Assess Schools Like Hospitals

Pedro Noguera, a sociologist, is the Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at New York University. He is also executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education. This post first appeared in The New York Times here.

by Pedro Noguera

The Obama administration is right to have issued 32 states waivers to the No Child Left Behind law, a failed policy that has not lived up to its promise of elevating all students.

But the waivers continue to require states to judge teachers and principals on the basis of high-stakes standardized tests of students, which have undermined support for public schools. Numerous studies have shown that the data generated by the tests is often inaccurate and varies widely from year to year. It also creates disincentives for teachers to teach the students with the greatest difficulties.

What’s needed is a fundamental shift in the way we think about standards and accountability. We should judge schools the way we judge hospitals and clinics based on the quality of service they provide and the outcomes of their patients. If we adopted a similar approach to schools we would be forced to address the gross inequities among schools that contribute to unequal outcomes.

When schools don’t achieve expected outcomes state officials should be dispatched to determine why. This is the approach that is used in the Netherlands where an Inspectorate is used to insure school quality. Like hospitals, schools would use assessments to diagnose learning needs and monitor progress. States would use the assessments to make informed decisions about changes in practices, personnel or inputs.

Under such a system there would need to be clear quality standards that could be used to assess the performance of teachers, principals, students, possibly even parents. In schools where outcomes are low, states would have to do more than issue threats or apply pressure. They would be expected to help schools figure out what needed to be changed to improve teaching and learning. Robert Pianta, dean of education at the University of Virginia, has developed a set of measures that are being used in a small but significant number of schools to promote effective teaching by providing educators with clear guidance on how to be more effective in the classroom.

There must also be accountability on state commissioners, state legislatures and governors. They set policy and they play a role in providing the inputs to schools. Right now, accountability is unidirectional; we hold those with the least power accountable while those with the most authority are not held responsible for how the decisions they make impact schools.

Charmed by Choice: Undermining Public Education

The assault on public education is not just an agenda pursued by some Americans. In Canada, there are those who would like to dismantle our public education system, and in Alberta they are the Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose Party.

Of course they don't come out and say they want to destroy public education -- instead they sell their privatization agenda by talking about the freedom to choose.

It's quite ingenius really -- I mean who in their right mind would object to having more choice? This assault on public education is phrased very carefully so to make it very difficult to oppose -- because if you do oppose it, the quick response might be "what's wrong with you, you don't want choice?"

At this point, it's important to remember that when something looks too good to be true, it's usually not what it appears -- and when it comes to those who are selling choice as a means to authentically improve public education, they are either neglectfully ignorant, willfully blind or outright lying.

Pedro Noguera explains why school choice is not what it seems in his guest post for NBC's Education Nation:

The problem with using vouchers as a means to expand access to quality schools for poor children is that it is based on the premise that parents are the one's who do the choosing. The truth of the matter is that schools are the ones who choose and not parents. 

When a low-income parent shows up at a private school, especially an elite school with few poor children of color, there is no guarantee that their child will be chosen for admission - even if the parent has a voucher. This is particularly true if the child has learning disabilities, behavior problems or doesn't speak English very well. As we've seen with many charter schools, such children are often under-served because they are harder to serve and possession of a voucher won't change that. Many private schools maintain quality through selective admissions and vouchers won't change that either. 

Moreover, choice assumes that a parent has access to information on the choices available and transportation. Neither of these can be assumed. Many parents choose a school based on how close it is to their home or work, rather than the school's reputation. Many are unwilling to send their children to schools in neighborhoods far from their homes, particularly if transportation is not provided. 

The idea that vouchers would solve the lack of access to quality schools in poor, inner city neighborhoods is based on the belief that the free market is a better regulator of goods and services than the government. While this idea sounds good in theory, it's not borne out by the facts. 

In most inner city communities in the United States, the free market is not effective at providing healthy food at affordable prices, banking services or safe, affordable housing. That's because the poor in the inner city constitute a "captured market" and suppliers of goods and services are typically able to get away with low-quality products because community members have few available alternatives. 

