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Teacher growth through teacher feedback

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:32:00 +0000

After seeing how valuable peer evaluation is, I think it should be part of every public school personnel system. Dedicating 2 percent of teachers to do this work is a large investment. It can mean raising the average class size by 2 percent or spending 2 percent more money. With budgets as tight as they are, most states will not add extra money for evaluation so we will have to make the case that it is worth the small increase in class size (of fewer than one student per class on average).

That's Bill Gates' bold proposal for a big change in how teachers invest their time, moving to a plan where a small but important fraction of the total teacher corps works full time on observing and strengthening the others. The idea is that the feedback would strengthen their colleagues greatly in ways that, in turn, strengthen what students know and can do across the whole curriculum. It's central to the education section of his 2012 Annual Letter.

The letter also explains key experience from the Hillsborough County (Tampa, Florida) school system, which is trying that model of feedback under a major grant from the Gates Foundation:

A key element of the agreement between the teachers’ union and the superintendent was to assign 2 percent of the teachers to become peer evaluators. These teachers were trained to observe classroom teaching and provide feedback on 22 different components. The principals have also been trained in this approach. Every teacher gets in-depth feedback from both the principal and the peer evaluator.

Tampa has been doing this for three years now, and it is already making a big difference. Teachers told us they value having feedback from two different sources—the principal who knows the school the best and the peer who knows the challenges of their specific job. The first round of evaluation revealed that many teachers need help engaging the students to prompt critical thinking and problem solving. The district started to organize its professional development around these findings, and the teachers have seized that opportunity to become more effective in the classroom.

When Melinda and I met with students, they told us that they had seen a big change during their time at the school. The success here required great work by Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia, Classroom Teachers Association President Jean Clements, and all of the teachers. I was particularly impressed with the peer evaluators. They all said they understood great teaching far better, having done the peer evaluation job. Some of the peer evaluators will go back to teaching and others will go into schools of education to help make sure new teachers have better preparation.

Crucially, this idea of peer evaluation is about strengthening teachers in their craft, and there isn't any good way to use test data in place of this sort of substantive feedback:

Without this investment I don’t think an evaluation system will get enough credibility with the teachers or provide enough specific feedback to help teachers improve. Looking at test scores is also valuable for most subjects, but test score data mostly just identifies who is succeeding—it doesn’t show a teacher what needs to change.

To me, this is a really big idea. It's too big for any district or state to do it casually. It's the kind of thing that any system should review and discuss with great care before jumping in --but it also has enough potential benefits to be worth exactly that sort of study.

Kentucky students are not behind Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, or the nation

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:53:00 +0000

After receiving questions regarding the Kentuckians Advocating for Reform in Education's television commercials and website text we researched the data, and this post shares our findings.

The information presented by KARE in commercials here and here and website text here invites serious misunderstandings. No matter your position on charter schools, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and the nation are not doing better than Kentucky on the student performance measures KARE presents.

Fourth-Grade Reading
KARE’s commercials cite 2011 NAEP results showing:

65% of Kentucky students reading below the proficient level.

That figure is correct, but Kentucky is not scoring behind the states with charter schools listed in the KARE commercial. Instead, the same assessment shows:

67% of Indiana students reading below the proficient level.
66% of Ohio students reading below the proficient level.
74% of Tennessee students reading below the proficient level.
68% of students nationwide reading below the proficient level.

Fourth grade reading results do not show Kentucky scoring behind the states listed in the KARE commercial

African-American Eighth Grade Reading
KARE’s commercials also cite 2011 NAEP results showing:

42% of Kentucky African-American students reading below the basic level.

Again, that does not mean Kentucky students are at a disadvantage compared to the states KARE cites for comparison. The same assessment shows:

41% of Indiana African-American students reading below the basic level.
42% of Ohio African-American students reading below the basic level.
52% of Tennessee African-American students reading below the basic level.
42% of African-American students nationwide reading below the basic level.

Graduation Rates
KARE’s commercials and website do not give a source for the claim that 25% of Kentucky high school freshmen will not graduate on time. If they add a reference, PrichBlog will be happy to report on how other states compare.

As a first analysis, though, the federal calculations of all states’ average freshman graduation rates estimate that for ninth graders from fall 2005 who should have graduated in 2009:

23% of Kentucky freshmen did not graduate on time.
25% of Indiana’s freshmen did not graduate on time.
20% of Ohio’s freshmen did not graduate on time.
23% of Tennessee’s freshmen did not graduate on time.
24% of freshmen nationwide did not graduate on time.

Other NAEP Results
KARE’s website shows some additional NAEP results not included in the commercials. In context, those results show Kentucky tied or ahead of the country and the other three states far more often than Kentucky is behind.

Adding Science to the Mix
The KARE site does not share any of Kentucky's 2009 NAEP science results. Here's an important snapshot of Kentucky students results related to the jurisdictions mentioned in KARE's commercials, further clarifying that Kentucky public schools are not falling behind the comparison group.

To restate the main point, whatever the merits of charter schools, Kentucky students are not being left behind the students of Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and the nation.

Source Notes: NAEP data downloaded from the Data Explorer on January 24, 2012. AFGR results downloaded from the National Center for Education Statistics on January 24, 2012.

SEEK and the Governor's Budget

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:07:00 +0000

Here's a quick overview of how Governor Beshear's proposed budget for the next two years addresses the SEEK base guarantee.

The SEEK base guarantee per pupil will go down:

$3,903 was the original SEEK base guarantee per pupil for 2011-12
$3,850 is the average guarantee that has actually been possible for 2011-12: schools turned out have more students than the budget expected and funding for each child had to be reduced as a result.
$3,833 is the proposed base guarantee for 2012-13.
$3,827 is the proposed base guarantee for 2013-14.

