The new results for the history section of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are out. Proficiency rates of 12% for 12th grade, 17% for 8th grade, and 20% for 4th grade. If you are of the belief that our children must understand history well as a foundation to good citizenship, you are likely greatly distressed by this result which except for minor improvement at 8th grade level is statistically the same result as in the past.
A few years ago I read Michael Barone’s book Hard America, Soft America. I highly recommend it to you. One part of the book related to how some parents, especially the liberal upper middle class were so committed to providing a good education for their children but were unconcerned with the education being received by the masses. This puzzled me at the time as I thought that if they cared about education for their own they should care about quality education for all children.
Since then I have come to realize that the progressives are getting just the results they wanted when they planned the takeover of the education system starting in the early years of the twentieth century. John Dewey and his accomplices tirelessly pushed for elimination of the old American Common School approach as too rigorous and inappropriate for the industrial jobs that were transforming America from a rural agrarian, entrepreneurial society to an urban/suburban existence working for “the boss.”
The Progressives had a clear view of the future they wanted. They desired a country where expertise ruled, their expertise, because they knew better how we should live our lives. Thus, they wanted the general populace to be minimally educated so that they would be easier to sway to what their “betters” had determined was the correct path for society to take. Thus, their education approach was to dumb-down curricula and use slow and ineffective discovery methods to ensure that the masses didn’t learn enough to question their political leaders.
The progressives are inwardly smiling because the results reported by NAEP confirm that their “grand plan” is working very successfully. If you are surprised by my assertion it is because the education establishment “intellectual leaders” have been successful in packaging their travesty in a camouflage that looks very much like what society would deem appropriate for their education system. They have successfully brainwashed the teachers and administrators in their education school training to believe that they are doing the right things and as well as can be expected with the resources they are given and the quality of the kids they have to teach.
They are masters of propaganda. They repeat a mantra that sounds good at first and unless someone takes the time to peek behind the camouflage to view the reality it is assumed that the assertion of education doing as well as it can is true. Besides we are so busy doing important things of our own that we have to depend on the schools to do their job well. We need that time for golf, fantasy football, shopping at the mall for the latest electronic gadget or a new wardrobe, or working two jobs to make ends meet because our own “great progressive education” didn’t prepare us to compete for well paying jobs.
As I have pointed out in previous posts, the education establishment is a well-oiled machine whose purpose is to enrich its workers while maintaining the status quo, poor performing system that hasn’t worked for kids and can’t work. When I started on my education research mission I had assumed that the current system needed to be reformed, I was wrong; it must be replaced from the foundation up. Polishing this rotten apple only delays the day when our kids are educated to be able to compete with their best educated global peers.
A last word; remember that the system is doing exactly what the progressives who designed it wanted it to do. They want a credulous populace subject to their expertise who aren’t prepared by their weak education to question what is happening. That is not in line with our founding principles. Our founding principles may not be perfect but they are better than any other system so far tried and need to be preserved. To do that our education system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
Independence Day Thoughts
Bill Clinton was interviewed on CNBC’s Squawk Box earlier in the week. Two areas of the discussion are worth mentioning; both important to our understanding of the reality of our education system. First, he stated that to get our economy going we needed to graduate a lot more scientists and engineers from American universities. His solution—bring in more foreign students and allow them to stay after graduation by granting more visas. The conclusion you have to draw is that he knows that our K-12 education system is incapable of providing more graduates prepared to successfully study science and engineering in our universities. Sadly, he is absolutely right. This seems a sad parallel to the Romans who declined steadily starting with the use of foreigners to staff their legions as their own citizens were too inured to the “good life” of ease and wealth at home.
More than that, however, I believe he knows that the larger progressive goals for education are inconsistent with providing the rigorous education required to increase the supply of sufficiently well-educated students to send to science and engineering programs. The progressive practice of using the K-12 school system to create a credulous populace, the majority of which are educated at best to a mediocre level and at worst to a minimum brainwashed state is inconsistent with rigor in education.
The second aspect of the interview was related to his understanding of the “Boil the frog” process. You know the story; if you put a frog in boiling water it will reflexively jump out but if you put a frog in room temp water and slowly increase the heat it will ultimately be cooked. In responding to a comment that the interviewer talks to lots of business leaders who express concern over the level of change from the health care bill and the Dodd-Frank regulatory bill being too confusing and massive to deal with Clinton’s response was that the bills should be implemented more slowly (frog example) so the business owners would have time to get used to it.
Unsaid but the obvious conclusion was that the goal was the same to end up with “cooked” businesses in the end. This was the second point pertaining to our education system. This approach squares well with that the progressives took to acquiring total control of our education system. Their approach was so radical and antithetical to the rigorous content-rich approach they wanted to replace that they knew it would have to be done over decades slowly so that the “frogs” didn’t notice the change from a system supporting the principles of our founding to the one they wanted that prepared most of us for a system of “expert control” and nanny state incentives to compliance with little personal freedom or responsibility. Their approach was wildly successful. Clinton was reminding his partners that they should remember that radical “step function” changes as recently passed by the “bit in their teeth” last congress would raise the ire of the populace to oppose them.
This is why the current education system cannot be reformed but must be replaced. And like the frog boiler-progressives we need to remember that it can’t be done overnight but that foundational changes need to be put in place immediately that will get us on the road to the future our nation deserves and for which our founders sacrificed so much to give to us.
More than that, however, I believe he knows that the larger progressive goals for education are inconsistent with providing the rigorous education required to increase the supply of sufficiently well-educated students to send to science and engineering programs. The progressive practice of using the K-12 school system to create a credulous populace, the majority of which are educated at best to a mediocre level and at worst to a minimum brainwashed state is inconsistent with rigor in education.
The second aspect of the interview was related to his understanding of the “Boil the frog” process. You know the story; if you put a frog in boiling water it will reflexively jump out but if you put a frog in room temp water and slowly increase the heat it will ultimately be cooked. In responding to a comment that the interviewer talks to lots of business leaders who express concern over the level of change from the health care bill and the Dodd-Frank regulatory bill being too confusing and massive to deal with Clinton’s response was that the bills should be implemented more slowly (frog example) so the business owners would have time to get used to it.
Unsaid but the obvious conclusion was that the goal was the same to end up with “cooked” businesses in the end. This was the second point pertaining to our education system. This approach squares well with that the progressives took to acquiring total control of our education system. Their approach was so radical and antithetical to the rigorous content-rich approach they wanted to replace that they knew it would have to be done over decades slowly so that the “frogs” didn’t notice the change from a system supporting the principles of our founding to the one they wanted that prepared most of us for a system of “expert control” and nanny state incentives to compliance with little personal freedom or responsibility. Their approach was wildly successful. Clinton was reminding his partners that they should remember that radical “step function” changes as recently passed by the “bit in their teeth” last congress would raise the ire of the populace to oppose them.
This is why the current education system cannot be reformed but must be replaced. And like the frog boiler-progressives we need to remember that it can’t be done overnight but that foundational changes need to be put in place immediately that will get us on the road to the future our nation deserves and for which our founders sacrificed so much to give to us.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Wake Up, Rip, Going Through The Motions—A Disastrous Sham
The new report, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants—An Agenda for American Education Reform, is the latest indictment of American education practices. It is perhaps the most comprehensive look at the differences between our approach and that of our best foreign competitor nations. That we have a problem should be no surprise. The surprise is that we have been so loathe to face the truth of the ridiculously poorly designed education system whose foundation was laid over a hundred years ago. That effort by progressive forces replaced the “envy of the world” American Common School of Mann, Webster and others with a dumbed-down, going through the motions affair designed to prepare students to work in industrial factories as essentially human robots on assembly lines. As the global economy has changed other nations have worked hard to make their education systems meet the challenge of preparing students to have the tools to compete in a knowledge value world. We haven’t.
