Let's evaluate the politicians based on today's economy...

Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin wants to change the way that teachers are evaluated. He wants student test scores to be part of the teacher evaluation process. He talks about tracking the progress of students from kindergarten through graduation (for the 75% who make it). The governor told students:

"You are coming along at a time where the world is becoming increasingly competitive and the education that we provide has to be even better than it ever was in the past."

Hey Jim, what does the "the world is becoming increasingly competitive" mean? Haven't the laws of survival of the fittest been in effect for thousands of years? What hasn't happened is a standard of life in America that allows someone without a college education to maintain a good lifestyle. According to graduation statistics, our country is educating more people to a higher degree than at any time in the country's history. Obviously, teachers must be doing a terrible job. So let's get rid of teachers whose students don't do well. There is a problem with this.

What is the incentive for students who are tested to do well? This is a good question. Since there are no incentives in the testing process, students can tank on the test without any repercussions. The teacher being evaluated could do an excellent job and be chastised for the student's lack of effort. Is this fair? Let's apply the same standard to a politician.

Since the state coffers of most states are bare, let's blame all the governors. The governors will blame the economy and the state legislators who are responsible for the budget. Are governors to blame for the poor economy? Not really. Can teachers be held responsible if they teach kids that are poorer, less able, and less enthused about education? Apparently the answer is, "Yes" if governor Doyle is asked.

The problem with this approach is that education is a process. Students do not fail in a day, nor does an economy get goofed up by a single day. How does evaluating students after the fact help the students learn? It doesn't. Looking at the current economic problems will also be meaningless unless lessons are applied to processes going forward. The lesson learned must be put into the system of education. For any system to improve, it must learn from itself. Both education and economic systems require that good processes be in place. As the economic catastrophe showed us, measuring performance after the fact is usually too late.

The education system must help the teachers identify the best lessons. It is the lessons that make up the process of learning. The book "Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change" discusses the general impotence of the top-down approach to education reform. Using the methods of Dr. Edward Deming, the book discusses a method for improving the education system by improving the process of education.

The process of education needs revision. We all agree on this point. How will a threat to base teacher evaluations on student performance change what has already occurred? Will such a threat really change the practices of mostly tenured teachers who are protected by unions? The answer is obvious. Improvements are needed in the process, not the outcome.

Education Reform? Where is it?

Presidential Obama's educational reform ideas are are going to change much. They are similar to the George W. Bush reforms that forwarded ideas about giving people choice, but really didn't worry about the nuts and bolts of giving them an education. That would involve knowing what is going in education and knowing the root of problems in education.

What Obama and Bush are playing is a shell game. They shift responsibility for improving education to everything but the government (and themselves). If you open up these great new Charter schools, you've given people choice. It doesn't mean that you've offered them a better education, but choice has been put into the mix. Charter schools have not out-performed the normal public schools. Let's explain the free market system to Bush and Obama: you have to offer a better product! That's the problem.

So, read my book (Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change) and it discusses that you actually have to improve the quality of the lesson in the classroom (the product) for schools and the education system to improve. Currently, our high-tech superpower of a nation ranks fairly low in the K-12 education world. It's hard to imagine that we can maintain our standard of living without maintaining our technical superiority. It isn't going to happen if we don't find better ways to deliver the goods.

Quality

In education, it is often difficult to value the contributions of individuals to the education process. Yet, people on a campus know whether or not tend to know whether a person is good at what they do. Robert Pirsig’s book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", examined quality issues as they pertained to life. Quality is something people recognize, but it has an intangible quality. People just understand quality when they see and can compare it to a less qualified standard. So it is with personnel.

I’ve written a book called "Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change" that shows that the “system” that makes up education doesn’t do enough to improve the process of education. The current system of education often implores teachers to do more, to do it better, but doesn’t provide any real tools or guidance of how it should be done. Many teachers merely hope the administrator will not impede their teaching efforts.

There are administrators, however, that make a positive difference in the education process because they understand that what happens in a classroom matters. It is rare that people who work “downtown” in school district offices ever return to a school site. However, it wasn’t a surprise to see Cliff Weaver say good-bye to the San Jacinto district office to open a new school.

Those who had served under Mr. Weaver knew that he possessed the capacity to find and deliver quality. As an administrator in San Jacinto, Mr. Weaver had already earned the “Administrator of the Year” award for his efforts in his new setting. Yet in k-12 education, quality can only go as far as the students one serves. It wasn’t surprising to see him move back toward a place where he’d make a difference.

