Entries by Jim Stergios

Romney and Obama tussle on education

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So let the games begin. Finally, the presidential candidates may get to education. For the greater part of a month, the presidential candidates have been sizing each other up, jabbing each other on jobs and the economy, who’s more in touch with the average voter, and all sorts of distractions like who is waging that war on women and whether the president should play politics with foreign policy (as if that’s anything new). Given that education is a key factor affecting the country’s ability to create jobs–and that it is one of the key sectors of public employment–you would have thought that education would have made the dance card a little earlier in the process. But no. Finally, we have […]

Self-dealing among education officials

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I’m conflicted about how to say this. Getting stuff done is about building relationships and trying to find ways to get along and in fact pulling the right people together toward a goal. But it is also about saying things straight and pulling no punches when what’s being debated matters a lot. I often write about education standards because, unlike some other ed policy choices, standards impact the entire landscape of education. If used effectively to drive reform, they set the contours of classroom content, they constitute the basis for student tests, and they define the basis for teacher tests that ultimately play a bigger role on the quality of teaching in the Commonwealth than any professional development program afterward. […]

Conflicts of Interest in MA’s adoption of national standards

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“No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.” – James Madison, Federalist #10 In this season of US Supreme Court decisions we’re reminded that independent and objective judgment on key legal and public policy matters has been an aspiration in Anglo-America law and justice (not to mention scientific inquiry) for centuries. In America, it was John Adams in Massachusetts and James Madison of Virginia who were best at articulating the importance of independent judgment. The push for national education standards has brought to light a variety of troubling questions about the legality, cost, and academic quality that has been discussed here and […]

Food For Thought on Saving Schools Money in Massachusetts

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Yesterday, the Globe’s Deirdre Fernandes reported on the spat between Newton North High School’s food contractor and the student-run Tiger’s Loft Bistro. The contractor, Whitsons Culinary Group, was sore about the school allowing a competitor to serve food in the building. After all was said and done, the school and the contractor made up, and the student-run bistro will re-open and be able to serve students once again. There are two lessons to learn: Businesses may like to talk about the need for competition, but they never like it when there is a direct competitor. That’s why for over a year, Whitsons sought a clause in its contract that barred competition. Not much of a news flash there, but it […]

How to Pay For High-quality Teachers

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We all want high-quality teachers, right? What are we doing about it? The state has started to push teacher evaluations across the state, and that is great. Especially great because for far too long school managers and supervisors did not perform regular evaluations, which at the very least are useful for professional feedback and growth. I do have my doubts that a bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all evaluation system is terribly useful besides the obvious fact that it will require more people to fill out paper. My doubts are practical ones. If you are running a school and seeking to peg its performance at a very high level, there are times when you want your teachers to focus on improving their individual performance; […]

Handwaving away opposition to the national standards

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Periodically, over at the Fordham blog, Checker Finn does his best imitation of the cop waving traffic through at the scene of the car crash we like to call Common Core. In a post last week (“The war against the Common Core”), he morphs into good ol’ Sergeant Finn, crabbing at any observers, “Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along.” The mishaps around Common Core national standards are simple driver misjudgment, he explains. Steering mistakes. Nobody’s breaking the law. And don’t worry, because even though there have been lots of accidents, the road ahead is not dangerous. This is classic Checker handwaving, passing off politics as policy. Let’s look at the four arguments he makes. 1. Don’t worry […]

Mandatory Volunteerism

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The last decade has seen an explosion in the number of middle and high schools mandating volunteerism. I am not a fan of forcing volunteerism, and “mandatory volunteerism” offends those who treasure meaningful language. But within a set of courses and activities aimed at rounding out children so that they will become effective participants in civil society, such requirements may make sense. That is especially so if students can choose the volunteer program and not be restricted to school-approved activities. Choosing what you are passionate about is critical to being a good citizen. Clearly, such mandates are not things we impose on adults. Which is why it is so disconcerting to see the federal department of education treat state and […]

Are Turnaround Schools Just Spin?