We have been worse than Rip Van Winkle in our slumber while the realities of our poor education performance go ignored. In 1957 the Russian Sputnik launch triggered a desire to add more rigor to our schools. Gary Lyon’s article in Texas Monthly magazine, Sept. 1979 “Why Teachers Can’t Teach” decried Ed school training as a farce and a fraud. In the 1983 A Nation at Risk report we were clearly told that our education system was affected by a rising tide of mediocrity and that if a foreign nation had imposed our education system on us we would consider it an act of war. Listing the reports and initiatives since A Nation at Risk would be a long task. The point is that we have had plenty of warning but have approached the needed reform by applying bandaid after bandaid to a zombie that has to have radical surgery if it is to be truly “fixed.”
My guess is that the parties whose vested interest (read huge amounts of money and power) will be threatened by the required change to reform our education system to one that is truly worthy of us is doomed to fail. Of course, that is betting on an extension of the current trend and that is an easy bet. Inflection points are caused by a big shift in ancillary forces from outside the system and they do not exist now because Rip has not awakened yet. By the time he awakes it will likely be too late and our children and grandchildren will have to live through much tougher times caused by our increasing lack of competitiveness in the global economy.
Listing some of the biggest anchors preventing the needed reforms –
• Education schools—compared to the best competition our training of teachers (and administrators) is weak to the point of ridicule. The low admission standards result in entrants to our schools of education scoring in the lower third of all SAT test takers. The course offerings of the schools of education are a total sham. Lyons described the courses as, “the intellectual equivalent of puffed wheat: one kernel of knowledge inflated by means of hot air, divided into pieces and puffed again.” The new report points out that the competitor nations require absolute subject mastery and pedagogy that is far more rigorous than the waste of time approach we take to pedagogy training. The admission requirements for our Ed school grad programs are similarly low. Thus our education schools are “diploma mills” skimming huge amounts of money from their farcical educator training programs. If you think that the universities that have schools of education will give up that low overhead, gravy train without a fight, well good luck.
• Current educators—these folk, to support the needed change would need to be retrained with rigor in both subject matter and pedagogy. That is, the current cadre of education “professionals” is totally inadequate to what we desperately need. During the study that resulted in “Standing on the Shoulder . . .” an American representative suggested adding a question about what percent of teachers were teaching subjects they weren’t trained in. The representatives from other countries thought he was kidding and then were aghast that it would even be considered to allow a teacher to “teach” a subject they didn’t know and know very well. Yet in America the Taylor management philosophy supports the philosophy that teachers (line workers) are interchangeable without being concerned about such trivial matters as subject knowledge. The joke is on us. The other countries have it right and we have it wrong.
• Poor management philosophy and structure—our schools are based on management principles of Frederick Taylor, Gantt and others who were involved in designing the systems used to manage production line factories in the early twentieth century. This management style has been long ago replaced by more humanistic and participatory models in many organizations outside of education although it is more prevalent than it should be even now. This top down, repressive style is NOT the way to manage professionals. Hence as in industry a perceived need for unions to protect against the long outdated management philosophy adds even more anti-change reality into the system. It also gives rise to pay for time in service instead of results achieved (merit) and emphasis on work rules that prevent effective performance of the mission. If the “step pay” plan weren’t in place, starting pay for new teachers who were of the training, competence and intellect required could be implemented.
• Unions—these have acquired huge levels of power and if the choice is to give up their power or continue the status quo which ensures their power stays in place, it is easy to predict their stance.
• Legislators—the unions wield great power in supporting the election of “compliant” politicians to office. They support candidates who will support their status quo agenda. This is another tough impediment to positive change.
• An army of researchers, education vendors, government bureaucracies—these people also see threat of less power or remuneration or both if the needed reform were to happen.
It is and has been clear for decades what needs to be done. But who will step up to the plate and get it done. It will require lots of guts, determination, and passion from those who understand the consequences for our progeny and country if we don’t force it to happen. One thing that must be crystal clear, change will not occur from within. Our educators are working to protect their self-interest at the expense of our children and our country. It is time to wake up and face the truth.
The Standing on the Shoulders. . . report is available at
http://www.ncee.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Standing-on-the-Shoulders-of-Giants-An-American-Agenda-for-Education-Reform.pdf
We have been worse than Rip Van Winkle in our slumber while the realities of our poor education performance go ignored. In 1957 the Russian Sputnik launch triggered a desire to add more rigor to our schools. Gary Lyon’s article in Texas Monthly magazine, Sept. 1979 “Why Teachers Can’t Teach” decried Ed school training as a farce and a fraud. In the 1983 A Nation at Risk report we were clearly told that our education system was affected by a rising tide of mediocrity and that if a foreign nation had imposed our education system on us we would consider it an act of war. Listing the reports and initiatives since A Nation at Risk would be a long task. The point is that we have had plenty of warning but have approached the needed reform by applying bandaid after bandaid to a zombie that has to have radical surgery if it is to be truly “fixed.”
My guess is that the parties whose vested interest (read huge amounts of money and power) will be threatened by the required change to reform our education system to one that is truly worthy of us is doomed to fail. Of course, that is betting on an extension of the current trend and that is an easy bet. Inflection points are caused by a big shift in ancillary forces from outside the system and they do not exist now because Rip has not awakened yet. By the time he awakes it will likely be too late and our children and grandchildren will have to live through much tougher times caused by our increasing lack of competitiveness in the global economy.
Listing some of the biggest anchors preventing the needed reforms –
• Education schools—compared to the best competition our training of teachers (and administrators) is weak to the point of ridicule. The low admission standards result in entrants to our schools of education scoring in the lower third of all SAT test takers. The course offerings of the schools of education are a total sham. Lyons described the courses as, “the intellectual equivalent of puffed wheat: one kernel of knowledge inflated by means of hot air, divided into pieces and puffed again.” The new report points out that the competitor nations require absolute subject mastery and pedagogy that is far more rigorous than the waste of time approach we take to pedagogy training. The admission requirements for our Ed school grad programs are similarly low. Thus our education schools are “diploma mills” skimming huge amounts of money from their farcical educator training programs. If you think that the universities that have schools of education will give up that low overhead, gravy train without a fight, well good luck.
• Current educators—these folk, to support the needed change would need to be retrained with rigor in both subject matter and pedagogy. That is, the current cadre of education “professionals” is totally inadequate to what we desperately need. During the study that resulted in “Standing on the Shoulder . . .” an American representative suggested adding a question about what percent of teachers were teaching subjects they weren’t trained in. The representatives from other countries thought he was kidding and then were aghast that it would even be considered to allow a teacher to “teach” a subject they didn’t know and know very well. Yet in America the Taylor management philosophy supports the philosophy that teachers (line workers) are interchangeable without being concerned about such trivial matters as subject knowledge. The joke is on us. The other countries have it right and we have it wrong.
