Issues In Education

Finding the Compass and Defining the Future for Educational Reform and Evaluation

There are a lot of passionate opinions surrounding Teacher Evaluation in our current educational communities and for very good reason. Unfortunately, it is also currently a climate filled with clouds of confusion and miscommunications. There are many underlying reasons/causes for the current climate, importance and culture around the subject in the State of Michigan alone, not to mention the larger climate at the Federal and National levels.

When we provide any good or service to our country and community, it is very important we make sure we have well aligned standards, expectations, requirements, goals and future aspirations or visions for the company(ies), field, or institution(s) that are primarily responsible for providing it. When the service you provide is the basis for how well your society overall will run, such as is the case in Education, Healthcare and Criminal Justice, it becomes all the more important to ensure a quality, equitable service.

Here in lies a major source of our problems. Societies in all of History have not been afforded the luxury of equality and equity. Throughout human history we have competed for land and natural resources to be able to keep “Our People” safe and comfortable. This has shaped and impacted the evolution of human psychology, sociology, society and inevitably education.

We tend to worry first about “Our kids” and “Our Neighborhood” because we are, or at least believe ourselves to be, limited in our ability to impact our surroundings.

“I can’t worry about those starving kids in Africa until my own kids and those in my neighborhood are all fed”

This localized mentality can lead to great neighborhood initiatives and powerful impacts on communities that inspire and drive us to look beyond our self-described limits and do more, reach higher, be bigger.

There is nothing wrong with trying to improve your local surroundings, we should all “Blossom where we are planted” but we must never forget our suffering and the suffering and problems of those around us are no better or worse than the conditions millions of others are facing around the world. There is always someone better off and always someone worse off, comparing and competing only divides us.

• Stay connected, not just to those you love, but to your community, your state, your nation and the global society as a whole in whatever ways and capacity you can.
• To survive as a species, we need to remember the bigger picture, even when we can only face what is in front of us each day. This is no simple task, but advances in technology and communication go a long way in helping us remember, of keeping us in touch and occasionally putting us in our place.

These are the first lessons we need to apply and remember as we create Teacher Evaluation Systems, in Michigan and beyond.

We need to meet the needs of an infinitely diverse population of individuals while also creating equal opportunities for all of them to reach their highest potential and personal satisfaction in their individual life goals and future careers.

Each question answered, leads to more questions and potential issues. Who should decide a students life goal? The limit to their potential? The amount of support and assistance they deserve to get there? Who can say what will lead to personal satisfaction in their adult life? There are some logical answers and conclusions to these questions, but yet opinions vary widely and we need to come to some basic understanding and agreement on these issues before we can define the details of all of our educational policy.

Zooming out; When we look at Evaluation as tool, used in various fields for programs, methods, products, systems by institutions, companies, nations and states, some basic rules/truths remain the same. We must first know and define our product/service and then agree upon and define what we consider to be acceptable, high quality, and unacceptably low quality. These are very wide and difficult to define categories when we look at services vs. goods. Goods all cost money, but services can cost lives.

Zooming back in; The first and most important step in creating an evaluation system for a service, is defining. We must start by defining the service itself, what is the ultimate purpose of this service? What does it boil down to at its most basic concepts and purposes for existence? This must be vague yet firm in it's definition and boundaries. When we look at Education as a Public Service, its' purpose can most firmly be defined as providing the structure to help develop future citizens that will progress and improve any environment they are placed in.

This purpose serves the selfish purpose for our survival as a species, and also benefits any community, state, or nation an individual may choose to participate in. There is a danger in allowing their choice; in the freedom of an individual to become whatever they choose to be. However, freedom is what our nation was based upon, and therefore should be inherent in our Educational system provided for through taxes paid to our Nation, and State. Freedom is one or our nations founding principles and provides part of our framework.

The freedom in the definition highlights the vital importance of a well thought-out system and support structure similar to what the founders of our nation provided when framing our constitution and the future of our governing systems. Such a system and framework can only be done through collaboration and communication from within the system which provides the service, and the members the services are provided for. All stakeholders must have an opportunity to speak their mind and share their concerns. This can ensure every angle, nook/cranny and situation can be taken into consideration.

The first and most important step of any educational reform, especially when it comes to something as vital as Evaluation, is to create a collaborative group of people from within the system providing the service. This team must also be open to the input and ideas of others from within the field and the various communities and individuals they serve. This input can then guide them in leading the way in the community discussion and decision making process. Technology, social media and other modern communication tools should be utilized to increase the participation of a wide range of service providers and community members from all branches of the field. When we put in the time and effort to ensure all stakeholders are involved in the process through representation, we can build for the future not just for today.

