Indiana Education Politics: Explanations &Predictions Part II

Glenda Ritz, Educator
in the Lion's Den

Part I: overview and explanations can be found here

Predictions: Politics as the 300 Pound Gorilla

The problem that faces Indiana education now is that we have a non-politician, Democrat, classroom teacher against a political machine that is in-power, looking for payback, and willing to believe that this was at worst a fluke and at best the emotional reaction of people responding to whiny teachers who struck at the right moment.

Governor-elect Pence has already gone on record with the position that voters, because they elected a Republican legislative body, are in support of the educational direction of Indiana despite the ouster of the head educator. While this blind-spot makes for a great topic of discussion in an information literacy or digital citizenship class, it should be frustrating for voters who want to see reform of the #edreform agenda.

Prediction #1: Going Nuclear on Indiana State Teachers Association

Since it is easy to blame this kind of organized response on the organization, ISTA is in the cross-hairs of a super-majority Republican congress. Expect to see legislation in the next term that goes after the union at its heart: member's dues. This one shouldn't be too surprising given the anti-union sentiment around the country and particularly in red states. I would expect to see a bill that makes unions unable to deduct dues (willing or not) from teacher paychecks.

This will not dismantle the union, and certainly the right spin ("Are you going to let politicians take away your voice just when you have found it?") will help. But the point is that a union-busting response takes attention away from the matters-at-hand:

• We are over-testing our students to the detriment of developing skills that are in demand.
• We are using unscientific and uncontrolled data to draw conclusions about what is going on in the classroom
• We are allowing systems, machines, programs, and numbers to replace the relationship between the student, the teacher, and the learning

Impact: Unknown. I think ultimately, the union will be a distraction that will allow those who are so inclined, to dismiss all of these issues as political rhetoric. If teachers are allowed to be characterized as simply protecting their undeserved jobs, we've already lost a crucial moment.

Prediction #2: Shifting the power away from the State Superintendent's office

The governor already has a number of mechanisms that share power with the position. This includes the legislature, Education Roundtable, and the State Board of Education, a policy making body with 10 voting members, nine of which are appointed by the Governor (the State Superintendent is number 10). I would expect to see more and more power shift away from one office and into another. There are few legislative or constitutional protections to stand in the way of an #edreform agenda. The protections that are there can be stripped away. Stopping this move would require the ability to navigate bureaucracy, form strong coalitions, and work backroom magic -- it would take a politician, not a career educator.

Impact: Significant. Without protection in writing or political skill, power will flow away from this office quickly. Soundbites and interviews only go so far. What is necessary to change Indiana's test-prep ship is going to be dialog and conversation, legislation proposed and marked-up, and debated on its merits. We need a strong office to carry this banner.

Prediction #3: Remove the Superintendent of Public Instruction from the Ballot

This can't happen right away. There is too much scrutiny right now. But after a few years of being stonewalled by the legislature and reduced to a shadow of office by the executive branch, it will not take much for the political spin machine to show how much more effective the position could be if it were appointed by the Governor.

Impact: Like prediction #1, this is a political play that would serve to undercut the issues that matter. I have no doubt that a good Governor can appoint a good educator to the role. But if we are caught up in the drama of this move, we will lose sight of the fact that this change was not about politics...it was about policy.

Changing the Future -- Using 21st Century Skills to Counter the Political Machines

Ultimately, I believe that few politicians care about the details of education. They care about education in general but leave the details to people they consider to be experts.They want to be able to talk about great teachers (remember, on the individual level, teachers are loved. its only collectively that we become lazy and evil), good students (potential workers) who graduate ready to face the world, and innovative classrooms, preferably with some kind of glowing apple in each child’s hand.

Politicians do care a lot about saving face and making sure that they maintain political control and power. Seen in this light, stripping the unions of easy funding, shifting power away from a political opponent, and then making sure this embarrassment never happens again makes a lot of sense. Our job, as teachers and parents, friends and family who were able to make yourself heard on November 6th, is to convince your legislators and Governor that this vote had little to do with politics and everything to do with making a choice about how we want to see learning in our classrooms.

Interestingly, the same 21st century skills that the test-prep culture drains from our classrooms hold the key to conveying this message to the statehouse:
1. Effective Communication: We need to communicate with the politicians who are in office. We need to write letters describing what is going on in the classroom. We need to share stories, and infographics, pictures and video clips. We need to explain that voting against treating students like test scores is something that conservatives should support. We need to show that voting against the lackluster electronic wolf of test-prep dressed in an individualization-sheep’s clothing is a winning political stance.