• Poor management philosophy and structure—our schools are based on management principles of Frederick Taylor, Gantt and others who were involved in designing the systems used to manage production line factories in the early twentieth century. This management style has been long ago replaced by more humanistic and participatory models in many organizations outside of education although it is more prevalent than it should be even now. This top down, repressive style is NOT the way to manage professionals. Hence as in industry a perceived need for unions to protect against the long outdated management philosophy adds even more anti-change reality into the system. It also gives rise to pay for time in service instead of results achieved (merit) and emphasis on work rules that prevent effective performance of the mission. If the “step pay” plan weren’t in place, starting pay for new teachers who were of the training, competence and intellect required could be implemented.
• Unions—these have acquired huge levels of power and if the choice is to give up their power or continue the status quo which ensures their power stays in place, it is easy to predict their stance.
• Legislators—the unions wield great power in supporting the election of “compliant” politicians to office. They support candidates who will support their status quo agenda. This is another tough impediment to positive change.
• An army of researchers, education vendors, government bureaucracies—these people also see threat of less power or remuneration or both if the needed reform were to happen.
It is and has been clear for decades what needs to be done. But who will step up to the plate and get it done. It will require lots of guts, determination, and passion from those who understand the consequences for our progeny and country if we don’t force it to happen. One thing that must be crystal clear, change will not occur from within. Our educators are working to protect their self-interest at the expense of our children and our country. It is time to wake up and face the truth.
The Standing on the Shoulders. . . report is available at
http://www.ncee.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Standing-on-the-Shoulders-of-Giants-An-American-Agenda-for-Education-Reform.pdf
Thursday, May 26, 2011
S O S D D
I read yesterday a commentary in Education Week trying to motivate school boards to balance their resource allocations to be fair to the “Gap” children. He bemoaned the fact that all of these years after the Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court decision the gap in learning of our disadvantaged children has not improved. And he is right but as always in education it is an excuse to remind us that it is an external problem (school board in this case) to the sacrosanct and perfect education system they want us to believe exists. So the problem is defined by education insiders as school boards not doing the right thing, the people and legislators not providing the proper level of funding, parents not sending the kids to school already knowing how to read, write, do math and perfectly behaved. This is not an exhaustive list as the education establishment is very adept at deflecting the blame for their poor performance to any mildly plausible target.
Is anyone else bothered that our education problems rotate among the current year’s “cause célèbre?” The gap problem is certainly on the rotation and gets “undivided attention” (talk and more money thrown around to no effect) for a period of time periodically. You may remember that I have written before about the Colorado Closing the Achievement Gap Commission Final Report of November 2005. In the report they do a fine job of defining the problem and admitting that the problem was only worse than when Robert Kennedy said a “third of a Century” ago that the problem was a stain on our national honor. However, the proposed solutions to the problem amounted to redoubling the effort to do the things that have failed so miserably in the past, better this time. UGH!! We could be excused for asking, “When will they ever learn?”
In reality the education fiefdom (defensive, delusional, insular, inbred and uneducated), doesn’t ever learn anything new. That might cause them to realize that the status quo is unacceptable, which it certainly is. If you remember my original four attributes of the education Fiefdom you will notice I added uneducated this time. Oh, there is an oversupply of worthless degrees from bachelors to masters to doctorates. Rita Kramer in her book, Ed School Follies asserts our educators are uneducated. She means by that they only study process in education schools and therefore do not have any subject knowledge worth mentioning. She says wisely that anyone who doesn’t know and love the subject they are teaching is not going to be effective.
Is this a problem? Yes, it is central to the choice of content free (discovery, constructivist) curricula because the knowledge to teach kids subject knowledge is missing. We are the only nation that uses this uncompetitive approach. All the nations whose kids are learning so much more than ours, use a content rich approach and have teachers who know the subject so they can teach effectively. Tragically, America with the Common School movement of Horace Mann, Noah Webster and others used the same method that our competitors use today. We listened to the Siren Songs of John Dewey, Fitzpatrick (Columbia Teachers College “million dollar” professor) who denigrated the great system we had at the time to install their progressive system designed to prepare people to work as “tell us what to do” workers in “big box” entities like industrial factories. The idea was to allow students to “explore and discover” the subject knowledge on their own. Of course this process is much slower because reinventing the wheel is slow and unpredictable. Thus, we discarded a system that worked and replaced it with the one that hasn’t worked and can’t work. This is why spending one more day or dollar and doing the wrong thing better which is the current approach is idiocy to the max. So why don’t we change? Good question and there is a good answer.
The Fiefdom has had time to develop a very effective strategy to prevent any real change from happening. They have time to do this because they are not spending time learning to understand subjects or improve anything. They are playing defense and we need to remember that. The central tenet of their approach is to use their pseudo professionalism to convince those interested in making productive change that the education expert process must be followed when considering any change. Thus, they demand that all changes being considered are studied by a committee of educators and community members. The administrators carefully select members of the committee to prevent any meaningful representation from truly motivated change champions. They may allow a token or two but make sure they are a distinct minority. This committee usually takes more than a year to reach its recommendations. If they recommend a change, the educators demand research by education experts to validate the recommendations. Of course, this is a rigged game because the “experts” are all part of the ”status quo at all costs” conspiracy. This process takes years typically and allows perhaps the biggest problem in making productive change in education to rear its ugly head. That is turnover in administration (especially the superintendent), school board members, or even key advocates of change who may move to a different job or become discouraged. This turnover provides an excuse to “restart” the process with new membership. Thus nothing positive ever happens.
This process is very effective at preserving the status quo and very, very effective at harming generation after generation of students. This is especially true for the gap students. However, we must remember that all of our students are being shortchanged by our mainline schools. While we always hear of all the exceptional kids who are stars in terms of scholarships, SAT and ACT scores, etc., they are the exception and in most cases I have seen they have a large component of parent provided support in the form of parent teaching, tutors, attendance of charter or private schools, or home school episodes to address problem areas. The overall performance of our kids versus their best foreign competition is mediocre (literacy) to poor (science and math). Perhaps most interesting is that the change process is based on the same premises of the “wandering in the wilderness” learning process employed by our schools. It is like taking a trek in the wilderness without a guide or a map. You can wander a long time. If you have a guide who knows the territory (or a teacher who knows the subject) you can get where you want to go much more quickly and safely. The educators depend on the discovery process to slow any change effort to ineffectiveness.
Facts you need to know to counteract the false doctrine of the education Fiefdom
• We don’t need to figure out what works or spend time on committees, hiring education expert consultants or long winded harangues at board meetings. It is well known what needs to be done. We must demand that the changes be implemented immediately.
• Education research is of poor quality. It is often slanted to reach the desired conclusion or poorly done from a statistical rigor point of view. Also, the researchers are careful to avoid telling comparisons between the status quo activities and those that are much better at teaching kids.
• The current education system was designed to create that population of worker bees good at taking direction in the industrial big box settings. It was also designed to create an easily convinced, credulous populace subject to “expert” top-down control.
• You cannot work with educators to bring about improvement. You must TELL them what they must do if they want to continue working in education. No other approach has worked or will work. If you aren’t prepared to go to war to get better education for our kids then you need to accept the poor performance and/or take responsibility for teaching your kids yourself.
• The current system is not preparing our kids to compete for high paying knowledge work jobs of the future. How many burger flippers do we need?
• Politicians (local school board, state legislators, national legislators) are all overly prone to cater to the education power groups because they are more effective than the heterogeneous public who only become unified when something big motivates them. Perhaps the most powerful of these power groups is the teachers union which can give large campaign contributions to sway targeted elections and can marshal their members to walk the areas to convince voters who to vote for their candidate with very slanted messages designed to protect their selfish agenda.