Systems of school choice only work when there are lots of good choices available and a means for parents to exercise their choices. This can only be done when government insures quality by holding schools accountable for the quality of education they provide. Of course, our policymakers have largely failed to do this because they've focused on accountability as measured by student test scores, rather than concentrating on insuring that all schools have the resources and support systems in place to meet the needs of the students they serve, and holding themselves accountable if they don't.

Today more than ever, we need public education to educate all children to a standard that at one time may have been reserved for the elite. This means we can no longer afford to ignore the challenge of educating those who are difficult to educate.

In his publication Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: An American Agenda for Education Reform, Marc Tucker tackles education funding:

Two decades ago and more, elementary and secondary education in most of the provinces was funded much the way it is funded in the United States, with each locality raising much of the money locally, with the provinces providing additional sums intended to moderate the disparities in per student funding that such a system inevitably produces.  But, about 20 years ago, this began to change.  Conservative governments, in response to complaints from citizens about skyrocketing local tax rates, initiated a move to steadily reduce reliance on local taxes and to increase the portion of the total budget paid for by the province.  In the biggest provinces now, little if any of the money for public education is raised locally.  All or almost all comes from the province.  Not surprisingly, the gross inequities that came with raising money locally are gone, too, and Canada, like the top performing countries elsewhere, is moving toward a funding system intended to promote high achievement among all students, which means putting more money behind hard to educate children than children who are easier to educate.

Vouchers and choice tend to benefit those who have already "won the lottery" and often alienates and marginalizes those who can least afford it. Competition and the free market is for the strong. Public education is for all. See the problem?

In some US states, there is a movement underway called the "Parent Trigger" which is being sold as a way to empower parents in reforming and improving their children's schools. However, upon closer inspection this is no more than another fraudulent ploy with a charming name whose objective is to undermine public education. Diane Ravitch writes:

In early 2010, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor of California, the state legislature passed the "Parent Empowerment Act." This law is commonly known as the Parent Trigger. It allows a majority of parents in a low-performing school to sign a petition that leads to various sanctions for the school: firing all or some of the staff, turning the school over to charter management, or closing the school. These are similar to the options in the U.S. Department of Education's School Improvement Grant program. All of them are punitive, none is supportive of changing the school for the better, and none has a shred of evidence to show that it will improve the school. Neither the Parent Trigger nor the federal SIG program offers any constructive alternatives to unhappy parents, only ways to punish the school for low scores.

Supporters of the Parent Trigger say it empowers parents, especially poor parents, and gives them a tool with which to change their school. They say that it enhances not only parent power, but school choice.

Throwing educational funding to the competitive free market via school vouchers and selling it as the freedom to choose may allow politicians to look good but it offers a hollow promise to the families that can least afford to compete. It's sadly ironic that education reforms built around choice, competition and parent empowerment tend to victimize the very people they profess to be supporting.

My response to Ron Clark

I read a lot of articles on education. Some of them are insightful and some of them are not. Here's an article written by Ron Clark that I believe falls short of insightful. At best the messages delivered by Clark are unhelpful and at worst they may be harmful.

Early on the article points out a need for parents to trust teachers.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when I tell a mom something her son did and she turns, looks at him and asks, "Is that true?" Well, of course it's true. I just told you. And please don't ask whether a classmate can confirm what happened or whether another teacher might have been present. It only demeans teachers and weakens the partnership between teacher and parent.

But then at the end, Clark writes:

If your child said something happened in the classroom that concerns you, ask to meet with the teacher and approach the situation by saying, "I wanted to let you know something my child said took place in your class, because I know that children can exaggerate and that there are always two sides to every story. I was hoping you could shed some light for me."

Can you see how I might be unsettled?

When it's the teacher saying something, Clark doesn't see any need for further inquiry, and yet when the student says something, the parent needs to get "both sides to the story". The best teachers know that there are "two sides to every story" even the ones teachers tell. What Clark may be missing here is that the best teachers leave their omnipotence at home.

Some of the strongest school memories any of us hold well into our adult lives are the times we were wronged by a teacher. This isn't to suggest the best teachers never wrong children -- Because they are human, despite their best efforts, they inevitably will do wrong. The best and worst educators are prone to error but the difference is that the strongest educators understand this -- the weakest ones deny it.