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The waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind Act will, as noted yesterday, have a number of effects, with three big ones being: It moves the goalposts for accountability back years (at least 2017, more likely 2024) and weakens the accountability goal (from proficiency for all students to making progress on the achievement gap) It gets rid of all of the law’s school choice and parental options, which were to kick in after a number of years of continued school failure It centralizes innovation and change strategies in Malden (the world HQ of the state department of education) The first effect listed above is a simple punt on accountability. But the last two bullets mark a move away from […]

Moving the Goalposts on NCLB

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Massachusetts and nine other states made news last week by seeking and receiving waivers from major provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The waiver was never a favorite of mine but I think the way it was upended and why says a lot about the centralizing worldview of federal and state policymakers. First thing is to separate process and substance. The process on the waivers is wrongheaded—and likely illegal. Stay tuned for more on that. On the substance, US Department of Ed Secretary Arne Duncan outlined the key requirements he wanted Massachusetts to fulfill, on standards (what Sec. Duncan calls college- and career-readiness standards), instruction and leadership, and accountability. On standards, Massachusetts met the feds’ requirement […]

A Halfhearted School Budget in Massachusetts

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You know you’re in for trouble when a school district with major graduation and dropout rates problems announces a new budget and leads with the hiring of five new nurses. That is not the definition of urgency. The big new Boston budget of $856 million came with big headlines about more nurses and an overhaul of Roxbury’s Madison Park Vocational Technical High School. $856 million for about 54,000 students. That breaks down to almost $16,000. Of course it does not include additional funding sources and is not the complete picture. Last year’s NCES estimates pegged Boston as the most expensive urban school district in the country, clocking in at around $21,000 per student. There is an obvious problem with the […]

Chipping away at charters

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Charter school approvals are granted in February. They shouldn’t be. They should have been granted on January 16th this year–Martin Luther King Day–for one simple reason: No education policy change has done more in Massachusetts to alleviate achievement gaps than charters. None. We too often hear about how education is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. The fact is that education was the Civil Rights issue of the 20th century, starting with the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling and the battle to ensure that all kids, regardless of race or creed, had equal access to good schools. Today, the face of Civil Rights has many colors, and the principal battleground is in inner cities, places like […]

Can employers require job applicants to have a high school diploma?

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BNA, a subsidiary of Bloomberg L.P., is a great source of reporting on legal and regulatory issues that matter to businesses. In mid-December BNA shared the following item, which will be a shocker to most employers: Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, an employer’s requirement that applicants have a high school diploma must be job-related and consistent with business necessity, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission stated in an “informal discussion letter” posted on its website Dec. 2. I don’t know of many employers who think twice about requiring a high school diploma. The EEOC letter “does not constitute an official opinion of the commission,” but rather is an indication that at a date not too far in to the future […]

What is blended learning?

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A number of readers of recent posts on virtual (or digital) learning have asked for some definitions around jargon used by proponents and experts. I wanted to share a brief video on “blended learning,” a term that you hear increasingly, especially in states where charter public schools and district schools are attempting to integrate online tools into the classroom. Blended learning is, if you will, that broad area between the traditional classroom, where you have a teacher lecturing and teaching a class of kids, and exclusive use by a student of online resources to drive their learning. The video embedded below was written by Anthony Kim and Michael Thompson of Education Elements. It is a bit dry and a tad […]

Tough Times on virtual learning

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Back at the start of December, I blogged on the need for both an open door to online learning and also a greater focus on accountability for those who would operate in that space. Understanding the quality of the choices in the marketplace will have to be informed by more than giddy passion about the promise of virtual learning. A cursory look at the research done on virtual learning suggests that there has been to date more energy than light on the impact of VL on sustained student achievement. … We are just at the start of the virtual learning movement, and there is so much promise in the short term regarding access to high-quality content, targeted instruction, peer tutoring […]

The wrong strategy to fix Lawrence public schools

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With a wondrous display of British understatement, the state’s education commissioner recently announced his “concern” about Lawrence schools. Commissioner Mitch Chester noticed that the Lawrence Public Schools might have “a potential leadership gap” and that “[o]verall, the district is not yet where we expect it to be and want it to be.” Noted “for his work in accountability and assessment,” one could complain (and I have) that the Commissioner should not have waited 3 ½ years to come to that conclusion. Especially with the financial and political missteps made by the previous superintendent. So applause for the Commissioner’s decision to put into receivership city schools where, as I noted in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, 10 percent of [the students] drop […]