• The current content free approach is harmful to all kids but is far more harmful to the gap kids. They typically don‘t have the support system that their peers do to somewhat attenuate the impact of the poor current approach.
I have some questions for you. Is educating our kids to be competitive in the global economy worthwhile or will the tooth fairy make sure everything works out ok for them? Do you really think that anything will change under the current system unless the public revolts and wrests control from the education experts who aren’t? If you are objective you realize that we are on a long trek toward the future destroying cliff. Is the Thelma and Louise approach a good choice because that is certainly where we are headed. It is tragic that we spend the most per student of all the countries in the world with the exception of a couple of small countries and yet our performance is poor. You must know in your gut that something is drastically wrong with this picture.
Patton said that fixed fortifications were a monument to the stupidity of man. The current Fiefdom defenses are nothing if not fixed defenses. Sadly, we have no Patton type leaders to bypass the education fixed fortifications and rescue the kids, especially the gap kids from the poor performance of our schools. RFK was right, this is a stain on our national honor.
For those who haven’t already realized it the SOSDD, stands for Same Old “Stuff” Different Day which acknowledges that the education performance has been mired in a huge unproductive rut. It doesn’t matter what day it is, nothing ever changes.
Is anyone else bothered that our education problems rotate among the current year’s “cause célèbre?” The gap problem is certainly on the rotation and gets “undivided attention” (talk and more money thrown around to no effect) for a period of time periodically. You may remember that I have written before about the Colorado Closing the Achievement Gap Commission Final Report of November 2005. In the report they do a fine job of defining the problem and admitting that the problem was only worse than when Robert Kennedy said a “third of a Century” ago that the problem was a stain on our national honor. However, the proposed solutions to the problem amounted to redoubling the effort to do the things that have failed so miserably in the past, better this time. UGH!! We could be excused for asking, “When will they ever learn?”
In reality the education fiefdom (defensive, delusional, insular, inbred and uneducated), doesn’t ever learn anything new. That might cause them to realize that the status quo is unacceptable, which it certainly is. If you remember my original four attributes of the education Fiefdom you will notice I added uneducated this time. Oh, there is an oversupply of worthless degrees from bachelors to masters to doctorates. Rita Kramer in her book, Ed School Follies asserts our educators are uneducated. She means by that they only study process in education schools and therefore do not have any subject knowledge worth mentioning. She says wisely that anyone who doesn’t know and love the subject they are teaching is not going to be effective.
Is this a problem? Yes, it is central to the choice of content free (discovery, constructivist) curricula because the knowledge to teach kids subject knowledge is missing. We are the only nation that uses this uncompetitive approach. All the nations whose kids are learning so much more than ours, use a content rich approach and have teachers who know the subject so they can teach effectively. Tragically, America with the Common School movement of Horace Mann, Noah Webster and others used the same method that our competitors use today. We listened to the Siren Songs of John Dewey, Fitzpatrick (Columbia Teachers College “million dollar” professor) who denigrated the great system we had at the time to install their progressive system designed to prepare people to work as “tell us what to do” workers in “big box” entities like industrial factories. The idea was to allow students to “explore and discover” the subject knowledge on their own. Of course this process is much slower because reinventing the wheel is slow and unpredictable. Thus, we discarded a system that worked and replaced it with the one that hasn’t worked and can’t work. This is why spending one more day or dollar and doing the wrong thing better which is the current approach is idiocy to the max. So why don’t we change? Good question and there is a good answer.
The Fiefdom has had time to develop a very effective strategy to prevent any real change from happening. They have time to do this because they are not spending time learning to understand subjects or improve anything. They are playing defense and we need to remember that. The central tenet of their approach is to use their pseudo professionalism to convince those interested in making productive change that the education expert process must be followed when considering any change. Thus, they demand that all changes being considered are studied by a committee of educators and community members. The administrators carefully select members of the committee to prevent any meaningful representation from truly motivated change champions. They may allow a token or two but make sure they are a distinct minority. This committee usually takes more than a year to reach its recommendations. If they recommend a change, the educators demand research by education experts to validate the recommendations. Of course, this is a rigged game because the “experts” are all part of the ”status quo at all costs” conspiracy. This process takes years typically and allows perhaps the biggest problem in making productive change in education to rear its ugly head. That is turnover in administration (especially the superintendent), school board members, or even key advocates of change who may move to a different job or become discouraged. This turnover provides an excuse to “restart” the process with new membership. Thus nothing positive ever happens.
This process is very effective at preserving the status quo and very, very effective at harming generation after generation of students. This is especially true for the gap students. However, we must remember that all of our students are being shortchanged by our mainline schools. While we always hear of all the exceptional kids who are stars in terms of scholarships, SAT and ACT scores, etc., they are the exception and in most cases I have seen they have a large component of parent provided support in the form of parent teaching, tutors, attendance of charter or private schools, or home school episodes to address problem areas. The overall performance of our kids versus their best foreign competition is mediocre (literacy) to poor (science and math). Perhaps most interesting is that the change process is based on the same premises of the “wandering in the wilderness” learning process employed by our schools. It is like taking a trek in the wilderness without a guide or a map. You can wander a long time. If you have a guide who knows the territory (or a teacher who knows the subject) you can get where you want to go much more quickly and safely. The educators depend on the discovery process to slow any change effort to ineffectiveness.
Facts you need to know to counteract the false doctrine of the education Fiefdom
• We don’t need to figure out what works or spend time on committees, hiring education expert consultants or long winded harangues at board meetings. It is well known what needs to be done. We must demand that the changes be implemented immediately.
• Education research is of poor quality. It is often slanted to reach the desired conclusion or poorly done from a statistical rigor point of view. Also, the researchers are careful to avoid telling comparisons between the status quo activities and those that are much better at teaching kids.
• The current education system was designed to create that population of worker bees good at taking direction in the industrial big box settings. It was also designed to create an easily convinced, credulous populace subject to “expert” top-down control.
• You cannot work with educators to bring about improvement. You must TELL them what they must do if they want to continue working in education. No other approach has worked or will work. If you aren’t prepared to go to war to get better education for our kids then you need to accept the poor performance and/or take responsibility for teaching your kids yourself.
• The current system is not preparing our kids to compete for high paying knowledge work jobs of the future. How many burger flippers do we need?
• Politicians (local school board, state legislators, national legislators) are all overly prone to cater to the education power groups because they are more effective than the heterogeneous public who only become unified when something big motivates them. Perhaps the most powerful of these power groups is the teachers union which can give large campaign contributions to sway targeted elections and can marshal their members to walk the areas to convince voters who to vote for their candidate with very slanted messages designed to protect their selfish agenda.
• The current content free approach is harmful to all kids but is far more harmful to the gap kids. They typically don‘t have the support system that their peers do to somewhat attenuate the impact of the poor current approach.
I have some questions for you. Is educating our kids to be competitive in the global economy worthwhile or will the tooth fairy make sure everything works out ok for them? Do you really think that anything will change under the current system unless the public revolts and wrests control from the education experts who aren’t? If you are objective you realize that we are on a long trek toward the future destroying cliff. Is the Thelma and Louise approach a good choice because that is certainly where we are headed. It is tragic that we spend the most per student of all the countries in the world with the exception of a couple of small countries and yet our performance is poor. You must know in your gut that something is drastically wrong with this picture.
Patton said that fixed fortifications were a monument to the stupidity of man. The current Fiefdom defenses are nothing if not fixed defenses. Sadly, we have no Patton type leaders to bypass the education fixed fortifications and rescue the kids, especially the gap kids from the poor performance of our schools. RFK was right, this is a stain on our national honor.