2. Collaboration: We need to find our allies in people to whom politicians listen -- I suggest businessmen. As we tell our classroom stories, we need to tell them to businessmen. We need to share with them the trade off between 17 question pre-tests and projects that encourage brainstorming, teamwork, and collaboration. We need to show the lack of critical thinking that is involved in any bubble-filling assessment. Most importantly, we need to explain in no uncertain terms that teachers are not afraid of tough and critical evaluation -- we just want to be evaluated on those things that we a) can control and that b) impact actual learning.

3. Research and Information Processing: We need to provide innovative solutions that counter the #edreform rhetoric. We need to give examples of schools that thrive despite rejecting an obsession with evaluation. We need to show how innovation in empowering students, effectively using technology to engage in real experiences, and learning in a safe and caring environment can have real impact on developing the skills that matter to colleges and employers.

4. Effective Use of Social Media: We need to get people talking about this new vision for education: A vision where we spend more time focused on learning and less time assessing memorization; A vision where teacher’s are evaluated by qualified and invested administrators who care for students and teachers and demand excellence in the context of a trusted relationship; A vision where students are treated as individuals with thoughts and feelings and needs and interests -- not just deficiencies to be re-drilled and tested again. As we share this message, we need to get this message back to the politicians from multiple people from all walks of life.

Ultimately, the solution is one of policy not politics. But until we are able to make the conversation non-political -- because the evidence is overwhelming and because it is not a weapon that politicians use to beat eachother -- then we are at risk of losing this precious opportnuity for want of political manuvering.

Tuesday was a good night for classroom teachers -- but in order to make it a great start for Indiana students, we have to accept that Tuesday was just the beginning of our work.

On stopwatches, Fairness & Testscores: We Trained Them Well

Student: "Can you just give me the 'book' answer?"
Me: "We don't use a book in this class"
Student: "You are exasperating."

The @40ishoracle and I have had an running theme for the last few weeks. My approach from the student perspective and hers from the teachers. We have decided to write duelling blogs on the topic of "We have trained them well." Read her reflection on teachers here.

Vignette 1: Missed Opportunities

I want to start with one of my favorite teachers. He is a strong presence in the classroom who creates an environment where students feel comfortable exploring complicated questions of faith, justice, and religion. He is typically recognized by excellent students as one of the strongest teachers they have had.  He sees his calling as one of planting seeds, equipping students with thoughts and skills that may be used years down the road.

During lunch one day, he described a day in his classroom. A student was sharing a reflection, showing a video. The teacher said the context, presentation, and subject matter were visually and emotionally moving. Yet as he looked at the classroom, his students were disengaged. They were not being rude. There was no doodling, or sleeping, or gaming, or surfing. Just a strong detachment from the moment and the opportunity they had been given to experience something profound. It was disappointing for this teacher who has had a rough time with freshman this year.

Vignette 2: Claim Analysis Project

Students use collaborative notetaking to capture ideas
from discussion  complete with comments

One of the primary skills in the Digital Citizenship class (#digcit) is the development of information analysis skills. As the media becomes more and more biased and social media allows us to live in echo chambers of our own making (see the original post on the PLNs or the #theatershooting analysis), it is important for students to be able to dissect news and opinion pieces for grains of truth and boulders of bias.

Assignment: Students took two articles from the first issue of the student newspaper: one news, one op-ed. The students were given five minutes to read one of the articles and reflect on the following:

• do you believe the information given in the article?
• what is it about the article or the context that makes you trust (or distrust) the information?

Students were then put into groups of three to share their reflections. It was at that moment that I began to notice that this lesson was not going to go as planned.

One group, the most vocal and active, sat in a straight line. They were discussing, but clearly not engaged in the assignment. It was a factual exchange of information that scratched the surface. More disturbing was the group of students who sat silently with their heads down staring blankly at the news-article. -- silence.

When I prompted them to interact, "The next step is to share what you three are discussing...you might want to, you know, discuss", one of the students looked at me and said, "I don't understand."

"Did you believe what is being stated in the article?" [Task Comprehension]

"I don't know"

"Ok. What is your gut feeling? Accurate or not?" [Start at the basics and build]

"I'm not sure what you mean. Do you think the article is accurate?"

"Why does that matter? I want to see how you processed the information." [Technically I should have gone with another question, but I was getting a that tickly feeling teachers sometimes get -- this could be important]

"I don't want to be wrong. It is not fair for you to ask us a question that we do not know the answer too. You already know the answer. You are just being mean."

There it was. 

And two other students nodded.

The lesson went...ok. By the end of class, students were able to identify the difference between a CLAIM being made and the DATA or ANALYSIS that might show that a claim is indeed true. But that look of helplessness stuck with me.

