the gating item in the quest for gap reduction or any other substantial education performance improvement. It is the missing ingredient in the cake. How to fix it. For sure you don’t give the job to the education schools. They have not done a good job in the past and certainly don’t have the skills and experience to do better anytime soon. The answer, “Horrors,” is to bring in outside trainers with change leadership skill and have them train and coach leadership teams in districts on site. I say horrors because in the fiefdom, outsiders have no credibility or value in their Group Think view.

Of course, it is very likely that this prescription to help the gap kids will be ignored too because it says that elements of the current education setup are not doing their job and need rehabilitation or replacement. And apparently the protection of educators (in the global sense including ed schools, dept of education and district personnel) who don’t know how to do the job is much more important than really solving the horrendously unfair and unacceptable damage to our kids. However, the last quote from the report forward above tells the likely direction. “To some ears, the words of the Commission may seem unduly harsh. However it is our collective feeling that nothing less than language such as this will suffice to summon that true sense of urgency so long overdue.” Translated it means, “Roll up your sleeves and do more of the things that have failed so miserably in the past. But you can’t blame us, we tried.” And we apparently need to apologize for being harsh when talking about a problem that has such “harsh” consequences for the gap kids. Apologizing for saying the truth is a disease that is prevalent in education where the skill of suppressing the truth is well honed.

So what should we do if we really cared about fixing the gap problem as opposed to talking about it? The solution that makes the most sense is to set up a State Leadership Academy to do the needed retooling of education leaders. This must be led and staffed at first by outsiders who have real-world experience in “performance organizations.” They must have a real passion for the mission. As Peter Drucker the famous management consultant said, “Whenever anything important happens it is because of a monomaniac with a mission.” This would be a herculean task but one that is well worth the effort because the kids will finally benefit. It would show results quickly and it would be very inexpensive compared to the other attempts that have failed in the past.

Copyright © Paul Richardson 2008

Was anyone ever coddled to excellence?

Thomas Friedman in his famous book The World is Flat expresses over and over concern about our ability to ignore the very real and massive changes that are occurring in the global competitive arena. He points out that we are in a “quiet crisis” but a crisis nonetheless. The thesis of his book is that we face a confluence of three gaps that if not corrected will lead inevitably to a declining standard of living for Americans. The three are a manpower gap (shortage) of scientists and engineers to sustain the primary cause of our past economic success, an ambition gap because the competitors are willing to work harder and smarter than we are (we’ve grown self-satisfied and a bit lazy) and the third is the education gap. The biggest of the three and also having great impact on the other two is the education gap. One quote from the book that seems to best describe the crux of the problem follows.

“The sense of entitlement, the sense that because we once dominated global commerce and geopolitics . . . we always will . . . the sense that delayed gratification is a punishment worse than a spanking, the sense that our kids have to be swaddled in cotton wool so that nothing bad or disappointing or stressful ever happens to them at school is quite simply, a growing cancer on American society. And if we don’t start to reverse it, our kids are going to be in for a huge and socially disruptive shock from the flat world.”

I describe what he is talking about as a “kill them with kindness” approach that is all too common in schools. That is, the expectations are far too low of students and educators. Is there any excuse for American kids to score at or near the bottom in math and science when compared to their international peers? I refuse to believe the kids can’t meet the competition if given the right educational opportunities. What does that foretell about our ability to graduate enough scientists and engineers to replace the ones who are quickly reaching retirement age? If our kids are coddled in school does that contribute to the ambition gap?

Friedman tells of a finalist in Intel’s annual science competition, Andre Munteanu, whose parents had moved from Romania to the United States five years earlier. Munteanu started American school in the seventh grade, which he found a breeze compared to his Romanian school. “The math and science classes [covered the same subject matter] I was taking in Romania…when I was in the fourth grade,” he said. This is not an unusual occurrence. About three years ago I saw an interview on the local evening news with an exchange student from Hong Kong. When asked what surprised her most about her experience at Palmer HS, she said it was the math which was the same material she had learned three years earlier in Hong Kong.

