In the last few weeks, the Times ran some pieces on teaching Evaluation. This is my response as it appeared in New Jersey Today this morning.
Improving The Assessment Of Teachers
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Opinion
Share
By Stephen Preskill
WAGNER COLLEGE NEWS SERVICE
How to improve the evaluation of teachers has become a hot topic. For one thing, the U.S. Education Department’s Race to the Top competition, which has added billions to reform efforts, demands more selective and rigorous teacher assessment systems. For another, public funds are so scarce that making sure schools recruit and retain the best people has become more urgent than ever. Additionally, a series of research studies about what contributes most to education improvement has consistently shown that good teaching is, by far, the most decisive variable.
So how do we come up with a system that supports and further develops excellent teachers, mentors struggling teachers toward greater effectiveness, fairly and efficiently eliminates the weakest instructors who don’t get better, and reflects the complexities of good teaching at its best?
If teacher evaluation is going to work, there is no doubt that good teaching needs to be defined carefully, that a comprehensive program of professional development to help all teachers improve needs to be in place, and that workable but fair procedures for eliminating weak teachers must be established. All of these are non-negotiables.
We also know that, according to studies done by the OECD countries — including the U.S., Canada and most of Europe — far too many school systems don’t even evaluate teachers on a regular basis. As a result, many of these teachers do not have a basis on which to gauge their own effectiveness. This must change.
But we can also be certain that teaching — and, therefore, schools — will not significantly improve until we take at least some of the pressure off the evaluation of individual teachers and apply it more systematically and creatively to evaluate how whole groups of teachers work together to help children learn.
School teaching, we now know, can no longer be regarded strictly as a private, individualistic, behind-closed-doors endeavor. Teaching is, in fact, at its best when it is a highly public, collaborative and communal enterprise. When teaching and curriculum development are openly and widely shared, and when colleagues know each other’s professional strengths and weaknesses well, it is unquestionably the case that teaching — and, as a result, schooling — gets better. Strong teachers become even stronger, and struggling teachers often blossom.
When communication throughout a school is transparent and free across subject matters and grade levels, educators are better able to work together to serve the children in their charge. They can plan and coordinate lessons and curricula so that they build on what has come before and anticipate what is to come. When a school creates a culture where teaching and learning are shared enterprises, the areas in need of improvement can be more easily spotted, and strategies for making change can be arrived at collaboratively. Such collaboration pushes everyone to perform at their best.
Of course, we will always need to evaluate individual teachers, and these individual evaluations will always figure prominently in any teaching assessment system. But because teaching is increasingly a public and a shared enterprise, all educators must be involved in assessing how every professional is contributing to a culture that is designed, above all, to help kids learn. Future systems of evaluation must put more far more emphasis on whole school effectiveness and improvement and on the role that individuals are playing in supporting teamwork, mutual accountability and responsibility for attaining shared goals.
The next step for evaluating teaching, therefore, must pair measures of whole school improvement with the assessment of individual performance. Only then will teacher evaluation begin to capture the complexities of K-12 instruction and begin to meet the challenges of 21st century school reform.
Stephen Preskill is chairman of the Education Department at Wagner College, a U.S. News & World Report Top 25 regional university located on Staten Island in New York City. You can email Dr. Preskill at stephen.preskill@wagner.edu.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Letter in the Times (web version)
While not in the actual paper today, here is a letter I wrote that appears in the web version in response to a David Brooks' column about Diane Ravitch and Ravitch's answer to Brooks:
To The Editor:
David Brooks maintains that Diane Ravitch’s attack on current school reform strategies lies in her belief that “poverty is the real issue, not bad schools.” In her May 31 Op-Ed article, “Waiting for a School Miracle,” Ms. Ravitch asserted, “If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our educational problems would be solved.”
But many children do not come from such environments. The question remains: What specifically can schools do to fill this critical gap? That’s what I’d like to hear from her.
STEPHEN PRESKILL
New York, July 6, 2011
And here is what I actually sent to the Times before they edited it:
To the Editor:
There is no question that David Brooks exaggerates Diane Ravitch’s criticism
of testing. She says, and I agree, that assessments should be used to
improve teaching and learning and not to evaluate the quality of teaching
or to determine compensation.
Brooks maintains that Ravitch’s attack on current school reform strategies
lies in her belief that “poverty is the real issue, not bad schools.” In an
article from the May 31 issue of the New York Times she naively asserted
that “If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to
learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our
educational problems would be solved.”
But many children do not come from such environments. The question remains:
What can schools do specifically to fill this critical gap? That’s
what I’d like to hear from her.