The total funding for the SEEK base will be flat:

$2.9 billion was the budget line item for 2011-12.
$2.9 billion is the proposed budget line item for 2012-13.
$2.9 billion is the proposed budget line item for 2013-14.

Why will the per pupil will go down while the total funding remains flat? Primarily, because the number of students in average daily attendance is expected to rise:

596,858 was the final figure used for 2011-12 SEEK allocations.
600,662 is the budget assumption for 2012-13.
603,523 is the budget assumption for 2013-14.

It is also important to note that though the local contribution of SEEK is expected to rise again, that growth is much smaller than in most past years:

$856 million of the guarantee was contributed by the local 30¢ tax rate for 2011-12.
$866 million of the guarantee is expected to be the local 30¢ contribution for 2012-13.
$881 million of the guarantee is expected to be the local 30¢ contribution for 2013-14.

(The SEEK guarantee is really funded by a combination of state and local dollars. In years past, growing local property values contributed a lot to Kentucky's ability to afford a growing SEEK guarantee. Local growth is still expected to contribute, but now it works to limit how much the guarantee will go down.)

To put these SEEK numbers in further context, do note that federal funding is dropping rapidly, from $1,215 million last year to $878 million this year, and to an estimated $782 million in 2012-13. State funding to specific categorical programs beyond SEEK will also drop, and we can also expect inflation to further reduce the buying power of school dollars from all sources.

Sparkly!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:33:00 +0000

"Sparkly People Loving Data" is a headline I couldn't possibly ignore. Brennan McMahon at the SCORE Sheet blog reports:

This afternoon in Washington, DC, people who are instrumental to the conversations around education reform in this country—including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Tennessee’s own Governor Phil Bredesen, and neighboring Kentucky Education Commissioner, Terry Holliday—will gather to talk about the imperative of implementing and using data effectively to change student learning for the better. I am referring to the Data Quality Campaign’s “Day of Data,” during which we highlight the annual progress of the states in implementing longitudinal data systems to improve student learning and set the agenda for the coming year.

You may have noted in my title my reference to “sparkly people”—this in no way has anything to do with the Twilight saga. Sparkly people, like Duncan, Rhee, Bredesen, and Holliday are those who get people’s attention; they galvanize people—move them to action, to excitement, perhaps even to anger.

I'm delighted to see Dr. Holliday as a marquee name, and even more delighted by McMahon's closing push to broaden data engagement:

These days anyone can be part of the changing conversations around data and education in their state, and the country as a whole. You don’t have to be sparkly—just willing to nag, ask questions, push back, and beg for more—to help effect change. Of course, the more you do that, the more people will pay attention . . . and eventually you might just be sparkly too!

I may never give another presentation in Kentucky without that quote!

[Hat tip: Myrdin Thompson]

Why Kentucky School Funding Is A Huge Concern (For This Year And The Future)

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:41:00 +0000

From 2007-08 to 2010-11, added federal dollars almost made up for state and local declines in funding for Kentucky schools. Add in other revenue, which is tiny in most districts and big in a few each year, and funding grew an average of $63 per pupil over those years after adjusting for inflation.

For 2011-12, we know the added federal revenue has dried up, and after several years of using federal dollars to fund the state SEEK formula, Kentucky is struggling to resume full responsibility for SEEK and unable to replace the other federal resources. Estimating from Budget of the Commonwealth figures, the federal decline this year is likely to be more than $600 and the state increase closer to $60 per pupil after inflation.

Core point of this post: when we say that revenue per pupil grew slightly through last year, counting the temporary federal increases that are now gone, that means we know that the trend for this year and beyond will be decline unless state leaders step up in the current legislative session. We also know those funding losses will pose a grave danger to Kentucky's bold commitment to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in higher education and in the job markets of the future.

Here's a closer look at those trends for 2007-08 to 2010-11.

State funding per pupil, adjusted for inflation, declined an average of $726 from 2007-08 to 2010-11.

Local funding per pupil, adjusted for inflation, declined an average of $13 over the same years.

Federal funding per pupil, adjusted for inflation, grew an average of $615 over those years. That growth, of course, was not enough to replace the buying power of the shrinking local and state dollars.

Other revenue, adjusted for inflation, grew an average of $187 per pupil. Averages for other revenue need to be treated with care, because most districts receive very little from other sources, and a few receive quite a lot.

Combining those four categories, Kentucky schools received a total revenue increase of $63 per pupil after inflation from 2007-08 through 2010-11.

Again, looking to the current year and the future, we know our schools are now working with a federal decline and a state increase that is nowhere near enough to make up those losses. We also have reason to worry about local funding. The newest report on state revenue says that July to December state property tax collections in 2011 dropped more than 9% from the 2010 level. If local tax receipts show a similar trend, the results could be disastrous. It's too early to know that will happen, but definitely time to be very concerned that it might.

The core point here is important enough to repeat: when we say that revenue per pupil grew slightly through last year, counting the temporary federal increases that are now gone, that means we know that the trend for this year and beyond will be decline unless state leaders step up in the current legislative session. We also know those funding losses will pose a grave danger to Kentucky's bold commitment to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in higher education and in the job markets of the future.

Source notes: the main data for this analysis comes from Annual Financial Receipts and Expenditure reports per district, available here, with 2010-11 using the unaudited reports now available. Per pupil figures were calculated using December 1 preschool counts (from June 2010 and August 2011 Kentucky Board of Education briefing materials) plus K-12 average daily attendance plus growth (from SEEK files), and inflation adjustments were developed with this inflation calculator to reflect changes in what districts can buy with the money they receive.