For those who haven’t already realized it the SOSDD, stands for Same Old “Stuff” Different Day which acknowledges that the education performance has been mired in a huge unproductive rut. It doesn’t matter what day it is, nothing ever changes.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Key Markers to Organizational Health
Just as an explorer needs markers to find their way, so do organizations. If you have studied the Lewis and Clark expedition you will know that Clark was able to chart their course extremely accurately considering the instruments he had to work with. I want to share some markers with respect to organizations and how you can “translate” them into a better understanding of what they indicate about the organization.
We can’t hire you because you are overqualified—this statement has become ubiquitous in many organizations and industry groups. So what does this really mean? Possibilities include;
• We know that we are a “status quo” organization and you would become quickly bored or frustrated by the lack of organizational and personal growth potential.
• People want to be part of a winning team and this team is not one.
• An organization that espouses this “you are overqualified” statement is in a slow (or fast) decline in performance and competitiveness.
• If you are a high powered applicant, be thankful when they tell you that you are overqualified. That allows you to conclude that their leadership is weak and you wouldn’t want to work there anyway.
If only we could eliminate the unfair competition or lack of support from . . . –this tells you that they are more interested in confessing that their poor performance is someone else’s fault than in facing the reality of their own performance problems. You can only use that argument with a straight face after you are sure you have perfected your own performance to its fullest and have no room to improve without removing the impediment you want to complain about.
We’ve been in business for decades and see no need to change our process now—this is a sure indication that this organization is doomed. There is only one constant in the world and that is change. You either face it taking it as an opportunity or you are victimized by it.
We are the best so now we can relax—oops! - This reminds me of a story about Mack Trucks back in the first half of the twentieth century. They had designed a product line that was the current state of the art and considerably ahead of that of any competitor. They were so confident that they shut down their design function because they thought no one would ever be able to do better than they had done. They were wrong and squandered their lead causing much pain as they tried to restart development, something they should have kept all along.
We have a nice work environment because we do not allow arguments or disagreements—oh, my goodness, this is political correctness run amok. Bossidy and Charan in their best selling management book Execution, the discipline of getting things done discuss the need for “robust dialog” if you aspire to creating a “performance” organization. What they are saying is that you must allow and encourage people to disagree vigorously so that the “truth” needed for good decisions, is exposed. Organizations that suppress the truth through political correctness and its brother Group Think are doomed to poor performance because their “be nice” ethic suppresses the lifeblood (truth) they need to succeed.
As a successful manager of high performing teams I can say that the first one; we can’t hire you because you are overqualified is the most ridiculous to me. When I had an opening I looked for the best qualified person I could find, even someone who could compete with me and perhaps beat me out. You need strong people to perform well and hiring the best gives you the opportunity to grow the organization quickly to the point where even the “overqualified” need to grow with it. A good definition of the duty of a leader is, “A leader is responsible to provide a work climate in which everyone has a chance to grow and mature as individuals, as members of a group by satisfying their own needs, while working for the success of the organization.”
Too, the truth suppression of political correctness and Group Think guarantee an organization will not be able to perform well. Kill them both; RIP. Is the goal to be nice or to perform the mission at an excellent level? You can’t have both all of the time. You can be nice much of the time but there are times when you can’t if you want to perform. I remember stories of Jimmy David the defensive back for the Detroit Lions championship teams of the 1950s. His teammates told of hating him in practice because he was so hardnosed in his tackling. But they also said they loved him in the games when he made great plays regularly. If you don’t practice with passion you can’t perform with passion.
Keep these markers in mind when assessing an organization to work for, invest in or buy a product or service from.
Paul Richardson
We can’t hire you because you are overqualified—this statement has become ubiquitous in many organizations and industry groups. So what does this really mean? Possibilities include;
• We know that we are a “status quo” organization and you would become quickly bored or frustrated by the lack of organizational and personal growth potential.
• People want to be part of a winning team and this team is not one.
• An organization that espouses this “you are overqualified” statement is in a slow (or fast) decline in performance and competitiveness.
• If you are a high powered applicant, be thankful when they tell you that you are overqualified. That allows you to conclude that their leadership is weak and you wouldn’t want to work there anyway.
If only we could eliminate the unfair competition or lack of support from . . . –this tells you that they are more interested in confessing that their poor performance is someone else’s fault than in facing the reality of their own performance problems. You can only use that argument with a straight face after you are sure you have perfected your own performance to its fullest and have no room to improve without removing the impediment you want to complain about.
We’ve been in business for decades and see no need to change our process now—this is a sure indication that this organization is doomed. There is only one constant in the world and that is change. You either face it taking it as an opportunity or you are victimized by it.
We are the best so now we can relax—oops! - This reminds me of a story about Mack Trucks back in the first half of the twentieth century. They had designed a product line that was the current state of the art and considerably ahead of that of any competitor. They were so confident that they shut down their design function because they thought no one would ever be able to do better than they had done. They were wrong and squandered their lead causing much pain as they tried to restart development, something they should have kept all along.
We have a nice work environment because we do not allow arguments or disagreements—oh, my goodness, this is political correctness run amok. Bossidy and Charan in their best selling management book Execution, the discipline of getting things done discuss the need for “robust dialog” if you aspire to creating a “performance” organization. What they are saying is that you must allow and encourage people to disagree vigorously so that the “truth” needed for good decisions, is exposed. Organizations that suppress the truth through political correctness and its brother Group Think are doomed to poor performance because their “be nice” ethic suppresses the lifeblood (truth) they need to succeed.
As a successful manager of high performing teams I can say that the first one; we can’t hire you because you are overqualified is the most ridiculous to me. When I had an opening I looked for the best qualified person I could find, even someone who could compete with me and perhaps beat me out. You need strong people to perform well and hiring the best gives you the opportunity to grow the organization quickly to the point where even the “overqualified” need to grow with it. A good definition of the duty of a leader is, “A leader is responsible to provide a work climate in which everyone has a chance to grow and mature as individuals, as members of a group by satisfying their own needs, while working for the success of the organization.”
Too, the truth suppression of political correctness and Group Think guarantee an organization will not be able to perform well. Kill them both; RIP. Is the goal to be nice or to perform the mission at an excellent level? You can’t have both all of the time. You can be nice much of the time but there are times when you can’t if you want to perform. I remember stories of Jimmy David the defensive back for the Detroit Lions championship teams of the 1950s. His teammates told of hating him in practice because he was so hardnosed in his tackling. But they also said they loved him in the games when he made great plays regularly. If you don’t practice with passion you can’t perform with passion.
Keep these markers in mind when assessing an organization to work for, invest in or buy a product or service from.
Paul Richardson
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Execution—The Discipline of Getting Things Done
Larry Bossidy and Raum Charan wrote a best selling management book a few years ago with the above title. It was recommended to me by a superintendent friend of mine. I read it and found most of it to be very standard management fare. That is, the standard disciplines of Plan, Organize, Lead (Motivate) and Control. The need to employ feedback based on objective data relating the results obtained to the results desired.
I was impressed however by one section of the book realizing that it applied really well to the greatest impediment to improving our education performance. This was the assertion that if you wanted to create a “performance organization” you needed to create an environment that valued and indeed expected what the authors called “robust dialogue.” In education there is no robust dialogue worth mentioning. Political correctness and Group Think work exceedingly well to suppress the truth and also the synergy that truly robust dialogue could facilitate. Due to this “soft” environment opportunities to do better are regularly missed. This sort of environment is one where people wear their “feelings on their sleeves” and develop no mental toughness that an environment valuing intellectual honesty (being able to look objectively at our own shortcomings and resolve to do better) and robust dialogue.