Stephen Preskill
170 West End Avenue, Apt. 6S
New York, NY 10023
(The writer is chair of the Education Department at Wagner College on
Staten Island)
And here is what I wrote even earlier that the Times never acknowledged at all:
To The Editor:
In his July 1, 2011 column, David Brooks astutely critiques the
educational reform agenda of Diane Ravitch - the "nation's most vocal
educational historian” - by underscoring what she regards as the
irreconcilable tension between teaching's humane foundation and
testing's mechanistic orientation. Brooks concedes that tension but
shows that it can be reconciled by actually naming schools where
testing exists compatibly with a commitment to liberal education. He
seems to be saying that Ravitch’s knee jerk ideological reaction
against testing and accountability has blinded her to the possibility
that standardized assessment can co-exist with humane goals.
But what Brooks misses is the nuance in that tension. It isn’t simply
a matter of keeping tests, while remaining committed to a clear
mission and "an invigorating moral culture." Important questions still
remain: How much is testing emphasized? Which tests are used? And how
are they analyzed to improve instruction? Additionally, while it is
probably true that without some form of ongoing assessment, "lethargy
and perpetual mediocrity" result, when testing overwhelms other
activities and becomes the primary means by which success is measured,
what really matters is often forgotten. And what really matters, after
all, is supporting kids in becoming engaged, curious, effective
learners. Tests will capture some of this to be sure, but much of it
is still left up to educators who are passionate about what they are
doing and who model a love of learning.
Stephen Preskill
170 West End Avenue, Apt. 6S
New York, NY 10023
(The writer is chair of the Education Department at Wagner College on Staten Island)
And believe it or not, here is still another version of a letter I worked on responding to Brooks and Ravitch. Amazing, isn't it, how much work goes into generating one measly publishable letter.
To the Editor:
Yesterday, David Brooks focused his New York Times Op-Ed column on the reform agenda of the "nation's most vocal educational historian." This would be, of course, none other than Diane Ravitch. His take on Ravitch is not all that different from mine posted back on June 1, 2011, but his concise identification of what Ravitch considers to be the inherent tension in today's educational reform climate - teaching's humane foundation versus testing's mechanistic orientation - explains a lot. Brooks concedes that tension but then goes on to do something Ravitch rarely does. He actually names schools where testing exists compatibly with a commitment to liberal education. Ravitch, he seems to be saying, has reached a point where her knee jerk ideological reaction against testing and accountability blinds her to the possibility that such things can co-exist with humane goals.
I must say, Brooks is on solid ground with all of this. But what Brooks misses is the nuance in that tension. It can't simply be a matter of keeping tests, while remaining committed to a clear mission, recruiting a strong principal and maintaining "an invigorating moral culture." Important questions still remain and need to be given their due: How much is testing emphasized? Which tests are used? And how are they analyzed to improve instruction? Additionally, while it is probably true that without some form of ongoing assessment, "lethargy and perpetual mediocrity" result, the degree to which testing is allowed to overwhelm other activities and to become the primary means by which success is measured, can make all the difference between creating a healthy school culture and one that loses sight of what really matters. What really matters, after all, is supporting kids in becoming engaged, curious, effective learners. Tests can capture some of this, but most of it is still left up to teachers who are passionate about what they are doing and model a love of learning.
To The Editor:
David Brooks maintains that Diane Ravitch’s attack on current school reform strategies lies in her belief that “poverty is the real issue, not bad schools.” In her May 31 Op-Ed article, “Waiting for a School Miracle,” Ms. Ravitch asserted, “If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our educational problems would be solved.”
But many children do not come from such environments. The question remains: What specifically can schools do to fill this critical gap? That’s what I’d like to hear from her.
STEPHEN PRESKILL
New York, July 6, 2011
And here is what I actually sent to the Times before they edited it:
To the Editor:
There is no question that David Brooks exaggerates Diane Ravitch’s criticism
of testing. She says, and I agree, that assessments should be used to
improve teaching and learning and not to evaluate the quality of teaching
or to determine compensation.
Brooks maintains that Ravitch’s attack on current school reform strategies
lies in her belief that “poverty is the real issue, not bad schools.” In an
article from the May 31 issue of the New York Times she naively asserted
that “If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to
learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our
educational problems would be solved.”
But many children do not come from such environments. The question remains:
What can schools do specifically to fill this critical gap? That’s
what I’d like to hear from her.
Stephen Preskill
170 West End Avenue, Apt. 6S
New York, NY 10023
(The writer is chair of the Education Department at Wagner College on
Staten Island)
And here is what I wrote even earlier that the Times never acknowledged at all:
To The Editor:
In his July 1, 2011 column, David Brooks astutely critiques the
educational reform agenda of Diane Ravitch - the "nation's most vocal
educational historian” - by underscoring what she regards as the
irreconcilable tension between teaching's humane foundation and
testing's mechanistic orientation. Brooks concedes that tension but
shows that it can be reconciled by actually naming schools where
testing exists compatibly with a commitment to liberal education. He
seems to be saying that Ravitch’s knee jerk ideological reaction
against testing and accountability has blinded her to the possibility
that standardized assessment can co-exist with humane goals.