Those of us who have served with Mr. Weaver know what his new employees will now experience. It was nice to get up in the morning and arrive at work and feel that you are on a quest. There will be changes, and you may not know exactly where you’re going, but you’ll feel that you’re destination is certain… you’ll be moving toward quality.

Brilliance and then ....

It is nearly the time for school to start. As a classroom teacher (well, I teach in an independent study program), the last days of summer leave me longing. Today, I'm looking at studies that discuss neurobiology. The brain is such a fascinating subject. Researchers are finally making progress toward understanding how the brain develops in the embryo. The results are exciting. The studies are being done using molecular studies of the brain and by directly viewing the brain in real-time studies. While all this is being done to help medical science, it is rather disheartening to think of the level of most education research.

What exactly should education research do? One would hope that it would help teachers and administrators improve the process of education. For those who believe the current system actually accomplishes this, I suggest you read Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change by Rodney Larson. What the education system needs to do is to figure out the best ways to present lessons to maximize teaching. It isn't being done. So, while the academic world is being brightened by work that explores the core of humanity, education comes back into session.

How much is education actually respected. Well, I notice that Tony Danza is considering a reality show in Philadelphia. That's nice. The City of Brotherly Love will have Michael Vick helping to run the team and Tony Danza in the classroom. That's a lot of reality, but it isn't very inspirational. How about a reality show with Rafe Esquith, a fifth grade teacher in Los Angeles. If you don't know who Mr. Esquith is, that is a shame. Watch The Hobart Shakespearians if you want to see something inspirational.

Through the Peephole of Education

In the last week, someone apparently stuck a camera up to the keyhole of a sportscaster named Erin Andrews and photographed her while she was nude, and posted it to the internet. This represents not only a gross violation of her privacy, but also shows how little we pay attention to more important matters. Decency and discretion are thrown to the wayside as people create a mob mentality to be appraised of the latest scandal. Ms. Andrews didn't ask to be photographed, but one can assume that she is quite attractive, otherwise, she wouldn't be the most searched term on the internet.

As we address a recession, high unemployment, a record national deficit, escalation of the war in Afghanistan, and national education reform, it is amazing that the nation's attention is focused on the body of Ms. Andrews. To the nations credit, the second leading search for a person using the internet is for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. One would hope that since she is in the midst of talks with the Chinese, ther diplomatic efforts would focus searches for Secretary of State Clinton. However, many people seem to be riveted to Ms. Clinton because of her recent elbow injury. Though Ms. Andrews and Secretary of State Clinton were the first two "name" searches, one cannot even mention the next two items in polite company. Does this pre-occupation with trivia and smut overwhelm the important issues. In a country that is dedicated to the the idea of democracy and an educated electorate, can the country be sustained by people who seem more concerned with the latest "buzz" on the internet than substantive issues. Is the current and past education system responsible for creating a population that is primarily concerned with trivia?

A culture that is reduced to examining trivia will probably be, well trivial. We cannot sustain a Jeffersonian democracy with a Jerry Springer-type electorate base. Rather than teach to simplistic knowledge, we must create people in the society that actually think about problems in some detail. We live in a complex world, and what is needed to be knowledgable increases constantly. Our school systems have not kept up. In their current configuration, they are unable to improve enough to keep pace with society, must less outpace it.

The current education system needs reform The problem is that most of the fixes that have been proposed cost a lot and will do little in the long run. They cost a lot, and will do little.
In the book Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change (Rowman and Littlefield), there are discussion and suggestions for a large-scale overhaul of the education system that will benefit all students who attend school.

Thank you Bill Gates

Back in 2005, Bill Gates III gave a speech to American governors and he told them that the education system in cannot work. For Gates, it was a prelude to tackling the problem of American education through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. For me, it was a challenge to find why public (actually most) education is the way it is. The result will be published in October 2009 and is called: Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change (Rowman and Littlefield). The book shows that until structural elements in education are changed, American education will continue to fail.

Bush and No Child Left Behind will fail. Obama's education plan that is headed by Department of Education secretary, Arne Duncan, will fail. He said he looked to four agendas to improve education: better information to track students; higher standards and better assessment; turning around troubled schools; and improving the quality of the workforce.

That all sounds good, but he sort of missed improving the quality of the lessons that students receive.... That's where the learning takes place.