John Merrow & PBS: Three Part Examination of No Child Left Behind

PBS Newshour Correspondent John Merrow has a three part series this week on No Child Left Behind. Yesterday (Monday) dealt with NCLB Loopholes. Today dealt with NCLB sanctions and charter schools. The series will wrap up tomorrow (and I will update the post then). Anyway, I will post all the links and my thoughts on each segment when they become available. Today, Part I.

Part I: NCLB Loopholes (for video, click "Streaming Video") (13:27)

Commentators:
Kevin Carey, Education Sector: His blog - The Quick and the Ed
Chester Finn, Fordham Foundation - Commentary in the Weekly Bulletin The Education Gadfly

MY THOUGHTS:

1. First, wasn't odd that Merrow seemed to be attacking Margaret Spellings and the Department of Education from the right? At one point she actually said, "John, I am as hawkish as any person in this country is on
   closing the achievement gap and on accountability, and I have a record
   that would suggest that, absolutely. But, you know, are we on an
   accountability journey ..." Spellings was actually defending NCLB for not being strong enough! From being around educators all the time, this seems a very odd position indeed. Sometimes I wonder how much time John Merrow spends around educators because his questions often seem to come from a position alien to the position of most educators.
   
2. Is it any surprise that they were bringing up statistical issues, including confidence intervals? When you rely on only test scores for AYP measurements (yes, I know attendance is included) you are going to have to rely heavily on statistics. On the issue of subgroup size, is it a surprise that schools do not count students groups with fewer than 40 or so students? It shouldn't be, if it is. Statistics don't work when you are dealing with so few students. So the reliance on statistics (based on test scores) ... is actually leaving students behind. On the confidence levels, again, statistics are a flawed measurement instrument that are not precise in many cases. Now, schools that are using 20 + or - confidence intervals are clearly taking advantage of this. But, it is not the schools that are the essential problem, it is the reliance solely on statistics. If there were a multitude of factors used in judging schools, the statistical issues would not create such problems.
   
3. So states are "backloading" the NCLB passage demand until 2010-2014. Well, duh. Merrow says states are lowering the hurdles to make the race easier. My question? Who wouldn't lower the hurdle bar in a track meet race if they could. To expect states to embarrass themselves by keeping the bar high when they have the power to lower it is foolish, unless the intent of the law was to do just that, embarrass states.
   
4. 100% proficiency by 2014: Finn's response "There's not an educator in the country that thinks that
   it's real or can happen, not one. Unfortunately, it breeds cynicism
   among educators. They say, "Well, why shouldn't we take advantage of
   every angle we can take advantage of so we don't look bad in the
   process of not achieving that goal?" I absolutely agree and it is good to hear it from Finn. It was a silly, silly provision which has caused a backlash with educators against the whole law. If NCLB did not includes some of these silly provisions, educators might have actually goy on board with it.
   
5. Notice Margaret Spellings reauthorization timeline at the end? Don't worry, I caught it for you: "Well, we passed the very best law we could five years ago,
   when about half of the states had no annual measurement systems, so
   we're making progress. Should we make improvements to the law as we
   reauthorize it this year? Heck yes." Optimistic?
   

         
          Comments, Thoughts? Agree, Disagree? Post them in the comments section below.

Part II: Failing San Deigo Schools Work to Meet Standards (for Video, click "Streaming Video") (11:54)

My Thoughts:

1. Charter schools pose a variety of opportunities and problems. These charter schools seem to be functioning well in San Diego. That is good. However, there are plenty of other examples of charters around the country that are not functioning as well. But, this segment did point out a problem of traditional schools viewing charter schools with hostility and vice versa. Why? It is still a public school. Charters can be centers of innovation and that innovation can translate into the traditional public schools. On the other hand, charters are dependent on traditional structures for most of their operations. And charters are still reliant on traditional publics to serve a majority of the population. Charters serve a unique niche and they are doing a pretty good job of fulfilling that niche. However, charters are not really a threat to traditional public schools. If a majority of publics were converted to charters, it would be an administrative nightmare not to mention that charters would then lose their most important asset, the innovation that is possible by serving only small populations. So, while I agree charters are causing traditional publics to adopt new innovations they may be reluctant to adopt, charters are not a significant threat to public education in this country. Thus, the hostility is unwarranted.
   
2. Correspondingly, I actually see just as much of the hostility in this situation coming from the charter side. The former superintendent Alan Bernstein was high on competition,
   saying that was "the point of charter schools." I would have to disagree. In fact, it is opinions like this that are at the heart of the hostility. It is not a competition! Competitions imply and generate hostility. And, to be frank, if charters want to make this a competition, well, they would disappear quickly because for the most part it is the traditional public school system that even allows the charter to exist in the first place. If this was the kind of hostile leadership the superintendent was providing, it should be no surprise there is a lot of hostility between the traditionals and the charters. Seems like there was a failure of leadership ... and, thus, perhaps the firing was appropriate.
   
