Tag: Building a Culture of Genius


Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /home/dropoutn/public_html/wp-content/themes/ralphkrause/ralphkrause/parts/mjr.php on line 47

The Dropout Nation Podcast: Iron Sharpens Iron


Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /home/dropoutn/public_html/wp-content/themes/ralphkrause/ralphkrause/parts/mjr.php on line 47

On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, I issue a call to black men of character everywhere to stem the dropout crisis among our young black men. A look at new…

Dropout Nation Podcast Cover

On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, I issue a call to black men of character everywhere to stem the dropout crisis among our young black men. A look at new data — including a new report from the Council of the Great City Schools — paints a picture of despair and opportunities to rebuild Black America by reforming American public education and our communities.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddleā€™s radio page or download directly to your iPod, Zune, MP3 player or smartphone. Also, subscribe to the podcast series. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Podcast Alley, the Education Podcast Network,Ā  Zune Marketplace and PodBean. And the podcast on Viigo, if you have a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android phone.

3 Comments on The Dropout Nation Podcast: Iron Sharpens Iron

Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /home/dropoutn/public_html/wp-content/themes/ralphkrause/ralphkrause/parts/mjr.php on line 47

Steve Peha: D.C. School Reform Opponents Are No Angels


Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /home/dropoutn/public_html/wp-content/themes/ralphkrause/ralphkrause/parts/mjr.php on line 47

Certainly, D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee (who may resign today) was working up her Wicked Witch of the West routine. But the folks who voted out Mr. Fenty, and…

A little too proud, a little too smug -- and not all that concerned about the education of kids? (Photo courtesy of Politico)

Certainly, D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee (who may resign today) was working up her Wicked Witch of the West routine. But the folks who voted out Mr. Fenty, and who will surely rejoice when Ms. Rhee is replaced, may not exactly be maxing out the maturity scale either. Their most consistent complaint about Rhee is that she offended them. And they were certainly right about that. But is it better to be right about being offended, or is it better to be right about educating kids?

Sometimes brilliant doctors are offensive, too; surgeons, in particular, are noted for their hubris. But when theyā€™re saving your kidā€™s life, you kinda let that slide, donā€™t you? As mature adults, with the lives of our babies in the hands of others, it seems to matter much more how capable those hands are, and much less what comes out of the mouth they may be paired with. Sure, Iā€™d love it if Marcus Welby could fix my 7-year-oldā€™s Neuroblastoma. But Iā€™ll gladly put up with Gregory House if he can get my little girl to her next birthday.

As school district hands go, Rheeā€™s are pretty good, and her mouth isnā€™t nearly as bad as Dr. Houseā€™s. Sheā€™s no Marcus Welby, but she runs a tight ship. By most accounts, D.C. schools run better now than ever. So while Rhee has acted immaturely with regard to her speech and conduct, her detractors made that most classic of childish errors: thinking it was all about them when it was really all about the kids.

Whatā€™s more important? The welfare of children or the feelings of adults? I guess we know now that both Ms. Rhee and the folks in D.C. at least agree on one thing ā€“ we all care about kids, but we care about ourselves just a little more. This is hardly an indictment; just human nature, really. But acknowledging it changes what we can learn from this experiment and how we can all do better next time.

As someone who has often been guilty of the very same offense, Iā€™m not going to judge it too harshly. After all, if adults canā€™t get their own needs met, they canā€™t really meet their kidsā€™ needs either. I think Maslow had a good take on this.

The situation in D.C. is what it is. It is a bunch of adults putting their needs for self-promotion, or respect, or whatever amount of love they never got from their parents ahead of the needs of the children in their schools. Rhee had the smarts and the skills to court her opposition. At the same time, there was no need for her detractors to constantly exhibit the ā€œignoble strife of the madding crowd.ā€

There was a lot to be gained here through mere civility. Perhaps the biggest lesson of all is simply that smart people with good intentions can accomplish more for others when they intentionally act smart, instead of intentionally acting spiteful or taking offense when no positive result can come of either posture.