AYP results for managed schools (including virtual options)

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

An education management organization (EMO) is a "private organization or firm that manages public schools, including district and charter public schools." Last year, 296 EMOs managed 1,928 schools across the United States. The chart above shows data on their student results from a new edition of Profiles of For-Profit and Nonprofit Education Management Organizations. Some key findings:

The weakest reported results come from for-profit virtual schools that deliver their curriculum and provide instruction through the Internet and using electronic communication. Just 27 percent of those schools made AYP last year.

The next weakest results come from large for-profit EMOs running 10 or more schools, with 43 percent of those schools making AYP.

The strongest results, with 63 percent of schools making AYP are shown by for-profit EMOs that run three or fewer schools and by nonprofits that run four to nine schools.

I don't want to overstate the implications of these numbers. The report rightly calls these AYP results a "crude" measure. I'd love to see comparisons using NAEP or another consistent assessment, and I'd love to see scores that include a full curriculum of subjects, and I'd love to see scores that give partial credit for partial student success, rather than making an "all or nothing" proficiency judgment.

On the other hand, numbers like these do invite further exploration, with two issues looking especially important:

What are the right steps to ensure that virtual learning options are strong options? Teaching quality doesn't develop without work in any school That 27 percent is a good reminder that quality isn't guaranteed on-line either.

How can EMOs take effective school approaches to a large scale? Can what works at one, two, or five schools be reliably repeated in a dozen or a hundred schools? Maybe, someday, school improvement will be as replicable as the taste of a Big Mac. The 43% shown above suggests that "scalability" like that is not --or not-yet-- a reliable option, at least as a for-profit strategy.

Source note: The report discussed above is Profiles of For-Profit and Nonprofit Education Management Organizations: Thirteenth Annual Report 2010-11, with a hat tip to the Detroit Free Press by way of EdWeek.

Growing their craft, growing their culture

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:42:00 +0000

Toni Konz at the Courier-Journal has a great story up on teachers at Atkinson Elementary pursuing National Board Certification. Seven teachers have already completed the extensive process of study, reflection, expert feedback, and peer review that leads to recognition as a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT), and they are now mentoring two more colleagues working through the same process.

Leila Smith, one of the teachers working toward NBCT now, is quoted as saying “It’s been pretty stressful... but this is something I decided to do because I want to grow as a teacher. It’s important for me to be the very best teacher that I can be for my students.”

What stands out most in this story, though, isn't that wonderful individual push to develop deeper skills, but the team approach to changing a profession and a building in ways that work for kids.

Atkinson is moving toward a culture where NBCT-style excellence moves from being a rarity to being a familiar part of a professional career. It won't ever be a step that everyone on the faculty has to take, but it may well become a part that everyone will consider taking.

The Atkinson team is also using that team work as a direct response to the school-wide challenge of historically rapid teacher turnover. It's a high-poverty school where it has long been common for teachers to transfer out after two or three years. Supporting NBCT work is a way to make the school a better place to work and a more appealing place to stay.

Expectations Up, Resources Down

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:13:00 +0000

Kentucky’s new goal is for all students to graduate from high school and be ready for college and career. As a state, we've committed to much higher expectations, but state funding per student has declined in program after program.

The Kentucky Education Action Team, bringing together the state's key education stakeholder groups, held a press conference this morning to call attention to those losses. The official press release is here, and added KEAT information is here. For this post, I'd like to share the numbers themselves.

The graphs below show the key declines in per pupil funding, adjusted for inflation, and they are painful news.

First, the state contribution to SEEK base funding is down. It's true that the SEEK base guarantee has gone up, but each year the state has counted on local districts to fund more of that guarantee. Plus, the state budgets for 2010-11 and 2011-12 underestimated the number of pupils who would need to be funded, and the state has handled that decline by cutting funding to below the guaranteed amount.

Preschool has taken even deeper damage, with rising enrollments meaning fewer dollars for every student needing that vital preparation for school success.

And then, each of the categorical programs that supports specific student and teacher needs has been reduced, removing essential supports for meeting Kentucky's ambitious goals for all students.

The one bright spot in this sad story is the unity of Kentucky education leaders around the need to move forward on Kentucky's goals and provide the funding to make those goals a reality. KEAT includes the Kentucky Association of School Administrators, the Kentucky Association of School Councils, the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents, the Kentucky Education Association, the Kentucky School Boards Association, the Kentucky PTA, and the Prichard Committee, and leaders from all seven groups stood together this morning in favor of delivering what Kentucky's children need.

Race to the Top success!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 15:47:00 +0000

Kentucky will receive $17 million in federal funding for innovative work to raise student achievement under the Race to the Top program, including investments in the ongoing CIITS and AdvanceKentucky efforts.

CIITS is short for the Continuous Instructions Improvement Technology System, a major integrated approach to supporting Kentucky teachers, personalizing students' learning and educators' professional growth, and coordinating school and district planning. With the federal funding, Kentucky will implement planned CIITS components that organize educator effectiveness ratings, integrate new models for measuring effective teaching, and support formative assessment.

AdvanceKentucky expands student access to rigorous Advanced Placement coursework, with heavy emphasis on science and mathematics classes and participation in AP testing as a measure of results.

For more information on this exciting news, you can check out:

The Department press release
EdWeek coverage, including a link to overviews of each winning state's proposal
Courier-Journal reporting with thought from Dr. Holliday about the work we'll be able to move forward more quickly with this federal support.

Accountability and beyond: Adding the collaboration

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:30:00 +0000

In yesterday's post, I argued that accountability is not enough: success for students requires sustained, focused collaboration for teachers. Today, I want to flag some key ways we can get that done.

First, let's note that in many places in Kentucky, important parts of that work is getting done. That kind of collaboration is what sets our high performance, high poverty schools apart. It's what makes our most exciting districts so exciting. I believe it's what has moved our students above national average in NAEP science and reading, and to national average in mathematics.

From a state perspective, the question is how we can get that to happen in many more places--in 174 districts and more than 1,200 schools--and how we can get it to happen faster.