3. Was anyone surprised that the Union did not waive its rights when asked by SDUSD? If the union did waive its bargained for rights without getting something in return from the district, then they would not be doing their job. The union is in place to give rights to teachers. I don't think we can blame the union when it does its job and protects the teachers' rights.
4. Finally, almost as an aside, I did like that leaders of the charter school looked like professionals and wore suits. Like it or not when people dress professionally, they generate additional respect. In a system that depends so heavily on respect, it doesn't hurt to look nice.
   

          Comments, Thoughts? Agree, Disagree? Post them in the comments section below.

Part III: Teachers Grapple with Attaining Education Law's Goals (For Video, Click "Streaming Video") (12:10)

My Thoughts:

1. Well, first, let me apologize, at least in part, for comment #1 from Part #1 above about John Merrow not being in touch with the education community. This segment was all about listening to what classroom teachers have to say. Why those kinds of questions were not asked earlier, I don't know, but at least the teacher's voices were heard in one of the three segments.
   
2. Doesn't it make sense when you are going to write a large, national education law to ask educators what they think? Isn't that like policy-making 101 for dummies? I am not going to sit here and say that we have all good teachers. But to exclude all teachers from the national conversation is narrowminded at best. To think that a Washington policy wonk with no practical experience in education can come in and craft a law that would magically "leave no child behind" was arrogant and harmful to the education system. We did not have a panacea for an education system before this law, but at least there was trust in the system. Trust that teachers were out for the best interest of children, trust between administrators and teachers, trust that your local public school was a good school. Now, much, if not all, of that trust has been eliminated in the name of accountability. It is no longer simply enough to see with your own eyes that your local public school is doing a good job, now you need to see a number in the newspaper. I am not sure we can ever get that kind of trust back. The loss of trust in the system might be the most harmful and long-lasting effect of NCLB.
   
3. Comment from Lynn Riggs, a good teacher in Virginia: "I think that multiple-choice, bubble-in tests are the
   easiest kind of tests to give. Why are we spending all of this time
   training kids to give us the right answer when we should be training
   them to think?" Good question Lynn. If someone has an answer to that, I would like to know it.
4. Let me highlight a flaw in the reasoning of Sec. Spellings and why we need educators and not politicians running the system. After being asked why the test is narrowing curriculum and causing children to engage in multiple choice drills instead of analytical learning, Sec. Spellings replied, "Well, I mean, I guess what my question is, is that person
   advocating that we go back to not finding out how poorly or how well
   our students are being served, that we eliminate measurement of kids?" Luckily, I was not the only one to notice this flaw: Here is the follow-up exchange: John Merrow: "But Bailey's teachers don't believe that one test is an accurate measure of student progress."   BETSY
   WALTER: "As a teacher, I'm continually assessing my students. And I
   believe that they're much more authentic assessments than a
   standardized test. I don't come in every day and baby sit. I am a
   teacher. We have significant learning that goes on every day. It just
   might not be shown on that test that someone developed at the testing
   place." This was the exact right response. To say that before NCLB there was no "measurement" of children is just downright dishonest. Not only were there the standard measurements we could refer to such as grades (oh, yeah, remember those), but there was measurement by the community, by administrators, by teachers... It is not like education was just some free for all where everyone did as they pleased and no one was held accountable. While Secretary Spellings has not shown she has mastered the task of running the nations education system, there does seem to be one thing she has down pat: political speak. I guess that is to be expected of someone with a degree in politics and not education. 

          Comments, Thoughts? Agree, Disagree? Post them in the comments section below.

Overall Thoughts:

Overall, I still believe that John Merrow is one of the best media advocates for education issues today, if not the best. While I would have liked to see some different and harder questions asked of the people that wrote NCLB, a lot of NCLB's problems came through in the three part series. There is no doubt that as we reauthorize (or at least wait for reauthorization) there are a lot of things we need to think about. Can we continue to disenfranchise teachers? How can we better measure learning? Is there a way we can get away from statistical issues? What role should Charters play? These types of questions need to be on the national agenda. Judging from the emerging literature and recommendations from various sources about the NCLB reauthorization, I am not sure we are there yet. Hopefully, segments like this and reporters like John Merrow can call attention to the national charade that currently exists surrounding educational policy and we can start getting some real ideas from real educators on the table.

                                      

PBS is taking questions for Representatives George Miller and Howard McKeon, the leaders of the House Education Committee which will hear much of the testimony on this law and will probably be the first to produce a reauthorization bill that hits the floor of Congress. You can submit your question or comments here (I already submitted mine on SES). Additionally, PBS has gathered three Teacher of the Year recipients to take public questions and comments. You can submit your question or comment here. The responses to the questions and comments from both forums will be available August 23.

View other John Merrow Reports at his Podcasting Blog.