A Reflection

This year's Freshmen were in kindergarten one year after I left the public school system. While there were a number of reasons I left (one of which was a starry-eyed dream that I would be a stay-at-home Dad and read comicbooks to my baby all day long), part of it was a growing dissatisfaction with test-culture. I taught remedial English to students who had already failed the state exit exam and where preparing to take it a second, third, or fourth time.

Students in the #digcit class due a sorting activity to
identify best sources for  research

I remember long discussion with my wife (then in medical residency) about the dichotomy of this teaching assignment. If I could teach them to think and communicate effectively, to provide a base-level of understanding, they would have a good shot at passing the exam, but there were years of apathy and a ton of factors beyond my control. However, if I went straight for the test -- drilled vocabulary, taught a formulaic writing system that graders (or auto-graders) would be able to checklist through quickly, taught ways to game the natural flaws in a testing system -- I was pretty sure most of the kids would have a good shot at passing.

I tried it both ways. At the end of the "test prep" semester, I was told by the administration that they wanted me to have a training session with other teachers on how I had taught so many kids so well -- 80% pass rate. That was the writing on the wall for my tenure in public schools

Vignette 3: The Magic Formula

A student working on an essay assignment had gathered all of the information for the paper. As students began writing rough drafts, a number of hands went into the air:
"How many sentences have to be in a paragraph?"
"Does the thesis have to be at the end of the third paragraph?"
"I am writing my outline first. What do you want to read in paragraph two?"

The communication aspect of the essay was lost. This was not informative or persuasive. This was writing by formula. As the questions continued and the answers were clearly not "8 sentences" or "Yes", the students began sharing their experience in other classes and at other schools. They described teachers who set arbitrary minimums as a quick way to encourage depth and critical thinking or a formulaic structure as a surefire ways to pass the standardized test (cold chills went through my spine). What struck me was that students had internalized the rules without understanding the reasoning -- the goal was to think deeply, not to churn out eight complete phrases.

We have trained them well

The mantra for the last few weeks as @40ishoracle and I have been discussing with teachers, students, and our twitter PLNs is, "We have trained them well"

• We have trained students that there is one correct answer
• We have trained students that the one correct answer is known by the teacher and/or the test grader
• We have trained them that there is (usually) a simple formula for determining that answer - a process to solve the problem, a structure for an essay, a list of terms to memorize.

We train them by showing them a video that walks through the steps of solving a problem but does not explain why those steps lead to the solution. We train them when they are taught that a science experiment is following the step-by-step guide of a demonstration. We train them with worksheets, one-answer textbooks questions, and tests...lots of tests.

The stopwatch is not the race. Certainly not the runner. Test Insanity #edchat #antitest - Tutors for kindergartenerswashingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-s…
— JD Ferries-Rowe (@jdferries) September 21, 2012

At the point that parents are hiring tutors to help kids with the testing in Kindergarten, the time has come to revisit the system. One of the businessmen that we work with has recognized this need as well. He puts it succinctly: "We are reaping what we have sown". 15 years ago businesses were calling for graduates who could communicate effectively, work well with teams, and work independently without a heavy hand guiding them each step of the way. 15 years later, the American Associations of College and Universities points out that things have not changed all that much:

1. The ability to work well in teams—especially with people different from yourself
   
2. An understanding of science and technology and how these subjects are used in real-world settings
   
3. The ability to write and speak well
   
4. The ability to think clearly about complex problems
   
5. The ability to analyze a problem to develop workable solutions
   
6. An understanding of global context in which work is now done
   
7. The ability to be creative and innovative in solving problems
   
8. The ability to apply knowledge and skills in new settings
   
9. The ability to understand numbers and statistics
   
10. A strong sense of ethics and integrity 

What has changed is our approach to education. In pursuit of these goals (or in pursuit of unstated goals such as cost-savings or opening the educational marketplace), we have developed a system that substitutes opportunities for reflection and teamwork with additional assessments. These assessments to not promote problem analysis or creative solutions -- they look for formulaic methods that give a single scorable answer.

Just read number 8 and think about the student who called lesson was "unfair".

When Yong Zhao presented to the educators and technologists at the  ISTE12 Keynote, he noted that while America obsesses over global test scores, the rest of the world is busy working on creating innovated geniuses: problem solvers, creators, communicators -- those things that have traditionally kept the U.S ahead of the technology and industry game despite high labor costs, lower population numbers, and bad test scores (remember, the US has never excelled in standardized testing worldwide).