Here are some things I think Kentucky is doing well to build that implementation:

Networks. As we implement our new standards, the state model for capacity building is built on sustained collaboration. In regional networks, small groups of teachers from each district are coming together to explore the standards, plan ways to apply teaching strategies that can bring the standards to life, try them out, and then gather again to discuss the results, refine the approaches, and then try them again.

Intervention. We've long had an accountability approach to low-performing schools that worked in most places, so that most schools placed in state assistance improved their work enough not to need it after two years or sometimes four. For the smaller set of persistently low-achieving schools, we've recently changes our approach. The Department has moved to more intensive assistance, focused on much deeper work with the teachers in those schools. Along with the assistance, state leaders have also dramatically increased public pressure on those schools and their districts, so that local efforts have also intensified. So far, I think we're seeing good early results from this stronger approach.

Still, we need to do more, and here are some of the most important challenges to keep the implementation building:

Expansion. The regional networks reach a few teachers, but then depend on local leaders to find ways to spread the same opportunities more widely. At the Prichard Committee's fall meeting, we heard that some districts are doing that very well, but others are doing weaker work. We need additional ways to get all educators strong opportunities to build their skills.

Time. Collaboration needs time, and time costs money. In the current fiscal situation, that's going to require courage all around. At the local level, it means doing more with less and doing the most important things first--and I believe that teacher growth is the most important priority for creating student growth. At the state level, it means restoring funding already cut, and moving beyond that to provide truly adequate funding for what we've asked teaches to do.

Culture. We must move to a shared and intense agreement that professional learning communities are truly essential to effective educational practice. By professional learning communities, I mean the full definition: sustained shared effort that analyzes student work in relation to standards, plans effective instructional improvements, implements them, and repeats in an ongoing cycle of collaborative improvement.

Those pieces, combined over a sustained period, can turn goals we've set into goals we meet.

That's why, to close the loop from yesterday's post, consequential accountability is both important and not enough. The central element we are working add, with some good progress and plenty more to go, is teacher implementation of sound strategies, built through sustained collaboration with colleagues.

Accountability is not enough

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:51:00 +0000

The Fordham Institute is planning a major discussion of the question "Has Accountability Run Its Course?" The announcement for the January 4 event says:

Ten years ago, George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, the law that has dominated U.S. education—and the education policy debate—for the entire decade. While lawmakers are struggling to update that measure, experts across the political spectrum are struggling to make sense of its impact and legacy. Did NCLB, and the consequential accountability movement it embodied, succeed? And with near-stagnant national test scores of late, is there reason to think that this approach to school reform is exhausted? If not “consequential accountability,” what could take the U.S. to the next level of student achievement?

Here's my answer: accountability plus teacher implementation of sound strategies, built through sustained collaboration with colleagues.

Some accountability plans assume that teachers already know what to do and how to do it. If that were true, then carrots and sticks would be very likely to work. Nationally, I think No Child Left Behind has been a huge trial of that theory, producing some progress but nowhere near enough.

Some other accountability plans assume that teachers may not know how to do it yet, but they can quickly figure it out. It looks me like that was the KERA theory. The Department would create guidance documents and brief district leaders, district leaders would brief teachers, Regional Service Centers would provide back up support, and four professional development days (or maybe nine for just a few years) would be plenty of time to get the strategies up and running. We got some important improvement from that approach, but we, too, did not get the full scale of change we wanted and expected.

From accountability efforts to date, I believe we should learn that the teaching strategies that can make the biggest difference are not, in fact, obvious and easy for teachers to implement. Instead, understanding and applying them requires long cycles of learning: exploring a key idea, applying it in practice, reflecting on what happens, applying it in practice with some new insight, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. Further, even if a teacher develops tremendous skill at using that idea with most kids, every group of student will include a few that need a variant approach, so there will always be more to learn and more to puzzle out. That means teachers will always need one another, and the collaborative learning process will always need to be a central part of how strong schools do strong work.

Winning at basketball requires a scoreboard--but it also requires practice, coaching, and teamwork to develop winning skills. Winning in education requires matching elements: first goals, assessments, and consequences, and then also sustained, focused collaboration among teachers to develop the deep skills that will move all students to success.

(Tomorrow: some thoughts on how Kentucky can build and sustain that collaboration.)

Kentucky assessments: which subjects, which grades

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:56:00 +0000

The chart above offers a quick overview of how Kentucky students will be assessed under Kentucky's new accountability system, starting in the current school year.

I take great pride in Kentucky's commitment to assessing that rich array of subjects, something that sets us apart from most other states. We've done small and large adjustments to our standards and small and

large adjustments to our assessments over the last two decades, but the key idea that we set standards, measure results, and value performance in a broad set of subjects is still a strong value for our state.

When I think about our rising science NAEP scores, I think science accountability has to have helped us make that growth. Similarly, when I think about our NAEP reading scores, I think accountability for science and social studies is likely to have helped there as well.

Like many others, I'm watching closely for developments in arts & humanities, practical living/career studies, and the kind of sustained writing that is included in writing portfolios. We no longer assess student performance in those subjects, but instead use program reviews to check that schools provide robust learning opportunities in those content areas.

Enrollment, staffing, and a possible option for teacher learning time

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 21:42:00 +0000

In the fall of 2008, Kentucky enrolled 1.35 percent of all students enrolled in public schools nationwide in pre-kindergarten through grade 12.