How can we assume that we can continue with our low education standards and prepare our kids for the global competition they face for decent paying jobs? You know the answer. We must reset expectations for our education performance much higher. Will that cause consternation, “poor me” victimology, increased educator defensiveness, etc.? Of course, but is that pain small or large compared to a steady decline in American living standards because not enough of our kids could compete? Educators must realize that if living standards decline because we are uncompetitive they will be impacted as well. We are all in the same boat and need to get busy rowing in the right direction.

Now, a word about Colorado’s position with respect to the rigor of our education standards. On page 26 of Assessing the Role of K-12 Academic Standards in States: Workshop Summary available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12207.html are two charts. The first shows the 3rd grade reading cut scores (the level defining proficiency) for 27 states, including Colorado, California, etc. The second chart shows cut scores for 8th grade math in 23 states including Colorado, South Carolina, etc. In the reading chart Colorado is at the bottom with a cut score under 10 while California is highest with a cut score over 60. Now educators will tell you that the research says that if kids don’t read well by third grade it endangers their future ability to perform in the rest of their schooling if they even finish it. In the math chart Colorado has a cut score of 20 (third lowest) while South Carolina has a cut score of 75. This snaps into context the challenge (successfully ignored by our education establishment to date) that we face in Colorado.

Having observed how educators operate, their first reaction if confronted would be to appoint a blue ribbon panel to study the situation for years and then come up with a plan to slightly increase standards. That would be a waste of time. A good start would be to simply “lift” the standards from the state with the highest in each subject. That would be much quicker to do and would be a good start. Some will say we would be overreacting because we might set the standards too high. They will be concerned that schools that were defined as doing great compared to the low standards would be defined as doing poorly compared to the higher standards. It would really be no change only recognition of the true performance which is being masked by Colorado’s ridiculously low standards. When you realize the gap that exists between the state and national standards and the further gap that exists between our national standards and those of our leading competitor nations you will see that the initial step-up in standards would only get us part way to where we need to be. Believe me, more money is not the answer. We have lavished huge sums on the education sector for decades with no positive effect on performance compared to our international competition. More money only gives the anti-change forces in education tacit reinforcement and a license to continue their failed methods in the future. The choice is clear: short term pain for long-term gain or no pain short- term followed by excruciating long-term pain. I think it is an easy choice to make.

Copyright © Paul Richardson 2008

It isn’t the money, it’s the kids’ futures

I am going to make an argument that agreeing to increase education funding is an action against our kids getting the education they need and deserve. You may think I must be wrong but let me explain. For at least the last 25 years education spending has increased at a pace about twice the rate of inflation. It must have resulted in greatly improved education performance, right. Not really. If you look at the statements from the A Nation at Risk report of 1983 and the 2007 Tough Choices or Tough Times report you will have to admit that things have only gotten slowly worse. Our kids score near the bottom in international math and science testing and close to the middle in literacy. Since, the competition globally from billions of people released from the bonds of closed society socialism and have embraced capitalism with a vengeance, our kids must have a better educational foundation, NOW. With the increasing prevalence of knowledge work in the future, they need a stronger foundation than our kids have ever had to have in the past if a decent paying job is the goal.

Now if money were the answer we would already have achieved a world class level of performance. But money isn’t the answer. In fact, there is too much money sloshing around in the education system. That excess has led to much waste and lack of attention to what is important. It has facilitated all sorts of expensive and time wasting initiatives that are tangential to what needs to be done. Thus, we have too much fat and too little muscle. We need to withhold further increases in funding to send a message that it is time for educators to face facts, prioritize efforts toward their mission and stop the “joyriding” they have been doing. The money is a small issue compared to our kids futures. Time to say, no more money until we see positive action on eliminating waste and addressing the needs of the kids. Lest you think the Colorado is doing better than most states you would be wrong as we are in the bottom half there.