Rise of the Zune Monopolists

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“Understand, I am not for monopoly when we can help it,” Louis Brandeis said in 1912. “We intend to restore competition. We intend to do away with the conditions that make for monopoly.” (Wikipedia) Brandeis had some inkling of what hare-brained schemes philanthropists could come up with. Remember the Simple Spelling Board Andrew Carnegie set up in 1906? The New York Times noted that Carnegie was convinced that “English might be made the world language of the future” and an influence leading to universal peace, but that this role was obstructed by its “contradictory and difficult spelling.” 105 years later, Sam Dillon of The New York Times produced a terrific piece of journalism in a May 2011 Sunday article on […]

Some lessons for virtual learning

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There is so much energy in the virtual learning space right now, with a number of products that are maturing and others that are continuing to grow exponentially. The free Khan Academy has provided almost 100 million exercises, now boasts about 3.5 million discrete users, and is growing at a rate of about 300,000 users a month (with the pace of growth increasing). That opens up all kinds of possibilities in terms of partnerships, branding and funding. That product is going worldwide fast, and branching out into many new academic areas. Getting the promise of digital learning right is going to be a challenge on a number of fronts. One challenge is that the two tons of money going into […]

National standards will define local curricula

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I don’t know why (well, actually, I do) the national standards project reminds me of France. Yesterday the quote from Jean Cocteau, today … Cardinal Richelieu. Armand-Jean du Plessis, later known to us as Cardinal Richelieu was responsible for expanding the reach of weak-willed King Louis XIII by weakening the regional noble powers and instituting a system of administrative enforcers (intendants). The good Cardinal made possible the Sun King, the king who went so far as to say L’etat c’est moi. A shrewd and cruel strategist, Richelieu defined the term eminence grise; in reality, he was bolder than a simple strategist waiting in the shadows. He earned himself the moniker of Red Eminence, red being of course the bright royal […]

Myths about National Standards: Myth #2

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The French painter, poet, novelist, director, etc., Jean Cocteau noted the following about our need for myths: Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort. With education so rife with mediocrity, those satisfied with the status quo often resort to myth for comfort. Some schools don’t perform well, the myth goes, because poor and minority kids cannot excel; there’s the myth that if we only added more class time everything would be fine; there’s the myth that classroom size always or even most of the time matters. And, of course, […]

Myths About National Standards: Myth #1

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Being half Greek and long a admirer of Classical Antiquity, I do have a soft spot in my heart for mythology. When it comes to public policy, myths have far less utility, as perhaps the myths about the fate of modern-day Greece shows all too clearly. When it comes to American education, the myths that are bandied about most frequently these days are related to the “Common Core” national standards. Proponents make a number of important claims about them: They’re internationally benchmarked. They’re aligned with workplace needs and also college readiness. They don’t dictate state curricula; and they’re voluntary. Each of these assertions by proponents of the Common Core is highly questionable and in some cases outright false. Friends in […]

Does Mass. Exclude Low-Achievers from National Education Tests?

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Last week, in reporting the national test results on how our public schools are doing, I noted that while It is wonderful that Massachusetts has maintained its lead nationally, … [o]ur students are no longer improving at the rate they were and in fact their performance has largely flatlined. On the scaled scores for the Commonwealth, the loss of momentum is very clear with no change on the 4th and 8th grade math scores, and a slight increase on the 4th and 8th grade reading scores (which amount to scores that are statistically unchanged). Let me share an additional reasons to be concerned and it starts with a solid piece from Nirvi Shah of EdWeek entitled “How Many Students With […]

What will adoption of national standards cost Massachusetts schools?

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It’s always struck me as odd that with all the talk about federal money coming from the federal Race to the Top effort to support state implementation of national standards (the so-called Common Core), no one has done a solid cost estimate for what it will cost. Let me say that again: We have at the state and federal level changed policies that are far-reaching for our states, districts and schools, and yet we have had no idea what it will cost to do so. McGraw-Hill’s February 2011 Education Brief notes that States and districts are unsure what the true cost of implementing Common Core will be and worry that the money needed will not be available in state or […]

Massachusetts: Flatlined on national tests?