Our share of public school staff was at or below that 1.35 percent level in three categories, with Kentucky having:

1.05 percent of student support staff nationwide
1.28 percent of instruction coordinators
1.34 percent of administrative support staff
1.35 percent of teachers

Our share of public school staff was above the nationwide level in the other categories, including:

1.36 percent of guidance counselors nationwide
1.50 percent of officials and administrators
1.91 percent of principals and assistant principals
1.92 percent of instructional aides
2.03 percent of other support services staff
2.08 percent of librarians
2.13 percent of school and library support staff

If instead, Kentucky schools and districts had consistently had 1.39 percent of each kind of staff, we would have had:

771 additional student support staff
51 additional instruction coordinators
31 additional administrative support staff
62 additional teachers
4 fewer guidance counselors
92 fewer officials and administrators
889 fewer principals and assistant principals
393 fewer librarians
2,212 fewer school and library support staff
4,155 fewer instructional aides
7,990 fewer other support services staff
14,819 fewer total p-12 employees

Back in March 2009, I posted a similar analysis using Fall 2005 data. As I wrote then:

I’m not arguing that Kentucky should staff schools to those averages. There may be important benefits to what we do differently, and our students may have different needs. I do think, though, that this is an interesting mirror to look in, inviting us to think about how we currently staff public education.

Later that year, after updating with Fall 2006 numbers, I added a question I still think is important:

To build teaching quality, we should want every teacher involved in professional learning community work as part of every workweek. Could we change these numbers, either adding teachers or lengthening teachers’ workdays, to make that collaborative time easier to find?

(Source note: the data for this analysis comes from the Digest of Education Statistics 2010, using tables 38 and 85. The staff analysis is based on full-time equivalents.)

College costs get White House attention

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 19:14:00 +0000

Rapid growth in college tuition will get some new attention Monday. Inside Higher Ed reports that:

President Obama has invited the presidents or chancellors of 10 colleges or state university systems to a meeting at the White House on Monday to discuss affordability and productivity in higher education. The move is highly unusual: While administration events often feature college leaders in various roles, a meeting called on such short notice, with the president himself in attendance, is rare.

Berea President Larry Shinn is the one invitee going from a Kentucky institution, and there's a second Kentucky connection in F. King Alexander, currently president of California State University at Long Beach, who led Murray State from 2001 to 2005.

Common Core QuickNotes

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 22:12:00 +0000

While Kentucky moves forward rapidly with Common Core implementation, the Common Core now has large growing support, seasoned by smaller but also growing opposition, around the country. Here's some of what's happening elsewhere:

Chicago's Perez Elementary School was very successful on older assessments and moved last year into pilot work with Common Core. The results were a blunt wake up call: roughly one third of elementary and one quarter of middle school students could meet the new expectations. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard see the Perez results as signals about what global competition will require and why the new standards are important.

Montana's state board agreed November 4 to become a Common Core state. Only Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia are still insisting on their single-state approaches

Alabama's Governor, Robert Bentley wants Common Core repealed for his state, but the state board voted 6-3 to reject a resolution to that effect on November 11.

An American Legislative Exchange Council task force voted December 1 to move forward with model legislation "opposing adoption or implementation of common standards." ALEC develops legislative proposals it sees as supporting free-market and libertarian approaches.Supporters of the drafting work argue that Common Core is an undue federal intrusion. Opponents, including Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, argued strongly that their states made their own local choice to be part of Common Core, but did not prevail in the Task Force vote. The ALEC board of directors will make the final decision

Common Core support from the Chamber

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:56:00 +0000

"We believe these more rigorous standards represent the change that employers advocate.”

Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Dave Adkisson shared that judgment with a Paducah audience Thursday, providing a ringing endorsement of the Common Core as a statement of what students need to be career-ready as well as college-ready.

Expect more of that strong backing in coming months. KyChamberBlog reports that Adkisson's appearance along with Commissioner Holliday

marked the beginning of an initiative that will emphasize the importance of business support for improving Kentucky students’ preparation to succeed in college and the workplace. The Kentucky Chamber Foundation is spearheading the effort, which is being conducted in partnership with the Department of Education and the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.

Sec. Duncan's Praise and Challenge for Kentucky

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:24:00 +0000

For 20 years, Kentucky has helped lead the nation where it needs to go. You have seen dramatic results from your commitment to reform, and you understand the importance of the task at hand.

Education must be the one great equalizer in America. We can never forget that children have only one chance to get a great education. Working together with creativity, courage, and commitment, Kentucky can provide a world-class education for all children in your state.

Thank you for your seriousness of purpose. Thank you for your sense of urgency. Thank you for the example you continue to set for all of us.

Okay, that's the dessert, served first.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke on November 10 at the "Improving Productivity in Kentucky's Schools and Districts" conference in Louisville.

His core message was the importance of finding truly productive ways to transform education, using dollars more efficiently to raise student achievement, with professional development and technology innovations at the center. Transportation adjustments and consistent building repairs can contribute, but the central work has to transform classroom learning to build excellence in troubled financial times. Secretary Duncan argued forcefully:

So whether we like it or not, it’s clear that schools are going to be faced with the challenge of doing more with less for the foreseeable future. This is what we are calling the New Normal that everyone involved in education must grapple with. We must be smart, and we must be strategic.

That thinking, the substantive "meal" served up in Louisville, is worth a close read.

2011 NAEP Scores: Another Step Toward Top 20

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:55:00 +0000

Here's the message Stu Silberman sent out yesterday afternoon...

Dear friends and colleagues,

More good news has arrived about our students' scores on reading and math on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (or NAEP-often called the nation's report card). Our results this time are at or above the national average in both subjects for both fourth- and eighth-graders. Additional exciting news is in the disaggregated results for students who receive free and reduced-price lunch, students with disabilities, African-American students and Hispanic students.

Of course, this doesn't mean we can relax our efforts: our kids still need to achieve at higher levels to be sure they can meet future challenges, and our achievement gaps are still clearly too large. We still have a lot of work to do. Nevertheless, these results show Kentucky moving into national leadership, and we should celebrate that fact even as we continue the important work of lifting student achievement even higher.

And now the details, both in graphs and rankings.