Baggage

During the great westward migration of the nineteenth century thousands of Americans left the East and Midwest to settle the West. A very common problem was that they overloaded their wagons with all sorts of “baggage” that they “knew they couldn’t do without.” A story that is told over and over in accounts from the time is that the trail became littered with all of the items that had been considered necessary but were threatening their very survival if they continued carrying them. They had dragged all of that baggage in back-breaking labor until they realized they were faced with a life-or-death decision. Some refused to face the reality of their misguided decision and perished leaving all of that “valuable stuff” along the trail anyway. To them the inability to face reality made the status quo of their current possessions more important than their future. Because they wanted it all they lost it all. This inability to face short term pain for long term gain is even more common today.

Educators don’t realize it but they face the same “life-or-death” decision. The life that is at risk is their future lifestyle and the future of the American way of life. Their failure to educate all kids to their potential is resulting in America being less and less competitive in the world marketplace. Unless urgent action is taken now it will be too late. Continuing delay will put America into an unrecoverable hole of much lower standards of living. Educators need to realize they can’t separate themselves from the rest of America. Continuing to support the current mediocrity will take down the country and the educators along with it.

For educators the baggage that is threatening our nation’s very survival is an amalgam of false beliefs and false pride. Like the pioneers they are on the trail with a heavy load of fantasy beliefs that prevent them from making progress toward the goals they “say” they are trying to achieve. The goal that seems to get mentioned most frequently is the elimination of the achievement GAP between demographically challenged kids and the rest. The “baggage” preventing achievement of this goal includes:

• A belief that is virtually universal within the education fiefdom that “those kids” can’t really learn to a high standard. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that prevents them from learning to the high levels educators “say” they want. While I can guarantee that all educators will deny this for their own school(s), if you press them on achievement performance the first excuse you will hear is the demographic one. This excuse is reinforced by things like The Blueberry Story, Vollmer (2006) which is supported by the unions and tacitly supported by most administrators and school boards who like excuses as well as anyone.
• They use biased, mediocre, scientifically unsound curricula and teaching methods that enrich the education schools that “research” and teach them, the publishers, the consultants who help implement them, etc. The true dark side of these efforts is that they harm the students’ ability to learn at a time when it is vital that our students learn to a higher level if the nation is to compete effectively in the new global paradigm. Refer to Hirsch (2006) comments in The Reality Primer section to understand the problem more fully.
• A common belief, especially among K-5 educators, is that competition is a terrible thing and kids need to be protected from that at all cost. We can’t protect our country and citizens from competition. Competing well is what made us great. The inability of kids to compete because they have been taught they don’t need to is a huge problem!
• Educators also believe that when things get tough the thing to do is to ask your political allies to “protect” you from that nasty foreign (or domestic) competition. That is a waste of time, only making things worse. The global economy is far too integrated for that. Past attempts (ex. Smoot-Hawley tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression in the 1930s) have failed, doing far more harm than good.
• Educators believe they are well educated but they have been the willing victims of education school inadequacy. See Hirsch, Kramer and Levine quotes in the Reality Primer section. This is especially a problem in the area of subject knowledge, from reading to math to science to social studies. Most educators know this subconsciously and that is what leads to their excessive fear of change because significant effort will be required to address this shortfall.
• Educators have a belief that change is anathema and to be avoided at all cost. That is a totally delusional attitude. The only constant in the world is change. This “rut robot” mentality is extremely counterproductive.

Many more points could be made but you see the picture. It is time to face the truth and get rid of the pseudo-intellectual baggage being carried by the vast majority of educators.

Excerpt from Advice for Educators When Performance Improvement is Vital, Paul Richardson, © 2008

A Thousand Miles per Gallon and Zero to Sixty in 1 Second

Let’s say you run a huge racing organization that employs millions of people and owns hundreds of thousands of vehicles. A new vehicle getting 1000 mpg and able to accelerate from 0 to 60 in one second has been available for some time. It is available for a price that is a fraction of what you are paying now. It is far safer than the current model you are racing and handles superbly. It is far better in every way. Why haven’t you begun to replace your current fleet? This is especially true since many of your huge foreign competitors changed to the new model years ago and have been consistently beating you in races since then.
Your reluctance to replace your current Model T Fords with the new model is based on an infrastructure you have in place that would have to be totally retooled if you were to change to the new model. The drivers would have to be retrained and qualified in the new cars on the track. The mechanics would have to be retrained or likely replaced because the new vehicles are massively different than the old ones you have. While you can keep the old ones running with baling wire and binder twine, the new ones are computer-controlled and while far more reliable, require a much more skilled work force to maintain.