If you honestly think about it you know that people often know the truth but have learned to suppress it and “be nice.” This creates far more stress than a good argument in the name of better understanding of different attitudes about problems. Synergy by definition requires constructive interaction in a group setting. This is especially true in continuous quality improvement (CQI) activities. The robust dialog that is required to make CQI really work is vital to the process. Since there is no robust dialogue in education worth noting, CQI cannot work. Yet, huge amounts of money are spent on “going through the motions” CQI programs so that school organizations can claim they are using CQI to improve their performance. Another area impacted by the be-nice ethic is the lack of constructive criticism in performance reviews. You may say, “What’s the use, with tenure it makes no difference.” But people will react to scrupulously objective feedback especially if it relates to activities that support the organization’s mission.
While examples of truth suppression are ubiquitous in education one of the worst examples is the case of the school board member who was told on visiting a high school in a large district that 150 9th graders were reading between the 1st and 6th grade levels. That amounted to about a third of the 9th grade class in that school. He expressed his concern about it at the next board meeting. There was no response from any of the administrators or other board members. The board president deftly moved on to the next agenda item. There was a response however, the next day the “assistant superintendent of instruction” sent an email to the entire staff and board with The Blueberry Story attached. This is a “story” whose moral is basically that improvement is required but until society and parents send better students to school the educators can’t do anything. The other action taken was to tell the principal who told the board member the truth that their contract would not be renewed (hence they were fired). So the message to the entire organization was that poor performance was OK but telling the truth was a hanging offense.
Oh, when I discussed the book with the superintendent who recommended it I highlighted the robust dialogue and intellectual honesty section. The superintendent said that there was nothing in the book on that topic. I had to fax copies of those pages as proof to make the point. This experience proved to me once again that educators have such a strong filter preventing any information that conflicts with their education school and on the job training that new beneficial insights and knowledge are not allowed into their consciousness. Thus, until education leaders are retrained by outsiders who are strong enough to break through that filter the massive improvement so desperately needed cannot happen.
I was impressed however by one section of the book realizing that it applied really well to the greatest impediment to improving our education performance. This was the assertion that if you wanted to create a “performance organization” you needed to create an environment that valued and indeed expected what the authors called “robust dialogue.” In education there is no robust dialogue worth mentioning. Political correctness and Group Think work exceedingly well to suppress the truth and also the synergy that truly robust dialogue could facilitate. Due to this “soft” environment opportunities to do better are regularly missed. This sort of environment is one where people wear their “feelings on their sleeves” and develop no mental toughness that an environment valuing intellectual honesty (being able to look objectively at our own shortcomings and resolve to do better) and robust dialogue.
If you honestly think about it you know that people often know the truth but have learned to suppress it and “be nice.” This creates far more stress than a good argument in the name of better understanding of different attitudes about problems. Synergy by definition requires constructive interaction in a group setting. This is especially true in continuous quality improvement (CQI) activities. The robust dialog that is required to make CQI really work is vital to the process. Since there is no robust dialogue in education worth noting, CQI cannot work. Yet, huge amounts of money are spent on “going through the motions” CQI programs so that school organizations can claim they are using CQI to improve their performance. Another area impacted by the be-nice ethic is the lack of constructive criticism in performance reviews. You may say, “What’s the use, with tenure it makes no difference.” But people will react to scrupulously objective feedback especially if it relates to activities that support the organization’s mission.
While examples of truth suppression are ubiquitous in education one of the worst examples is the case of the school board member who was told on visiting a high school in a large district that 150 9th graders were reading between the 1st and 6th grade levels. That amounted to about a third of the 9th grade class in that school. He expressed his concern about it at the next board meeting. There was no response from any of the administrators or other board members. The board president deftly moved on to the next agenda item. There was a response however, the next day the “assistant superintendent of instruction” sent an email to the entire staff and board with The Blueberry Story attached. This is a “story” whose moral is basically that improvement is required but until society and parents send better students to school the educators can’t do anything. The other action taken was to tell the principal who told the board member the truth that their contract would not be renewed (hence they were fired). So the message to the entire organization was that poor performance was OK but telling the truth was a hanging offense.
Oh, when I discussed the book with the superintendent who recommended it I highlighted the robust dialogue and intellectual honesty section. The superintendent said that there was nothing in the book on that topic. I had to fax copies of those pages as proof to make the point. This experience proved to me once again that educators have such a strong filter preventing any information that conflicts with their education school and on the job training that new beneficial insights and knowledge are not allowed into their consciousness. Thus, until education leaders are retrained by outsiders who are strong enough to break through that filter the massive improvement so desperately needed cannot happen.
Monday, March 21, 2011
What Would George Do?
We have a huge and shameful problem in education. The achievement gap between “advantaged” students and “disadvantaged” students is unacceptable. Closing this gap has been allocated first place among education goals for decades. Yet, despite billions being thrown at the problem it has only gotten worse.
As an example the Colorado Closing the Achievement Gap Commission Final Report of 11/2005 provides some important information on both the problem and the continuing misguided approaches to solving the problem. Since there is amazing consistency in education approaches and attitudes across the nation this is valid everywhere to a first order approximation.
"That a nation of unparalleled wealth, matchless military strength, undreamed of progress in science and medicine and home to history’s greatest democracy can tolerate this failure is shocking. Yes, individual schools sometimes defy the odds, but whole systems almost never do. Why? What are the reasons for this failure? It has to do with both will and skill and the reasons illuminate the fact that minority and poor youth are often seen as not worthy of our finest efforts. This needs to be said. The conditions of educational desolation that this Commission decries are to be largely found on streets that the movers and shakers of our society rarely walk; and in schools where their children cannot be found. However, perhaps the greater shame is that such conditions are also found in the schools that serve our society’s privileged children. 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.
Not surprisingly, we have found a fairly benign phrase to describe this catastrophe: “the achievement gap.” It is more comfortable than another phrase: 'the soft bigotry of low expectations.'”
The commission goes on to name its strategy for finally fixing the problem.
Data & Assessment
Closing the gap begins by understanding data and assessment. Colorado must develop a comprehensive, centralized, user-friendly and easily accessible data and assessment system that identifies gaps and deficiencies at the student, school and district level. This data and assessment system should gather available data and centralize it in a consistent and understandable format that can be applied with best practices to address gaps and deficiencies by informing instruction by classroom teachers. Data should be accessible to parents and the community to further understanding of achievement gaps. Data from the higher education system should be linked with K-12 to promote partnerships between the two systems as well as informing public policy makers, parents, teachers and the community at large about the efficacy of strategies that have been implemented to close the gap.
High Expectations
The achievement gap cannot be addressed without a commitment to high expectations. From the business community, students, parents, teachers, administrators and board members at the local level to the Department of Education, State Board of Education, General Assembly and Governor’s Office at the state level, must develop high expectations of success for all students and accept no excuses. The foundation of high expectations is by establishing and maintaining academic rigor in all grade levels from kindergarten through higher education and across school district boundaries. Cultural sensitivity and the impacts of cultural biases on expectations must also be addressed.