The Ideological Battle in Michigan Education

Originally posted March 21, 2015 on Facebook

**Warning: This note may contain the opinion of an over worked, over stressed High School Teacher. Attempts will be made to put opinions in Italics, but no promises**

    There is currently an ideological battle occurring in Michigan Education between MDE (Michigan Department of Education) and the Michigan State Legislature in Lansing. To understand this battle there is some background information that needs to be laid down.

    In 1965 LBJ passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), its' purpose was to offer: 

 "new grants to districts serving low-income students, federal grants for text and library books, it created special education centers, and created scholarships for low-income college students. Additionally, the law provided federal grants to state educational agencies to improve the quality of elementary and secondary education."  (1)

     In 2002 George W. Bush resurrected the old bill adding updates and getting it passed through Congress as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This new education policy was to require the grading of schools based on standardized test scores, and provide "Highly Qualified Teachers" by ensuring all teachers be certified and have a Major in the subject area they teach.

     This was the beginning of the storm, not that education didn't need some reform, but this was jumping to a solution before investigating the real problem or its' causes. From personal experience I can tell you that NCLB was the very beginning of the decline of interest in the teaching field of young college students. I almost did not complete my degree in large part because of the confusion and anxiety caused by NCLB and what it was going to mean to teachers. The main thing NCLB did for education was to emphasize the gap in our current education system.

      Many suburban schools struggled to meet the new Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) standards, but many others managed to make the cut and have high enough scores on standardized test to be in the clear. However, in the inner cities it was a very different story, with very few schools managing to make AYP and most failing miserably. This gave further evidence to what many people had been saying for years, that education in the inner cities was not equivalent to an education in the suburbs. When these schools failed to meet AYP for 2 years in a row, which many in the cities did, the started to loose funding as a penalty.

       This cut in funding led to many schools in the inner cities closing down, especially since many districts bordering big cities had embraced "School of Choice" which allowed students to attend districts in which they did not live. In addition Charter schools were on the upswing and in the 2010-2011 school year the regulations on Charters were lightened allowing far more to open, with less regulations. This lead to a much higher frequency of Charter schools in the inner cities than in suburbs, but with NCLB's AYP regulations not even a charter school could continually fail to meet AYP and continue business as usual forever. Enter the ESEA flexibility program.

   In 2012 under President Obama, the feds started to offer states the opportunity to apply for some flexibility from the harsh regulations of NCLB. The purpose was to allow time for states to address the issues of inequality and come up with a better system and assessments that would more fairly test students. To be approved for the ESEA flexibility program states had to submit an application including a comprehensive plan to:

            "close achievement gaps, increase equity, improve the quality of instruction, and increase outcomes for all students. Thus far 42 states,

 DC and Puerto Rico have received flexibility from NCLB." (1)

     There was a great need for some relief from NCLB and time for states to figure out the best way to address the concerns that were brought front and center. However, an unintentional consequence has been a lack of consequences for schools and a lot of chaos and confusion in the field of education.

      The plan that MDE submitted included the switch to Common Core for English and Math (there is no common core yet for Social Studies and Science) and continuing with MME/ACT testing for 11th graders and MEAP for k-8. Meanwhile, they (MDE) participated in a consortium to make a new assessment that would test for the 21st century skills of critical thinking, analysis, research and writing, in addition to the core academics (English, Math, Science and Social Studies). Under this flex program schools are judged more heavily on the percentage of students they manage to test, rather than on the scores and teachers are not required to be evaluated on standardized test scores. The ESEA flexibility program expires at the end of this school year, July 1st 2015, but there is a 3 year extension which MDE plans to apply for, the deadline is March 31st.

      Although this flexibility allows some schools to continue operating that are not meeting AYP, and some that are doing a seriously terrible job of educating our youth, it is a necessary evil, because without it the state would return to the overly harsh and unjust regulations outlined in NCLB. Without ESEA flexibility the state would likely face an educational crisis due to a massive number of school closing and/or a massive underfunding of schools that are already struggling to educate children. This crisis would hit inner cities harder than anywhere else due the higher number of students not taking the tests. 