But there is hope:

• Math classes that give the answers to the homework but look to the students' process to arrive at that answer.
• #Flipclass and No-homework programs that de-emphasize content transfer and emphasize the rich interaction that are capable in a classroom the individualizes and provides opportunity for collaboration
• The growing number of #digcit and #byot programs that emphasize processing and problem solving as well as information literacy and communications. As these systems replace push-button training classes, students are exposed to more opportunities to identify and solve problems rather than follow a pre-selected path to a single answer.
• History and Social Studies classes that are rejecting textbook summaries of events in exchange for time spent interpreting and analyzing history through primary source and historical documents.
• Schools with a mission to educate and form the whole person rather than force an unnatural separation by subject areas.

But these hopeful techniques and movements are a gamble. Because if "success" is designated by a score on a standardized test, rather than the development of creativity and innovation, then we run the risk of denigrating the best programs in favor of "test-prep" environments. Worse, we are creating a system that measures students, rewards teachers, and honors school systems for creating students that do not have the skills that we want in either our well-informed citizenry or our innovative workforce.

Its time for the student-based-objective to focus primarily on the student.

Its time to focus on the race and runners and not the stopwatch.

Its time to stop training and start teaching.

Centennial Post - Deciphering The (Lexile ) Numbers - Education as Big Business

Preface: The Score Letter
I think every family with two working adults and multiple school-age children has that table that gathers piles of paper. You know the one that I mean. Our main one (because we have many) is the kitchen island. One stack is generally for comic books and various non-urgent papers, another stack is bills, and my wife has her own stack of "i will go through these as soon as I have a spare moment...say 2020?" papers. My children have followed the example of the parents with stacks of "you may want to look at these" papers (in which every permission slip, late homework notice, etc. invariably ends up). When I got home one night last week, I noticed an official letter on the top stack for my eldest, the ten-year-old Daughter Prime.

The letter described a formal exam taken by all students to determine her LEXILE score. The score, the letter went on to explain, was a measure of reading comprehension that had been validated seven ways from Sunday and had a great many uses for teachers and parents. I could find out more information by going to Lexile.com and reading about the score there.
End Preface

Thoughts on Milestones and Education Reform
As I write this post, my hundredth on the geekreflection site since @40ishoracle and I decided it would be a hoot to share our thoughts with the world, I have been thinking about the changes that have been happening in education in the short time since i set foot in the classroom 15 years ago. Back then, high-stakes testing was not a significant focus of classroom activity nor was it a significant piece of the educational dialogue. In most schools, students were told that it was a measure of what you had learned in class and was not something over which you should stress. Exit exams were in place at the high-school level and classes had been created to prepare or remediate the lowest potential scorers, but it had not affected the students who were likely to pass (note: i spent my first three years of teaching in low-track and test remediation courses -- the youngest teachers often did).

The tide had not yet turned against teachers in the political rhetoric. Our job was still considered professional and difficult and while there was a murmur of anti-union rhetoric starting, it did  not have the venom that is present in today's attacks on teachers. Movies that were made talked about difficult environments and socially ingrained issues (which could include clueless administrators and burned out teachers) but often focused on the need for committed and dedicated adults as a key factor in turning around a troubled school (note: this is still presumed to be true in the sound-bytes of most politicians, just not in any of the legislation that they produce).

Education as a business was beginning to gain some ground with charter schools being touted as the market-based solution to the woes of the most struggling schools. The focus on the profitability of the classroom was limited to textbook publishers and a few very specific educational technology providers, particularly in Math and Science. Today, my mailbox fills up with catalogs promising me improved test scores, pre-packaged curricula that strives to take the wild-card factor of the teacher out of the equation as much as possible, and every kind of metric-based, value-added software on the planet to pre-test, address, student-personalize, and teacher-assess my way to a bright future where we will be competitive with the overseas armies of better standardized testers.

Interlude: A Look into Lexile
My wife, having read the letter, asks me what a lexile of "1377" actually means. I had no idea. So we went to the website. On the website, we learned that:

• The Lexile was not a grade-based equivalent score (you should not use this to see how your student is doing in class or how a school program is doing in preparing your child)
• The Lexile is not a comparative - no data will be released or found on where your child is in comparision to other children of the same age or grade
• The Lexile is an independent measure of comprehension, measured on its patented scale - don't try to use this score to draw any conclusions whatsoever about - well - anything.

In fact, the only thing that we were supposed to use the Lexile score to do was to type it into a database to find Lexile-scored books that would be appropriate for my 10 year old to read.

That's it. Plug the number and get the book list. So that is what we did...
End Interlude.