You are forced to consider seriously the painful change to the new vehicles because your market share is dwindling as fans gravitate toward the winners instead of your comparatively poorer performance. You realize that your employee unions will fight you on any change because they are comfortable at their current pay and benefit levels compared to what they could earn with their out-dated skills in the global market. Your management team is also narrow and limited in their approach and would find it difficult to compete outside of your organization as well. Yet, you have had to adjust your staffing levels downward in recognition of your dwindling market share. Your attempts to raise ticket prices to compensate have met with strong resistance.

The story above is a good analogy to the current situation for our vast American public school system. While our competitor nations are providing their children with increasingly higher quality education opportunities American education is entrenched in a rut of epic proportions. Many of the philosophies of our education system have their roots in the progressive movement a century ago. At that time the progressives who took control of the education schools and hence education decisions put in place an education philosophy much more interested in “socializing” students to make them pliable to state control than in teaching them subject matter. These foundational values are still powerful in education circles today.

The race analogy applies to the current emergence of stiff global competition in the race our kids are entering as they attempt to find productive and decent paying jobs. In today’s increasing emphasis on knowledge skills we can’t afford to continue our weak performance in teaching our kids literacy, math, science, history, etc. compared to their foreign peers. We have been losing the race for decades. If you compare the 1983 A Nation at Risk report to the 2007 Tough Choices or Tough Times report you have to admit that our competitive situation has not improved and has instead gotten steadily worse in the 25 years since A Nation at Risk came out. We are sending our kids unarmed into the global competition which doesn’t bode well for our future.

You might ask how we can ignore such a huge problem. The answer is in the installed base of education insiders who have been trained to believe that the old, ineffective things they learned in education school are the best (the Model T Ford analogy). Also, the laws governing the public education system are basically a straight jacket that specifies the process so tightly that it is a difficult (not impossible, but difficult) task to try to perform competitively in spite of the system. Since the education school leadership programs have not trained their graduates to be change leaders, only maintainers, the system is mired in a status quo rut. While we have increased spending on education far faster than inflation the performance is slowly getting worse versus our foreign competitors. A big part of that is they are improving quickly while we are mired in place.

What do we need to do to become competitive in the global race?

• First, we have to face facts. Continuing to try to improve performance by appointing multi-year task groups to study and recommend solutions that amount to small “tweaks” to the system will not work any better in the future than it has in the past. Foundational changes are required in how things are done in education if our kids are to be prepared for the competition they are facing. We need to stop wasting time. It is easy to figure out what must be done. It is apparently hard for education leaders to face that and move in the right direction.

• Second, we have to realize and force educators to realize that much of the “process mantra” that has been drilled into them in their education school experiences does not stand up to scientific scrutiny and must be eliminated.

• Third, we need to “retool” the current leadership cadre to become effective change leaders. Change is the only constant in our world and having a leadership group in place that do not have the competency to lead change is a formula for continuing failure.

• Fourth, we need the legislatures and bureaucrats to specify desired results not process. The current system of specifying process very tightly increases costs due to the tracking and audit requirements while allowing very little room for creativity or tailoring to local unique conditions.

• Fifth, we need teachers who know the subject matter well. Since education schools focus the vast majority of their curricula on process (pedagogy) they graduate students who have been exposed to very little subject knowledge.

• Sixth, we need to greatly increase our achievement standards to a world-class level so that our kids will have the opportunity to learn enough to compete with their foreign peers.

The record of the past decades shows that this will take a really strong demand on the part of the public to get done. The politicians mostly support the status quo because it is far easier than taking on the education power groups and actually serving the needs of our kids. Besides, politicians get huge campaign contributions from education power groups who like the status quo. As a union president once said, “If the kids could vote in union elections and pay dues, I would advocate for them but they can’t and I advocate for the members who can.” In other words the ed power groups are much more concerned about maintaining their place at the public trough than they are about the mission of educating the kids.