    

     Now that we are caught up with our history we can talk about the ideological crisis. Starting in 2013 the Michigan State Legislature started taking notice of, and offense to the adoption of the Common Core standards. They complained that the MDE did not give enough notice or press to the issue before adopting the standards and a fear was expressed that perhaps the Federal Government was trying to take over public education.

      A fear that has spread rumors about Common Core and how dirty and socialist/communist it is. Why should the Federal Government have a save in an industry that has now been privatized and is starting to make a few people very rich? The few people who are actually informed of what Common Core really is and are still afraid of it are those who are looking to lose money if the Feds start to take part in regulating education and attempting to ensure a just education to all.  

     In their fear of Federal interference in education the Michigan State Legislature last year barred the MDE from using the long awaited Smarter Balanced Assessment (which they helped build in the Consortium) because it was a National Standardized test, they did this just 9 months before the test was to be implemented. This decision by the Legislature left MDE to scramble to come up with how they would assess students in the 2014-2015 school year. It normally takes about 3 years to develop a new standardized test, so MDE was left with packing the Smarter Balanced Assessment as the Michigan Student Test of Education Progress (M-STEP) and unsure of what next year’s assessment will be because of dissent from the Michigan State Legislature and their fear of Common Core. 

     What these legislatures and other opposition to Common Core fail to realize is that they put an emphasis on the skills to be taught but not the content. There is plenty of room left in Common Core for teachers, districts or even states to decide what content is used to teach the skills. Keeping in mind there are yet no Common Core standards for Social Studies and Science, in which the 21st century skills should be emphasized but according to the current state standards (HSCE's in High School and GLCE's in primary education) the skills are not focused on, only the very detailed and specific content. Ask yourself this: is knowing what year WWI started and ended more important, or being able to determine causes and impacts of WWI? This is the difference I have personally seen between Common Core and State Standards. 

    So where does all of this history and conflict leave us? Currently we have no idea what tests High School Juniors will face next March, other than that they will be taking the SAT instead of ACT, due to a better bid on the part of SAT. This answers nothing for primary education and still only a small amount for 11th graders, because there will be some kind of additional testing but whether it is the Smarter Balance Assessment or something else the MDE will have to come up with in less than a year is yet to be determined. In addition, if the ESEA flexibility program is not renewed the state will face a crisis in the return to NCLB and its' penalties for schools not meeting AYP, which since 2011 has only been based on the % of students tested. While this may seem like a saving grace, it could be the death blow to many inner city schools who struggle to get 95% attendance on any given day much less on a day of 4+ hours of stressful testing. 

    I hope you are now thinking; what can I do? If you are, you can write your local state representatives and express your concerns and opinions on the Common Core and/or the extension of the ESEA flexibility program. I may be starting an action shortly in regards to the issue if you are interested then stay tuned...

(1) "Elementary and Secondary Education Act." Elementary and Secondary Education Act. U.S. Department of Education, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. <http://www.ed.gov/esea>.

Other Sources:

Resmovits, Joy. "Charter School Growth In Michigan Brings Cautionary Tale On Quality."The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 Jan. 2013. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/17/charter-school-quality_n_2490931.html>.

Higgins, Lori. "Experts Urge Michigan Lawmakers to Rescind 'mediocre' Standards for Student Learning." Detroit Free Press. Detroit Free Press, 20 Mar. 2013. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://archive.freep.com/article/20130320/NEWS15/130320062/Experts-urge-Michigan-lawmakers-to-rescind-mediocre-standards-for-student-learning>.

"MICHIGAN EDUCATION DIGEST March 26, 2013." House Passes Legislation to Limit Funding for Districts Circumventing RTW, School Funding Higher than ... [Mackinac Center]. Mackinac Center for Public Policy, 26 Mar. 2013. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://www.mackinac.org/18455>.

"K-12 Reforms: Strategic Initiatives to Foster Real Change." K-12 Reforms: Strategic Initiatives to Foster Real Change. U.S. Department of Education, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2015. <http://www.ed.gov/k-12reforms>.

Sawchuk, Stephen. "Steep Drops Seen in Teacher-Prep Enrollment Numbers." Education Week. Education Week, 21 Oct. 2014. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/10/22/09enroll.h34.html>.

"Smarter Balanced Assessments." Smarter Balanced Assessments. Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://www.smarterbalanced.org/smarter-balanced-assessments/>.

Einhorn, Erin. "Common Core Means 3 Tests In 3 Years For Michigan Kids." NPR. NPR, 18 Mar. 2015. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/03/18/389772922/common-core-means-three-tests-in-three-years-for-michigan-kids>.