In fourth grade reading, Kentucky students ranked:

11^th overall (down from 9^th in 2009)
3^rd among students qualifying for free and reduced lunch
3^rd among students with disabilities
9^thamong African-American students*
2^nd among Hispanic students*

In 8^th grade reading, Kentucky students ranked:

13^th overall (up from 16^th in 2009)
3^rd among students qualifying for free and reduced price lunches
6^th among students with disabilities
26^th among African-American students*
1^st among Hispanic students*

In fourth grade math, Kentucky students ranked:

25^th overall (up from 30^th in 2009)
19^th among students qualifying for free and reduced price lunches
12^th among students with disabilities
23^rd among African-American students*
8^th among Hispanic students*

In eighth grade math, Kentucky students ranked:

31^st overall (up from 34^th in 2009)

20^th among students qualifying for free and reduced price lunches

17^th among students with disabilities

26^th among African-American students*

27^th among Hispanic students*

You can find more detailed information about these results here: http://www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata
* Some other states have no reported results for African-American or Hispanic students. The rankings listed here are adjusted to the equivalent of 50 state rankings for fairness of comparison.

Good Giving Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Stu Silberman) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:57:00 +0000

Friends,

I'm writing today with a time-sensitive request that may give the Prichard Committee an enormous boost in reaching our fundraising goals.

At 7:59 a.m. today, Blue Grass Community Foundation and Smiley Pete Publishing (Chevy Chaser, Southsider and Business Lexington Magazines) officially launched their GoodGiving Guide Challenge, and we're thrilled to be a part of it. These two organizations have combined their efforts to promote scores of Kentucky nonprofits and have set a goal of raising over $100,000 before the end of the year. They've also lined up several challenge grants to award bonus money to the nonprofits who raise the most donors and dollars.

Can you help us win those challenges by giving right now at https://www.goodgivingguide.net/npo/prichard-committee-for-academic-excellence/?

In addition to the challenges for nonprofits, Smiley Pete has lined up a ton of thank you gifts to individuals who give at different levels.

Give now to receive some of these fabulous gifts donated from the GoodGiving Guide Challenge's sponsors.

If you're planning on including us in your charitable giving plans this year, please consider making your donation today.

Thanks in advance for your support!
Rachel

Rachel Belin

PS - If you don't feel you can donate at this point, will you consider forwarding this email to 5 of your friends? Many of the prizes are based on number of donors, and we'd greatly appreciate the introduction to your friends and family.

NCLB waiver? Or a new law?

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:10:00 +0000

Kentucky is quickly developing an application for a waiver to the No Child Left Behind accountability rules. Our plan will ask to use our new "Unbridled Learning" system of scoring and consequences in place of the current "Adequate Yearly Progress" or "AYP" method. Though the proposal still needs feedback and another round of revisions, we know it will include commitments to intervention in our lowest achieving schools and to new professional growth and evaluation procedures that include attention to student achievement results.

But what if the waivers never happen?

Last week, the Senate Education Committee reported out the "Harkin-Enzi" bill designed to replace NCLB. Under that bill, states would not be required to set separate goals for disaggregated subgroups and would not be required to go nearly as far on professional growth and evaluations. Key players in the Senate are explicitly saying they want to pass the bill this calendar year so that the waiver plans never go into effect. I'm following these developments through EdWeek's Politics K-12 blog, which often provides several updates a day.

In short, there's a live political process underway that could short-circuit the waiver plans and replace them with new rules that are currently being negotiated in Congress.

For Kentucky students, teachers, parents, and citizens, this means that we really do not know which accountability rules will apply at the end of the current school year.

Fortunately, we do know our overall goals for students. I'm pretty sure that strong work to meet our new Kentucky Core Academic Standards will pay off no matter which scoring rules apply.

Preschool for social justice

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 18:06:00 +0000

Nicholas Kristof has a great new piece up in the New York Times, arguing that "the single step that would do the most to reduce inequality has nothing to do with finance at all. It’s an expansion of early childhood education." It includes a great overview of the research on the importance of students early foundations, and is definitely worth a read. The title "Occupy the Classroom" plays wonderfully off of current political mobilizations!

Seeing those gaps

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Graphs like these are supposed to be painful: please do take a look and see where we're letting students get less than they need. Snapshots like the ones below are why an index calculation matters: when all the results for each group are combined in a single number, the disturbing parts are hard to miss.

Achievement gaps remain severe:

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:30:00 +0000

From Monday's press release, with graphs to follow in upcoming posts:

Achievement gaps continue to impair Kentucky’s overall education progress, according to an analysis of state test scores released today by three statewide groups. Kentucky schools are falling especially short with students with disabilities, limited English proficiency, and African-American backgrounds. Low-income and Hispanic students also scored well below their peers.

The analysis, presented in a "Disaggregated Index Report," was developed by the Council for Better Education, the Kentucky Association of School Councils and the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence to monitor school performance while Kentucky made a three-year shift from the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System to the Unbridled Learning system based on new state standards and assessments. 2011 is the last year of that transition, and the last year the three groups will issue this type of report.

The Disaggregated Index is based on a formula similar to the one used in past years by the Kentucky Department of Education to compare student results based on race, income, and other factors. The partner groups applied the formula to state test scores results, and found that:

Of all groups studied, only Asian elementary and middle school students and gifted students at all levels have reached a score of 100, equivalent to the average student being proficient in all tested subjects under the state’s old standards
No other student groups are on track to reach 100 by 2014
Students of both sexes and all ethnic backgrounds are improving, but improving too slowly
Students with limited English proficiency had flat or declining results at all levels
On the 0-140 scale used in the analysis, gaps of 10 points or more separate African-American students, students with disabilities, migrant students, and students with limited English proficiency from their classmates at every level.