Choosing Between Two Masters
The disturbing part about the education-as-business model is not that there are people who want to make money off of education. We live in a capitalistic world. If there is a market, someone will make money. The disturbing part is that this system, devoid of any kind of common-sense oversight (dare I say it, "regulation") can easily twist itself into the worst the marketplace has to offer. Think of the millions (low estimate) of dollars being spent by school districts to measure teacher value-add. School districts that are cutting teachers and support staff, raising class sizes, and choosing refurbished netbooks for their students are investing in a resource that has dubious validity in improving actual learning and slightly less dubious validity in improving test scores. Maybe the money should be spend in actually validating a connection between test scores and learning...or test scores and teacher effectiveness...or test scores and -- any connection -- that would at least be some interesting research.

Interlude II: Plugging and Chugging
The Lexile choose-a-book system is relatively simple. Enter the score and press enter. There is even a place to enter some rudimentary information to try to get a book list without the Lexile score (grade level, reading easy/hard, etc.). Once the score is entered, you select categories. My daughter is into post-apocalyptic dystopias (Hunger Games; Among the Hidden), so I chose sci-fi/fantasy. and the results (drumroll please):

The recommendations for a Lexile of 1377. Witchcraft and Eroticism

Well, that was disturbing. After repeated attempts, I could pull nothing but literary criticism. I am not sure if there is age-appropriate lit.crit for a ten year old, but I prefer to think that if it exists, it does not articulate the correlation between sex and science-fiction.

Fotunately, there are some limiters by age as well as Lexile score, so i decided to play around with those as well. I chose to limit the age range between 10-12. As a proud parent, I had to give her a few more years of range.

The good news is that the limiters did erase some of the suggestions. The bad news is that a) my daughter was still stuck firmly in the world of literary criticism (does no one in the 1300 range read fiction?) and many of the titles that I thought a little mature for the pre-teen set were still suggested:

YES MEANS YES: Straight feminism fun with fetishes...

Clearly being a dad has turned me into a prude. I noted the book to download into my wife's Kindle and decided to start over from the beginning. Cleared my cache. Entered 6th Grade, reads above her grade level. The results: lots of lit.crit. I narrowed the categories to fiction only. Those results constituted the type of writing that would drive children of all ages far from reading.

Finally, despondent, I re-entered a lexile range, limited to age 11-12 (i was a little weary), and limited it to straight fiction...no more choice reading for my daughter:

One Book Available

There you have it. One book available. The 208 pages MONSTER MEN by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Happy reading, dear.
End Interlude

A Twisted Business
This summer, I got to listen to Sal Khan describe the humble beginnings of the Khan Academy: a tutorial for a young, bright relative who was struggling with math. This was before his dream of providing "a world class education to any child, anywhere". This was before Microsoft founders and the Gates Foundation labeled this system a great boon to education.  As I listened to him, the image that I could not shake was that he was sincere and inspiring. That his simple idea and aspirations for a future where money and location did not preclude access to an education, had been perverted by politicians and businessmen who saw the potential to sell a system that could replace teachers.

He specifically responds to critics, saying that the videos make excellent supplements to the relationship between the teacher and student necessary in the best of educational environments. And yet, entire charter schools are set up with Khan-Cubicle formats for learning math. Teachers are threatened subtly and not-so-subtly with replacement by video or replacement by younger teachers -- well, both methods are at least cost effective.

Reflection: This Piper Must be Paid
When I asked librarians about the Lexile, they had all heard of it. All knew that it was a measure of reading comprehension, had some vague memories of it being used to mark books. None of the librarians I talked to recalled using it as an essential instrument in helping students choose books. These librarians had list-servs, colleagues, recommendations from other students, and their own training and experience. They did not need these scores. But that was then...

The same school district that provided this most-excellent diagnostic resource is clustering or eliminating librarian positions. In some cases, schools are fortunate to have a librarian assistant a few days a month. No time to create effective book clubs, setup programs for encouraging reading, or learn enough about a class's context, let alone an individual student's to recommend a good book. Now we use Lexiles.

(note: in direct violation of the spirit of the score, the Lexile is also used by the district as a contributing piece of data to determine who needs additional reading resources. Evidently someone is willing to match the number to a reading level).

• The Lexile system is contracted out to standardized tests in order to provide scores to test-taking school districts - money.
• Publishers work to have their catalogs scored and listed on the ever-important find-a-book list - more money.
• School districts test students independently to give students a lexile score - even more money.

Money that could be spent on books
Money that could be spent on librarians
Money that could be spend on teachers

But politicians want numbers and companies want money.
Its just too bad that the students are the ones who end up paying.