A Ship of Fools

I want to address what I see as a disastrous movement in math education. I believe we must understand the damage being done because too many states and school districts have moved toward “constructivist” or “discovery” math curricula especially in elementary grades. Do the new curricula work? YES and NO. Yes, they do work for a subset of the total math problem set. They work to allow students to do basic arithmetic with the aid of four-function calculators. However, they don’t work in providing the foundational skills required if the students will ever face the need to study algebra or higher math. Thus, my indictment of the “constructivist math” programs is that they waste time on an alternative method to solve the easy problems when they should be studying the optimized over centuries algorithms and skills that work for the easy problems but also work for the more difficult problems as well. This makes “double work” for students who want/need to take algebra and higher math because they have to learn the old algorithms anyway. This makes algebra much more difficult for students who have been exposed to constructivist math curricula.

You may ask, “Why did the educators decide to go this way, they are the experts, after all.” First, they are not generally expert in subject knowledge. Fallacies have begun to show in the methods area as well but that is a topic for another time. While there are certainly educators who have a good understanding of the math they are teaching, the vast majority do not. This is not only true of math but most subject areas because the education schools focus the majority of their curriculum on “methods” classes. It is not hard to understand why educators who don’t understand the subject but are under achievement testing pressure would like a curriculum that makes the “teacher” into a “facilitator” helping the kids “discover” the subject matter. That is so much easier in their eyes than having to take the remedial classes they would need to increase their subject knowledge to the required level. So, who’s to blame if the scores come in lower than the standards? Must be the kids who are teaching themselves, it couldn’t be the teachers.

So who are the fools on the ship? The educators? Well, because they are acting in their self-interest, fools may not be the best description. The students? They are doing as they are expected to do, so we can’t blame them. How about US? Do the parents, legislators, dept of education, school boards, the general public, etc. have a role to play here? Yes, we do. Is our performance any better than the educators? Not really. We are accessories to the crime that is being committed against our kids. We are far too gullible. When we have a health problem and go to a doctor, we often ask for a second or third opinion. If we have a serious problem like cancer, we will likely do self-study on the internet, in the library and other sources. Do we tolerate half-truths and propaganda about the healthcare system’s performance on the problem?

But if the subject is our children’s future wellbeing we don’t seem to be concerned at all. When our schools turn in poor results do we get involved? It has been easier for us to participate in the delusion that the education system is well run and effective so that we can avoid the work of digging for the truth and demanding better performance of our schools. When our kids shy away from higher level math because they didn’t receive the appropriate foundation in their early schooling do we investigate the reasons the system didn’t prepare them properly? Do we demand the truth of school performance in the context of how are the kids being prepared to cope in the more and more competitive global economy? The truth is there to be seen and it is scary. Our kids score near the bottom in math and science and near the middle in literacy in the three major international achievement tests that compare us to our competitor nations. Is that OK when high paying jobs are leaving the country because companies have to go where the educated workforce is?

Do we bat an eye when the educators take the low and easy road to make it easy for themselves? Do we complain about the huge amounts of money being spent to implement harmful curricula like Everyday Math, when the schools are always asking for more money, more money, more money? Perhaps we should say no more money until you can prove you are not spending a lot of it irresponsibly.

It’s time to get off of the fool’s ship and start demanding much better performance from our educators. We must start by getting to the truth in spite of the propaganda and misinformation being put out by the education entities. If we don’t our kids and the nation will have a very difficult time competing against nations where education is far more rigorous and effective in providing the skills kids need to compete in the new global meritocracy.