Next, Clark tries to tug at the heart strings of teachers by indicting a child for neglecting their summer homework:

And if you really want to help your children be successful, stop making excuses for them. I was talking with a parent and her son about his summer reading assignments. He told me he hadn't started, and I let him know I was extremely disappointed because school starts in two weeks. 

His mother chimed in and told me that it had been a horrible summer for them because of family issues they'd been through in July. I said I was so sorry, but I couldn't help but point out that the assignments were given in May. She quickly added that she was allowing her child some "fun time" during the summer before getting back to work in July and that it wasn't his fault the work wasn't complete.

Can you feel my pain?

Some parents will make excuses regardless of the situation, and they are raising children who will grow into adults who turn toward excuses and do not create a strong work ethic. If you don't want your child to end up 25 and jobless, sitting on your couch eating potato chips, then stop making excuses for why they aren't succeeding. Instead, focus on finding solutions.

 Clark would like our first question to be: Why isn't the parent making sure this homework gets done?

But my first question is: Why is the teacher assigning homework over the summer?

Frankly, I'm skeptical of whether the teacher should have a say over what a child does during family time in the evening let alone whether the school should be allowed to dictate what a child does over the summer.

My second question is: Where's the research that shows if kids don't do their summer homework (or any homework at all) that they will end up 25, jobless, sitting on their parent's couch eating potato chips? The fact is there isn't a shred of evidence to support that there are any non-academic benefits to homework, and there isn't any evidence of to support academic benefits homework before high school.

These kinds of scare tactics do nothing but bully parents and children into doing things school forces families to do, like homework, that has no justification.

My objections to articles like this one can be summarized by Robert Fried:

Within the culture of failing schools one is likely to find that staff inertia and a penchant for victim-blaming prevail.

And by Pedro Noguera:

Many schools are plagued with a culture of failure where failure is normalized and predictable, and over time the adults come to blame the kids and their families. When this is the prevailing logic in a school that school will never improve.

When professionals like educators and nurses develop their beliefs based on blaming the very people they are to serve and work with, Robert Fried explains that "people stop thinking in new ways, they filter out evidence that might challenge old biases, and they stop reading in their field."

In other words, progress is plagued by a kind of professional paralysis.

The ultimate consequence of paralysis is that we spend less time focusing on meeting the needs of our students and more time complaining and feeling sorry for ourselves. Under these circumstances, the passionate educator that lies inside us all goes into hiding.

The funny thing about scapegoats is that they are always those with less power, and in education, those with the least power will always be the kids.

Pedro Noguera Lecture

Here is a profoundly insightful talk given by Pedro Noguera. If you are someone who needs to be in the know about education reform, I urge you to take some time and listen to this.

Some highlights:

• We have the know-how for educating all kinds of children - even those who have the hardest time learning
• After 10 years of No Child Left Behind, the US still has drop out rates as high as 50%.
• The Obama administration is simply continuing the same policies of the Bush administration: improve schools by using high stakes testing, and high standards to punish and embarrass schools.
• We focus on symptoms of failure without addressing underlying causes. If you only deal with symptoms, you might actually make things worse.
• We know we have failure in our schools - but we  don't know why, and we don't know what to do about that?
• If we fire principals and teachers, are their ready and capable professionals to replace those fired?
• We should divide up our schools into three categories: 1) Affluent schools are doing great 2) Mediocre schools 3) Poorest schools that are serving the truly disadvantaged
• There is a distinct connection between poverty and academic performance.
• We've had a lot of school reform and very little change.
• Many schools are plagued with a culture of failure where failure is normalized and predictable, and over time the adults come to blame the kids and their families. When this is the prevailing logic in a school that school will never improve.
• Poverty is not a learning disability. Under the right conditions, poor children can learn and succeed.
• 1966 Colman Report told us that over half of students' achievements in the classroom are affected by factors outside of the classroom (poverty, opportunity, health, family, etc)

If you are not familiar with Pedro Noguera's work, I think you should be.