Over the years, I have heard few complaints about the Chancellorā€™s intelligence, determination, dedication, results, or any other ā€œbottom lineā€ concern ā€“ nobody said she wasnā€™t getting some very good things done. In particular, she seems to have reorganized the district operationally to the point where it now functions as a viable enterprise.

If youā€™ve ever worked in a dysfunctional big-city school district, you know how hard it is to improve operations and how vital as well. But Rhee will get no credit for this or even a friendly parting gift as she leaves her Ken Jennings-like run from a game show that could find no better metaphor than in Jeopardy.

Some have argued that Rhee was not effective at all, that her gains were largely the result of her predecessorā€™s efforts. I suppose thatā€™s a possibility. Lucky for Rheeā€™s long-time detractors, itā€™s an impossible one to disprove. Personally, I find it hard to believe that none of what Rhee did had an impact (no pun intended), and I think, as time goes by, weā€™ll see that many of her initiatives stand the test of time.

I doubt, for example, that her successor will toss out every change she inspired. In fact, it may be the next Chancellor who does the serious coat-tail riding here, a person certain to be much more conciliatory simply because he or she will have had the advantage of Ms. Rheeā€™s ā€œsmash mouthā€ school governance and the resulting mile-wide gap at the line of scrimmage through which just about anyone could scamper daintily to the end zone.

This is the third installment of a series on the Michelle Rhee legacy and the impact on school reform. You can access the series by clicking on Michelle Rhee or here.

Comments Off on Steve Peha: D.C. School Reform Opponents Are No Angels

Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /home/dropoutn/public_html/wp-content/themes/ralphkrause/ralphkrause/parts/mjr.php on line 47

Education’s Anti-Intellectual Problem


Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /home/dropoutn/public_html/wp-content/themes/ralphkrause/ralphkrause/parts/mjr.php on line 47

Sure, the battle over the reform and the future of American public education is as much about who controls education decision-making and how players within education are held accountable for…

Sure, the battle over the reform and the future of American public education is as much about who controls education decision-making and how players within education are held accountable for student achievement, as it is about how to improve education for all children. At the same time, it is also a battle over the intellectual growth of a field that has eschewed anything resembling intellectual curiosity and creativity.

At first, this may seem strange given that K-12 education is charged with providing the knowledge children need for their own intellectual development — and that so much of compensation within education (especially for teachers) is dependent on accumulating graduate degrees and other credentials. Eighteen of the 26 states surveyed by the National Council on Teacher Quality in 2008 for Invisible Ink in Collective Bargaining Agreements required school districts to provide pay increases to teachers if they attain advanced degrees (even though there is no correlative or causative effects between degree attainment and student achievement). [Full disclosure: I co-wrote the NCTQ report.] Yet acquiring advanced degrees isn’t exactly a sign of strong intellectual activity within a sector. What makes a sector vibrant intellectually? An embrace of the use of data in analysis and decision-making; curiosity about how other sectors handle issues similar to those within one’s own field; creative problem-solving of critical issues within a sector; an acceptance of criticism from those within and outside the sector without arguing that those critics are “scapegoating” professionals within it.

Certainly one group within education — the school reform movement — has most (if not all) of these attributes. Many of the younger teachers coming into the profession also have this intellectual dynamic. But among the rest of education — especially those defenders of traditional public education considered the lions of the profession — this isn’t exactly the case. If anything, the reaction to anything resembling intellectual activity among the Diane Ravitches, Randi Weingartens, David Berliners and Dennis Van Roekels is akin to that of Catholic priests when confronted by the work of Galileo and Tycho Brahe on the solar system.

A recent example comes courtesy of Aaron Pallas of Columbia University’s Teachers College, who hasn’t taken well to the efforts by school districts such as D.C. Public Schools to student test score data to evaluate teacher performance (and the use of value-added assessment, the innovation that has made such evaluations possible). Pallas criticized such efforts — particularly D.C.’s IMPACT evaluation system, which was used in the dismissal of 214 laggard teachers — because it and other “complex value-added systems” use “sophisticated… complex statistical calculations” that lack transparency because they are, well, complex. Pallas didn’t consider how statistical analysis is used daily by companies such as Google to improve how people search for information or the solid record of value-added analysis. Not at all.