Higher Education
Higher Education is an essential participant in eliminating the gap. We must develop and infuse a strong connection between higher education and K-12 by emphasizing shared responsibilities, success indicators, rigorous and connected curriculum and a systemic, proactive support systems that encourages and enables all students to access and succeed in college. This would consist of establishing a rigorous and aligned P-16 curriculum that is the default for all students that begins with the destination in mind, preparing students for life and continuing education. P-16 must provide continuous support that enables all students (especially under-represented groups) to access and succeed in college by providing early counseling, “can-do” values and clear financial options. We must ensure that the P-16 system is seamless and includes elementary and middle schools as part of the solution. The committee recommends that access and affordability to higher education by under-represented groups be ensured.
Administrator/Teacher Qualifications and Professional-Development
The classroom teacher and the school administrator are the front line in ending the gap. We must develop administrator and teacher cultural competencies and sensitivity so that they can effectively embrace high expectations for all students. We must embed the same cultural competencies in local and state leadership. The state should require that administrator and teacher preparation programs are data-driven. As a state we should increase the number of minority teachers and administrators. Teachers should be involved in the choice of professional development opportunities. We must establish incentives that would place the most capable administrators and teachers to work in the most challenged and impacted schools.
Parent & Community Involvement
Schools alone cannot close the achievement gap without the involvement of parents and the broader community. We must build connections with parents, guardians, families, business and non-traditional leaders that will require more culturally sensitive behavior. We must make certain that we understand the strengths as well as the weaknesses of individual students and understand the circumstances that may affect their ability to learn. We must also effectively articulate why parents, guardians, families, business and non-traditional leaders are so important to creating an environment of high expectations.
Best Practices
Embracing and implementing strategies based upon research-based best practices at the classroom; school, district and state levels are the only means of effectively addressing the gap. We must collect, share and fund strategies that have demonstrated success in addressing the gap. This will involve not only the school districts, Colorado Department of Education and the State Board of Education, but must include the Colorado Education Association, Colorado Association of School Executives, Colorado Association of School Boards, the General Assembly and the Governor’s Office. The P-16 systems must reward best practices by linking them to funding and incentives.
Leadership
Leadership by superintendents at a district level, principals and teachers at the school level and other staff and administrators is critical to the effort to establish and maintain high expectations. Administrators and instructors have to both identify the problems and have good relationships with other faculty to implement solutions. Education specialists point to the importance of principal leadership that is passionate and competent in fulfilling the district mission and reaching achievement goals. Teachers also have opportunities to demonstrate leadership in the classroom on a daily basis. Achievement gap reduction efforts by both the Cherry Creek and Fountain/Fort Carson school districts included leadership success. Fountain/Fort Carson closed gaps in test scores, graduation rates and attendance rates by raising expectations for administrators. This effort entailed “principal academies” that include training, assessment and monitoring of principals. The district also emphasized an instructional leadership role of principals, in addition to their management role. Cherry Creek’s North Area achievement program required the addition of an executive director to ensure success.
How to summarize the above prescription. It is doomed from the beginning because it does not recognize that the current content-free approach does not work, especially for the “gap” kids. What does work for “ALL” kids is the content-rich approach used by our international competitors. We used that approach in the American Common School days but that was before Dewey and his henchmen took over education and began the damaging “dumbing down” process. THUS, THIS “DOING THE WRONG THING BETTER” APPROACH IS NOT GOING TO WORK BUT WILL CONTINUE TO ENRICH THE HUGE ARMY SUPPORTING THE STATUS QUO.
Since there is such a leadership vacuum in education, at least with the intestinal fortitude to call a spade a spade and force the system to face its reality, I wondered what George would do? That is, George Patton. Patton was famous for getting results. He was not famous for political correctness or being nice in the face of a challenge. I looked up some of his quotes to give a feel for what he might do to address this problem that our weak educators have been unable or unwilling to fix.
“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.” This is particularly fitting to the education situation. The whole education fiefdom is very homogeneous in its core beliefs and approaches. This is reinforced by a strong wall and moat that keeps out corrupting outsider ideas and information. Hence, the kids continue to get bottom priority and the adults snooze in status quo, won’t work mode.
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't.” If our leaders both political and across all areas in and out of education really cared about our kids, especially the very abysmally served poor and minority (Gap) kids they would not continue using the “be nice” approach that allows the status quo to be perpetuated.
“Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.” I would call this integrity, that is, a commitment to doing the right thing not the expedient or easy thing. There is very little integrity in education circles. This is coped with by fiefdom citizens with a delusional approach that embraces the “we confess it is their fault” attitude. It couldn’t be our fault, it must be the fault of the parents, the society, the voters who don’t approve our every request for more money to improve things.
“No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair.” William Oncken in his Performance Standards training would make the point, “Control—‘Only he who is where it is happening can control what is happening while it is happening.’ This is called “During-the-Fact” control and without it everything is OUT OF CONTROL.” The point is that sitting in your office does not work; you have to be out on the front lines to lead an organization to success.
“Say what you mean and mean what you say.” This problem is legion in education. Every year the administration gets their goals approved by the school board. Every year they fail to fulfill the goal achievement especially if it is any other than preserving the status quo. What is the consequence of failing to meet the goals they signed up for a year earlier? Nothing, in fact the board often hands out bonuses for good performance. This does not reinforce the need to perform, it reinforces sloth.
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” This is particularly appropriate to the education fiefdom. Top down management is ubiquitous. Just do as you are told, initiative will be punished. This starts with the legislators who always specify process very tightly and the autocratic cascade continues down to all levels. Legislators should specify desired results with rewards for meeting them and penalties for not meeting them. But instead we continue along with the “one size fits all” prescriptions that ignore any uniqueness across school districts.
“Many soldiers are led to faulty ideas of war by knowing too much about too little.” Here is another massive problem in education. The vast majority of educators are trained by our education schools. This training inculcates the process catechism that was installed by Dewey et al in the early twentieth century. Subject knowledge is not taught with any rigor at all. Thus, our educators know too much about too little. E.D. Hirsch describes the problem in The Knowledge Deficit. “[P]rinciples that constitute a kind of theology that is drilled into prospective teachers like a catechism.
Conclusion
Our kids would be much better off if a “Patton” type approach would be used in education than they are with the “take care of the adults who work here, who cares about the kids” approach currently in use.
Yes, most educators I have talked to are well meaning but they are also ineffective in serving their mission. They need our help to face reality. They are doing an unacceptable job and we must not tolerate it because it harms kids.
As an example the Colorado Closing the Achievement Gap Commission Final Report of 11/2005 provides some important information on both the problem and the continuing misguided approaches to solving the problem. Since there is amazing consistency in education approaches and attitudes across the nation this is valid everywhere to a first order approximation.
"That a nation of unparalleled wealth, matchless military strength, undreamed of progress in science and medicine and home to history’s greatest democracy can tolerate this failure is shocking. Yes, individual schools sometimes defy the odds, but whole systems almost never do. Why? What are the reasons for this failure? It has to do with both will and skill and the reasons illuminate the fact that minority and poor youth are often seen as not worthy of our finest efforts. This needs to be said. The conditions of educational desolation that this Commission decries are to be largely found on streets that the movers and shakers of our society rarely walk; and in schools where their children cannot be found. However, perhaps the greater shame is that such conditions are also found in the schools that serve our society’s privileged children. 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.
Not surprisingly, we have found a fairly benign phrase to describe this catastrophe: “the achievement gap.” It is more comfortable than another phrase: 'the soft bigotry of low expectations.'”
The commission goes on to name its strategy for finally fixing the problem.