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EdWeek‘s Erik Robelen is reporting on the just released national test data. He notes that they show that 4th and 8th graders have inched up in mathematics, but the results are more mixed in reading, with 4th grade scores flat compared with two years ago. Former Massachusetts Commissioner of Education and current chairman of the national tests’ National Assessment Governing Board, David P. Driscoll, is paraphrased as saying that: the nation has made major gains in math over the past two decades, but that in reading, the growth has been “quite small.” And he called the 4th grade reading scores “deeply disappointing,” noting that they have been flat since 2007… Mr. Driscoll, a former commissioner of education in Massachusetts, highlighted […]

Halloween, Headless Horsemen and Literature in our Schools

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The Headless Horseman, painting by John Quidor. In this season of ghosts and goblins, it seems only appropriate to think about the stories that for many generations served to frame our imagination of what Halloween should look like. For generations, schoolchildren of all backgrounds learned about literature and life in America via Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, Herman Meville’s Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Paul Revere’s Ride, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. That list is a partial trajectory of the American spirit. On Halloween a different sort of literary spirit has […]

Inspector Clouseau-style accountability

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I noted two weeks ago that recent MCAS data don’t tell a pretty story on urban achievement gaps. Since 2007, the Commonwealth’s performance on national (so-called NAEP) assessments is not so great, flatlining for almost every subject and grade tested. (Note: Stay tuned for the latest round of NAEP data, which is to be released this fall.) The Commonwealth’s Board and its Department of Elementary and Secondary Education sure have lots of task forces, committees, and extra-long board jawboning sessions. (Board meetings have almost doubled in length; I’ll let you decide if the same can be said on substance.) I certainly wish some of the words and time of these officials would go toward programs that have a record of […]

Steve Jobs on education in America

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Tip of the hat to Whitney Tilson for passing around excerpts from an interview Steve Jobs gave in 1995, during which he talked extensively about his view on education and what should be done to fix it. SJ: I’m a very big believer in equal opportunity as opposed to equal outcome. I don’t believe in equal outcome because unfortunately life’s not like that. It would be a pretty boring place if it was. But I really believe in equal opportunity. Equal opportunity to me more than anything means a great education. Maybe even more important than a great family life, but I don’t know how to do that. Nobody knows how to do that. But it pains me because we […]

Life Lessons From Steve Jobs

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In a blog post entitled Bill Gates doesn’t like the liberal arts, Steve Jobs does, I noted that unlike Gates’ view that higher education spending should be a lot less about liberal arts and much more focused on job-producing disciplines, Steve Jobs believed the liberal arts were critical to business in an age of hyper-communication: It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing, and nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices. That post closed with File under: Who would you rather talk with, go to the museum with, go to a concert with, share books with… […]

Is student achievement in Massachusetts falling flat?

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The short answer that will come in this and blog posts in the next days is, in important ways, yes. So why the image of a big churn? Let’s start with the immediate news of this past year’s MCAS data and what they tell us. The Globe’s Peter Schworm, in a piece entitled MCAS scores appear stuck in stubborn income gap, nailed it in three places: Educators have made only modest gains in narrowing the gulf in achievement between low-income students and those who are better off… The percentage of [low-income] 10th graders who were proficient at English, for instance, rose from 48 in 2007 to 69 this year. In math, the figure climbed from 47 percent to 56 percent… […]

Dumb and Dumber – Proposed Bill

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You can agree or disagree on most bills in the State House. The merits of casino gambling bill? Is it a third-world job creation strategy or an opportunity we are missing? The upcoming pension reform? Reasonable incremental improvements or a half-fix after lawmakers added billions in future pension costs this summer to free up $1 billion in immediate program money? But every so often you bump up against some really bad ideas—and unfortunately many of them happen to be in education. Whole language instruction, weakening academic standards, and weakening teacher tests are the usual sort of items you have to fight against. But even after the Wisconsin and Massachusetts collective bargaining changes, on Tuesday a hearing will be held on […]

Over Confidential

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Being a litigious society, we have all received emails from lawyers that include signature sections with name, position, organization, street address, floor, suite, city/state/zip, email, fax, phone, favorite non-profit or case, favorite quote, serial number, favorite cereal, and so on. That’s lots of information to share, but below it is 15 miles of confidentiality verbiage as to why this is protected, privileged, blahblahblah communication. It makes you laugh in the private sector, but it’s not something you expect in the public sector. Let me share two items I noticed just this morning in various communications with our public servants (state and local): CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic transmission is for the intended recipient only and may contain information that is privileged, […]