"The goal is to deliver proficiency for each and every child," said Ronda Harmon, executive director of the Kentucky Association of School Councils. "These disaggregated index results allow schools to evaluate strengths and tackle weaknesses now, before the new assessment scores arrive."

"The gaps remain painful and too many of those gaps are growing wider, reminding us that we still have major work ahead to provide an equal quality of education for all Kentucky’s children,” said Fayette County Superintendent Tom Shelton, president of the Council for Better Education. "Plus, to be competitive in the global economy, we need every single student to be learning at very high levels aiming to meet Kentucky’s new goals for college and career readiness."

Stu Silberman, executive director of the Prichard Committee, saw the report as “a call to action for all Kentucky adults on behalf of all our children.” Silberman added that the point of the report was to see the trends clearly and encourage all stakeholders to keep attention on raising performance during the testing transition.

The full report is available at www.kasc.net, along with results for each school and district in Kentucky and an earlier report on overall results and subject-level trends released by the same groups in September.

The Debates About What Is Really Best

noreply@blogger.com (Stu Silberman) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 19:21:00 +0000

Listed below are some of the topics being debated about educational reform. What are your thoughts about these?

Student Achievement - Everyone wants our students to receive a world class education and be able to compete in the global environment. Here are some of the questions being discussed and debated in this area:

• Where do we rank nationally and internationally? Is that good or bad?
• How bad are the achievement gaps? What needs to happen to close these gaps?
• Does the federal “No Child Left Behind” law help or hurt? Should there be penalties and sanctions for not making 100%?
• Should the U.S. follow what some countries do in only allowing the highest performing students to attend high schools that lead to college?
• With Finland being considered at the top of the international lists for educating students, should the U.S. model what they are doing? What are they doing differently and would that work here?
• How important is “college and career readiness” and do tests like the ACT test truly predict this? Do remedial courses in college really make a difference and are they needed?
• What is the actual and real dropout rate from high school? Is this important and how do we deal with this? What about the dropout rate from college?
• Should the age for compulsory attendance be raised from 16 to 18 years of age?
* Do we need to provide high quality pre-schools for ALL students?
• Is the culture of a school a determining factor in student achievement?
• Is more time in the day and school year needed to raise achievement?
• Should class size be significantly reduced?
• Is a solution gender based classrooms and individualized instruction for all?
• Does the leadership of the school determine the outcomes?
• How should technology and virtual learning be utilized?
• How important is early childhood education? How do we balance developmentally appropriate practices with the need for school readiness data? Should incoming kindergarten kids be assessed?
• What about dual credit courses (with high schools and colleges) and early college enrollment programs? Should they be allowed?
• Competency based or seat time credit? Should students be able to test out of classes in high school?
• Should every child make at least a year’s growth each year?
• Should students be retained if they cannot do the work? Are there a maximum number of times a student should be retained?
• Should schools be responsible for health and wellness of students including issues like obesity?

Curriculum and Standards - There are intense debates about what should be taught and what should not be taught along with the debate about high stakes testing. Listed below are some of these topics:

• Are the new Common Core Standards what we need? Do people know what these are? How do we help teachers, parents, and students understand the standards?
• Are standards needed? What levels of math and science, for example, should be required? Should topics like sex education and evolution be taught in schools?
• Should the arts and humanities be part of the accountability system?
• Is requiring proficiency in a foreign language important?
• Are textbooks needed or can online electronic books and materials be used?
• Should schools, teachers, and students be ranked and compared statewide and nationally for academics, graduation rates, etc.?
• Should homework be part of a student’s academic grade or be a separate grade?
• How should students with special needs both in areas of disabilities and giftedness be served?

Accountability and Testing - There is a lot of debate about high stakes testing. Below are some of the questions being discussed:

• How much should we be testing students using standardized tests?
• What should an accountability system look like? Do we need accountability systems?
• What does it mean to be proficient and who decides what proficiency is?
• Does testing inhibit creativity?
• Is there an alternative to standardized testing and still have accountability?
• Are teachers teaching to the test? Is teaching to the test good or bad?
• What about the Atlanta cheating scandal? Can that happen to us?
• Should statewide end of course exams be part of a student’s grade?
• What about students being required to pass a statewide proficiency test in order to graduate from high school?
• How should accountability be extended to postsecondary, particularly in the preparation of teachers?

Teachers - At the heart of our educational systems is the teacher. These are some of the major questions being debated nationally about teachers:

• How should teachers be evaluated and should those evaluations be tied to student performance and then to pay? Can evaluations be used to significantly improve instruction?
• Should teacher pay be differentiated based on the subjects taught with the highest pay going to areas in most demand or should pay be equal and based upon education and experience?
• Should schools be allowed to hire teachers and administrators from organizations like Teach for America who have not gone through formal teacher certification programs in college?
• Is the pay for teachers too low or too high? What if we changed the benefit structure to make benefits less generous and salary more generous on the front end of a teacher’s career? Would a starting salary of six figures for teachers change the profession?
• What is the impact of the U.S. teacher salaries being ranked 22nd out of 27 countries?
• Why are so many teachers leaving the profession?
• Are teacher unions a help or a hindrance?
• Should tenure for teachers and college professors be abolished?
• How much time is needed for professional development and collaboration, and what does that look like to be effective?
• How can professional development for teachers and school leaders be relevant and helpful for improving teaching and learning? What should it look like and who should decide this?
• Are colleges and universities doing a good job in preparing teachers, principals, and superintendents?

Factors Outside the classroom - There is much debate about the role of influences outside the classrooms and how they impact the educational process.

• Can students who live in poverty learn at high levels? Is poverty the problem?
• What is the role of the parent at home?
• Is parent involvement at school important and what does effective and systemic involvement look like?
• What should be the role of the business community? The faith based community? Coalitions?
• Are before and after school tutoring and enrichment programs needed?
• Should extra-curricular activities like sports, music, drama, clubs, etc. continue?