Data & Assessment
Closing the gap begins by understanding data and assessment. Colorado must develop a comprehensive, centralized, user-friendly and easily accessible data and assessment system that identifies gaps and deficiencies at the student, school and district level. This data and assessment system should gather available data and centralize it in a consistent and understandable format that can be applied with best practices to address gaps and deficiencies by informing instruction by classroom teachers. Data should be accessible to parents and the community to further understanding of achievement gaps. Data from the higher education system should be linked with K-12 to promote partnerships between the two systems as well as informing public policy makers, parents, teachers and the community at large about the efficacy of strategies that have been implemented to close the gap.
High Expectations
The achievement gap cannot be addressed without a commitment to high expectations. From the business community, students, parents, teachers, administrators and board members at the local level to the Department of Education, State Board of Education, General Assembly and Governor’s Office at the state level, must develop high expectations of success for all students and accept no excuses. The foundation of high expectations is by establishing and maintaining academic rigor in all grade levels from kindergarten through higher education and across school district boundaries. Cultural sensitivity and the impacts of cultural biases on expectations must also be addressed.
Higher Education
Higher Education is an essential participant in eliminating the gap. We must develop and infuse a strong connection between higher education and K-12 by emphasizing shared responsibilities, success indicators, rigorous and connected curriculum and a systemic, proactive support systems that encourages and enables all students to access and succeed in college. This would consist of establishing a rigorous and aligned P-16 curriculum that is the default for all students that begins with the destination in mind, preparing students for life and continuing education. P-16 must provide continuous support that enables all students (especially under-represented groups) to access and succeed in college by providing early counseling, “can-do” values and clear financial options. We must ensure that the P-16 system is seamless and includes elementary and middle schools as part of the solution. The committee recommends that access and affordability to higher education by under-represented groups be ensured.
Administrator/Teacher Qualifications and Professional-Development
The classroom teacher and the school administrator are the front line in ending the gap. We must develop administrator and teacher cultural competencies and sensitivity so that they can effectively embrace high expectations for all students. We must embed the same cultural competencies in local and state leadership. The state should require that administrator and teacher preparation programs are data-driven. As a state we should increase the number of minority teachers and administrators. Teachers should be involved in the choice of professional development opportunities. We must establish incentives that would place the most capable administrators and teachers to work in the most challenged and impacted schools.
Parent & Community Involvement
Schools alone cannot close the achievement gap without the involvement of parents and the broader community. We must build connections with parents, guardians, families, business and non-traditional leaders that will require more culturally sensitive behavior. We must make certain that we understand the strengths as well as the weaknesses of individual students and understand the circumstances that may affect their ability to learn. We must also effectively articulate why parents, guardians, families, business and non-traditional leaders are so important to creating an environment of high expectations.
Best Practices
Embracing and implementing strategies based upon research-based best practices at the classroom; school, district and state levels are the only means of effectively addressing the gap. We must collect, share and fund strategies that have demonstrated success in addressing the gap. This will involve not only the school districts, Colorado Department of Education and the State Board of Education, but must include the Colorado Education Association, Colorado Association of School Executives, Colorado Association of School Boards, the General Assembly and the Governor’s Office. The P-16 systems must reward best practices by linking them to funding and incentives.
Leadership
Leadership by superintendents at a district level, principals and teachers at the school level and other staff and administrators is critical to the effort to establish and maintain high expectations. Administrators and instructors have to both identify the problems and have good relationships with other faculty to implement solutions. Education specialists point to the importance of principal leadership that is passionate and competent in fulfilling the district mission and reaching achievement goals. Teachers also have opportunities to demonstrate leadership in the classroom on a daily basis. Achievement gap reduction efforts by both the Cherry Creek and Fountain/Fort Carson school districts included leadership success. Fountain/Fort Carson closed gaps in test scores, graduation rates and attendance rates by raising expectations for administrators. This effort entailed “principal academies” that include training, assessment and monitoring of principals. The district also emphasized an instructional leadership role of principals, in addition to their management role. Cherry Creek’s North Area achievement program required the addition of an executive director to ensure success.
How to summarize the above prescription. It is doomed from the beginning because it does not recognize that the current content-free approach does not work, especially for the “gap” kids. What does work for “ALL” kids is the content-rich approach used by our international competitors. We used that approach in the American Common School days but that was before Dewey and his henchmen took over education and began the damaging “dumbing down” process. THUS, THIS “DOING THE WRONG THING BETTER” APPROACH IS NOT GOING TO WORK BUT WILL CONTINUE TO ENRICH THE HUGE ARMY SUPPORTING THE STATUS QUO.
Since there is such a leadership vacuum in education, at least with the intestinal fortitude to call a spade a spade and force the system to face its reality, I wondered what George would do? That is, George Patton. Patton was famous for getting results. He was not famous for political correctness or being nice in the face of a challenge. I looked up some of his quotes to give a feel for what he might do to address this problem that our weak educators have been unable or unwilling to fix.
“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.” This is particularly fitting to the education situation. The whole education fiefdom is very homogeneous in its core beliefs and approaches. This is reinforced by a strong wall and moat that keeps out corrupting outsider ideas and information. Hence, the kids continue to get bottom priority and the adults snooze in status quo, won’t work mode.
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't.” If our leaders both political and across all areas in and out of education really cared about our kids, especially the very abysmally served poor and minority (Gap) kids they would not continue using the “be nice” approach that allows the status quo to be perpetuated.
“Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.” I would call this integrity, that is, a commitment to doing the right thing not the expedient or easy thing. There is very little integrity in education circles. This is coped with by fiefdom citizens with a delusional approach that embraces the “we confess it is their fault” attitude. It couldn’t be our fault, it must be the fault of the parents, the society, the voters who don’t approve our every request for more money to improve things.
“No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair.” William Oncken in his Performance Standards training would make the point, “Control—‘Only he who is where it is happening can control what is happening while it is happening.’ This is called “During-the-Fact” control and without it everything is OUT OF CONTROL.” The point is that sitting in your office does not work; you have to be out on the front lines to lead an organization to success.
“Say what you mean and mean what you say.” This problem is legion in education. Every year the administration gets their goals approved by the school board. Every year they fail to fulfill the goal achievement especially if it is any other than preserving the status quo. What is the consequence of failing to meet the goals they signed up for a year earlier? Nothing, in fact the board often hands out bonuses for good performance. This does not reinforce the need to perform, it reinforces sloth.
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” This is particularly appropriate to the education fiefdom. Top down management is ubiquitous. Just do as you are told, initiative will be punished. This starts with the legislators who always specify process very tightly and the autocratic cascade continues down to all levels. Legislators should specify desired results with rewards for meeting them and penalties for not meeting them. But instead we continue along with the “one size fits all” prescriptions that ignore any uniqueness across school districts.
“Many soldiers are led to faulty ideas of war by knowing too much about too little.” Here is another massive problem in education. The vast majority of educators are trained by our education schools. This training inculcates the process catechism that was installed by Dewey et al in the early twentieth century. Subject knowledge is not taught with any rigor at all. Thus, our educators know too much about too little. E.D. Hirsch describes the problem in The Knowledge Deficit. “[P]rinciples that constitute a kind of theology that is drilled into prospective teachers like a catechism.
Conclusion
Our kids would be much better off if a “Patton” type approach would be used in education than they are with the “take care of the adults who work here, who cares about the kids” approach currently in use.
Yes, most educators I have talked to are well meaning but they are also ineffective in serving their mission. They need our help to face reality. They are doing an unacceptable job and we must not tolerate it because it harms kids.
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