Ammunition

1. If an educator says the new constructivist math programs have been research based and are approved, tell them that much of the research in education is slanted to support the vested interest of the sponsor of the “research.” Also, much of the rest of education research is poorly done from a statistical rigor point of view which makes the conclusions highly suspect. Mention the What Works Clearinghouse on the US Dept of Education website which details their findings on ed research.
2. Ask an educator, esp. math teacher to compare the old standard algorithm taught to most of the adults when they attended school to the new “magic seven” or partial quotients algorithm taught in Everyday Math, one of the most popular constructivist curricula. Everyday Math is widely used in this area and districts are working hard to spread it across all elementary schools. Next ask them to explain why the old algorithm works for dividing polynomials in algebra and the magic seven algorithm does not. Then ask them if they expect that none of their students will ever want or need to take algebra in middle or high school. If they truly understand even relatively elementary math they should be able to do this. Don’t be surprised if they babble without a clue.

Selfish pursuits are good unless it is a government program

Adam Smith in his famous Wealth of Nations asserts that rational self-interest and competition operating in a social framework depending on adherence to moral obligations, can lead to economic prosperity and well-being. If that is true, why is the education system performing so poorly? Educators certainly work at promoting their own self-interest. Ah . . . It must have to do with the lack of competition and adherence to moral obligations. Let’s think about those two things.

First, while there is some competition present, our education system is basically a government-run effort with responsibility spread between Federal, State and Local governments. This bureaucratic approach has led to an education system for the vast majority of American children that is unresponsive to their needs. The school choice movement is about allowing competition to occur. In spite of the bureaucratic straight jacket that goes with government funding many charter schools have been started and many are competing very effectively with their “mainline” counterparts. This has led to a groundswell of complaints and whining from those working in the mainline schools. They view it as taking resources away from “their” work and a threat to their place at the government trough.

So, what enlightenment can be gained by considering Smith’s other point about adhering to moral obligations. Do the public schools have a moral obligation to provide high quality educational experiences to all American children? You notice I didn’t say “adequate,” I said high quality. While the definition of what constitutes high quality is open for discussion it is obvious that it is not a continuation of the current status quo.

In the book I am writing I propose what I call The Ethical Basis of Professionalism in Education. I used the Hippocratic Oath as a basis which I modified for education. It does provide the basis for a good self-examination by educators to encourage a more balanced approach to their advocacy for themselves on a personal basis in the context of the moral obligations that Smith espouses.

The Ethical Basis of Professionalism in Education

PRIMUM NON NOCERE

The Hippocratic Oath spelled out the first responsibility of a professional in clear terms. This 2500 year-old code of conduct for Greek doctors has stood the test of time. The most famous element in the Hippocratic Oath is Primum non nocere—“Above all, not knowingly to do harm.”

Professionals, whether doctor, lawyer, teacher, or engineer cannot guarantee to do good for a client. But they are constrained by professional ethics to TRY. They also can promise that they will not knowingly do harm. If this is not true the client can have no trust for the professional. The professional has to have autonomy in that the client cannot control, direct, or supervise the professional. The professional’s knowledge and judgement have to be entrusted with the decisions. However, because of this, the professional is expected to act in the public interest. So a professional is private in that they must not be subject to political or ideological control, but they are public in the sense that the welfare of their client sets limits on their words and deeds. Thus, primum non nocere, “above all, not knowingly to do harm” is the basis of all professional ethics, an ethic of public responsibility.

When this rule of ethics is not followed it causes grievous social harm. It tends to misdirect and prevent understanding. When ignored widely in a profession it can make the public lose all respect for that group.

Following are more of the professional expectations written by Hippocrates, with small changes to translate them for educators.

I will use methods of instruction which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my students, each on an individual basis considering that student’s needs.

Fairness requires impartiality, objectivity and intellectual honesty. It involves keeping my own feelings, prejudices and desires in check so that I may properly balance conflicting interests.

Educators and those in training shall always place the best interest of students above their own direct or indirect interests.

I will keep to the highest expectations of myself in the practice of my profession.

I will discipline myself to always work for positive results in my classroom and the district as a whole. I will avoid participation in negative and unproductive pursuits.

I will discipline myself to hold those things which should be confidential, confidential. I will not participate in harmful rumors and criticism of people behind their backs.

I will continually seek the truth of my performance so that I can work to perfect that performance.

Copyright © 2007, PWR