When Pallas’ lack of thorough research and overall lack of intellectual curiosity was nailed by American Enterprise Institute’s Rick Hess, Pallas hardly offered a substantive response. Instead, he compared IMPACT and the use of value-added assessment to the housing crisis of the past few years — failing to understand that much of the crisis resulted not from the use of quantitative analysis, but from a combination of overly lax financial regulation, loose credit, poorly-considered federal housing policies, the moral hazard posed by federally-protected entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and outright fraud.

This lack of intellectual dynamism (and abject hostility to reform-minded thinking) is evident throughout education, even in the use of such meaningless jargon as “authentic learning” and “authentic assessment” in response to discussions about using more-object measures of student achievement. Educators and researchers still argue about teacher retention while ignoring how organizations in other sector have stopped discussing retention altogether and focus on recruiting high-quality talents and giving them opportunities for career and intellectual growth. Education researchers and policymakers continue this argument as if other sectors haven’t successfully tackkled similar human capital problems.

There are other symptoms: Teacher education remains mired in “education as democracy” theories and pedagogies that lack empirical basis — even as the work of Teach For America and others have shown that it is subject-knowledge competency and caring for children that matters most. Then there is the reluctance among many ed schools to embrace medical college-style training — that would allow for aspiring teachers to learn teaching in real time. The overall unwillingness to embrace the use of objective data in any aspect of education symbolizes an unwillingness to tackle the underlying causes of system academic failure in any meaningful way.

The anti-intellectualism can be read in the rantings of Ravitch, who essentially declared this week that teacher evaluation isn’t worth doing because “no effective teacher evaluation model exists”. It is clear in the response of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (the trade association for ed schools) to Ed Crowe’s report on teacher training for the Center for American Progress — which offered clear examples of effective professional training coming out of such professions as medicine and nursing — and to the critical work of NCTQ (long a thorn in the side of ed schools everywhere). And it is especially clear in the silly, shrill, thoughtless responses of some veteran teachers, who proclaim that criticism of poor-performing teachers and their enablers (including the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers) are attacks on teaching itself.

This anti-intellectualism explains why the responses to school reform efforts from defenders of the status quo have been, at best, lackluster and at worst, verging on mere insults and conspiracy theories of a corporate takeover of American public education. How can one mount a proper opposition when the intellectual arsenal includes warmed-over Buddhist sayings and arguments that defend tenure and seniority rights amid overwhelming evidence that such concepts do little for improving student achievement and teacher quality.

The results of this anti-intellectualism can be seen each and every day as 150 teens drop out of our schools and into poverty and prison. It does these kids no good. It keeps education from meeting the challenges of improving education and stemming the dropout crisis. This lack of intellectual dynamism cannot continue.

2 Comments on Education’s Anti-Intellectual Problem

Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /home/dropoutn/public_html/wp-content/themes/ralphkrause/ralphkrause/parts/mjr.php on line 47

The Dropout Nation Podcast: Five Steps Toward Fostering Great Teachers


Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /home/dropoutn/public_html/wp-content/themes/ralphkrause/ralphkrause/parts/mjr.php on line 47

On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast,Ā  I offer some important steps towards recruiting and developing more high-quality teachers. Eliminating tenure, eliminating seniority-based benefits and embracing the use of student performance…

Dropout Nation Podcast CoverOn this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast,Ā  I offer some important steps towards recruiting and developing more high-quality teachers. Eliminating tenure, eliminating seniority-based benefits and embracing the use of student performance data — along with moves such as the dismissal of 241 poor-performing teachers last week by D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee — are important steps towards improving teacher quality. But we must also improve how we recruit, train and reward good-to-great teachers in order to improve instruction for every child and foster high quality performance throughout all of American public education.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddleā€™s radio page or download directly to your iPod, MP3 player or smartphone. Also, subscribe to the podcast series. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Podcast Alley, the Education Podcast Network,Ā  Zune Marketplace and PodBean. Also, add the podcast on Viigo, if you have a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android phone.

2 Comments on The Dropout Nation Podcast: Five Steps Toward Fostering Great Teachers

Type on the field below and hit Enter/Return to search