School Choice - The debate about school choice is very intense. It is very important to look at the data and research before coming to a conclusion in these areas.

* Do we need Charter schools? Do they work?
• Should public funding be used for vouchers to private schools?
• What about schools and programs of innovation within the current systems?
• Are alternative schools with different structures and approaches effective and needed?
• Should home schools be legal?
• Do you favor neighborhood schools? Magnet schools?
• What about vocational and technical schools – are they needed?
• How about having virtual schools available for all students?

Funding - Some say we are spending too much on education while others argue that we are not spending enough. This is also an intense debate.

• Is funding adequate to accomplish the goals?
• Is funding equitable between districts?
• Are schools and colleges good stewards of the funding that is currently provided?
• Is there equity/adequacy in funding for special needs—poverty, transience, disabilities, English language learning, and giftedness?
• Are employee benefits costs such as health insurance, retirement, and sick leave reasonable? What about the minimum number of years of service for full retirement for educators (27 years)? Should this be changed?
• Should Kentucky teachers be required to start paying into the social security system?
• How does Kentucky’s higher education spending compare to other states?
• Should we accept significant federal funding if it means following their guidelines?

Governance - There is also a debate about how to best govern schools in terms of boards of education, site based councils, etc.

• Should the state and federal departments of education be eliminated?
• Do we need to do away with site based councils? Boards of Education?
• Should board members be paid salaries?
• If schools follow the business model will it make a positive difference?
• Should school board members be appointed or elected?
• Should city government (mayors, judge executives) govern the schools?

As you can see from the above, education reform and teaching and learning are very complex. Before anyone makes a decision about any of these issues it is critical that the decision go beyond a general feeling. There is a lot of research and a multitude of data out there about each of these issues that must be reviewed carefully and examined before coming to any final conclusions. We at the Prichard Committee will be coming back to discuss these issues in more depth in the months ahead but would welcome you to share your thoughts at any time.

Literacy, math, teaching effectiveness work expands (with Gates support)

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Perkins Weston) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:26:00 +0000

PrichBlog readers will be delighted by this news: Kentucky is beginning a major expansion of implementation of the literacy and mathematics strategies being supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to be integrated with work linked to the Measures of Effective Teaching project. Here's the Kentucky Department of Education's press release:

TWELVE KENTUCKY SCHOOL DISTRICTS RECEIVE MAJOR GRANT

MATH, LITERACY, EVALUATION RESOURCES WILL HELP TEACHERS, STUDENTS

(FRANKFORT, Ky.) – An $8.8 million, three-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will support teachers and students in 12 school districts, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) announced today.

This investment, known as an “Integration Grant,” will support the integration of several critical streams of work – measures of effective teaching, implementation of the Common Core State Standards and the development of innovative tools and resources to help teachers deliver instruction.

Kentucky is one of three states, including Colorado and Louisiana, to receive an Integration Grant from the foundation.

“The 12 school districts involved in this work will be models for the rest of the state,” said Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday. “Their efforts will be crucial to Kentucky’s implementation of the Common Core State Standards. Students will receive meaningful and rigorous instruction, while their teachers will be supported through high-quality resources and measurement of their effectiveness.”

Kentucky’s grant will be used to:

build capacity among instructional leaders, principals and teachers to deploy high-quality literacy tasks and mathematics formative assessment lessons

implement a professional growth and evaluation system to measure effective instructional practices and supports for continuous improvement

implement a delivery plan for tracking and monitoring usage of the professional growth and evaluation system

This project will be implemented with 12 partner districts: Daviess County, Fleming County, Gallatin County, Jackson Independent, Jessamine County, Lee County, Owen County, Washington County, Jefferson County, Kenton County, Magoffin County and Simpson County.

The partnership between KDE and these school districts will allow district and school leaders to collaborate on content and provide instructional support to teachers. It also will be used to validate and implement Kentucky’s teacher and principal effectiveness system. By the end of this grant period, Kentucky will have better student outcomes as a result of more effective teachers, shown by a valid and reliable evaluation model that includes multiple measures of effectiveness.

“Kentucky is showing the nation how to accomplish thoughtful, deep integration,” said Vicki Phillips, director of College Ready Programs, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “The Kentucky Integration Grant supports effective teaching in every way: professional development, development of new tools aligned to the Common Core State Standards and real-time feedback that helps teachers improve their practice.”

The Kentucky work will focus on improving teaching and learning through literacy and math strategies in the partner districts and schools. KDE will use regional networks of English/language arts and mathematics content specialists and Effectiveness Coaches to work with teachers in partner districts to implement the instructional resources and tools in classrooms, in addition to assisting integration districts on the teacher and principal effectiveness component.

For this school year, 12 school districts have been chosen to serve as integrated strategy districts – demonstration sites that will focus on implementing the math formative assessments and literacy tasks in selected schools. In the second year of the grant, more schools in the 12 integration districts will be added to increase teacher participation in mathematics across grade levels and engage additional content teachers in literacy implementation. In the final year of the grant, teachers from the first and second years of implementation will be videotaped so these resources may be used in professional development and training opportunities for other teachers. Model lesson plans, tasks and assignments related to literacy and mathematics will be distributed. Integrated Strategy Districts were selected in part based on the buy-in of superintendents, district leadership, teachers’ unions and school councils. Another important consideration was commitment to teacher release time and pay stipends for teacher-leader participation. In addition, other factors such as school improvement status, geographic representation and the concentration of students eligible for free/reduced-price meals were considered.

Kentucky’s Integration Grant builds on earlier investments by the Gates Foundation, including an effort to through the Kentucky Department of Education to support the state’s implementation of the Common Core State Standards through regional networks