But what Brooks misses is the nuance in that tension. It isn’t simply
a matter of keeping tests, while remaining committed to a clear
mission and "an invigorating moral culture." Important questions still
remain: How much is testing emphasized? Which tests are used? And how
are they analyzed to improve instruction? Additionally, while it is
probably true that without some form of ongoing assessment, "lethargy
and perpetual mediocrity" result, when testing overwhelms other
activities and becomes the primary means by which success is measured,
what really matters is often forgotten. And what really matters, after
all, is supporting kids in becoming engaged, curious, effective
learners. Tests will capture some of this to be sure, but much of it
is still left up to educators who are passionate about what they are
doing and who model a love of learning.
Stephen Preskill
170 West End Avenue, Apt. 6S
New York, NY 10023
(The writer is chair of the Education Department at Wagner College on Staten Island)
And believe it or not, here is still another version of a letter I worked on responding to Brooks and Ravitch. Amazing, isn't it, how much work goes into generating one measly publishable letter.
To the Editor:
Yesterday, David Brooks focused his New York Times Op-Ed column on the reform agenda of the "nation's most vocal educational historian." This would be, of course, none other than Diane Ravitch. His take on Ravitch is not all that different from mine posted back on June 1, 2011, but his concise identification of what Ravitch considers to be the inherent tension in today's educational reform climate - teaching's humane foundation versus testing's mechanistic orientation - explains a lot. Brooks concedes that tension but then goes on to do something Ravitch rarely does. He actually names schools where testing exists compatibly with a commitment to liberal education. Ravitch, he seems to be saying, has reached a point where her knee jerk ideological reaction against testing and accountability blinds her to the possibility that such things can co-exist with humane goals.
I must say, Brooks is on solid ground with all of this. But what Brooks misses is the nuance in that tension. It can't simply be a matter of keeping tests, while remaining committed to a clear mission, recruiting a strong principal and maintaining "an invigorating moral culture." Important questions still remain and need to be given their due: How much is testing emphasized? Which tests are used? And how are they analyzed to improve instruction? Additionally, while it is probably true that without some form of ongoing assessment, "lethargy and perpetual mediocrity" result, the degree to which testing is allowed to overwhelm other activities and to become the primary means by which success is measured, can make all the difference between creating a healthy school culture and one that loses sight of what really matters. What really matters, after all, is supporting kids in becoming engaged, curious, effective learners. Tests can capture some of this, but most of it is still left up to teachers who are passionate about what they are doing and model a love of learning.
Monday, July 4, 2011
The Real Lessons of the Declaration
I'm taking some liberties with my post today, as I really didn't find much about the Declaration of Independence in today's Times. Interesting, too, that I couldn't find a version of the Declaration in the online edition of the paper either. Usually, I read the Declaration aloud from the back page of the paper, but I have no paper copy these days, just the online edition and my iPad app.
As a result I went online and read the text of the original document and then ran into this piece from the Boston Herald by Jennifer Braceras. Calling her article "The Lasting Lessons of Independence," she begins by lamenting how few of us remember the reasons for celebrating the 4th and then goes on to enumerate its universal truths: "That all people are created equal; that our basic human rights derive from God, not government; that government exists for the purpose of protecting our God-given rights; and that government is the instrument of the people — not the other way around."
All good, as far as it goes, but I am also struck by her omissions. Jefferson also says this: "That whenever any Form of Government" fails to secure these rights, "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Of course, you don't resort to such drastic action without first exhausting all possible alternatives, but when everything else has been tried with no success and fundamental rights are still withheld from the people, then it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government. This is radical stuff and it is one of the main reasons why, as Braceras herself indicates, that the Declaration and the Constitution should never be confused.
But the implication of this radical notion, perhaps now more than ever, is also strikingly relevant. If the standard for just governments is that the safety and happiness of all the people must be effected and that some reasonable level of equality must be maintained, then it is arguable that our current government is falling woefully short. It would be silly, at least at this point in time, to use the Declaration to advocate an overthrow of our current government, but we have reached a point where the degree of inequality is so outrageous, the extent of public safety so uneven, and the level of general happiness so diminished as to put our leaders on notice that unless significant change comes soon in the direction of greater equality, safety, and happiness for all, then a radical alteration of the current governing system must be regarded as a distinct possibility.
As a result I went online and read the text of the original document and then ran into this piece from the Boston Herald by Jennifer Braceras. Calling her article "The Lasting Lessons of Independence," she begins by lamenting how few of us remember the reasons for celebrating the 4th and then goes on to enumerate its universal truths: "That all people are created equal; that our basic human rights derive from God, not government; that government exists for the purpose of protecting our God-given rights; and that government is the instrument of the people — not the other way around."
All good, as far as it goes, but I am also struck by her omissions. Jefferson also says this: "That whenever any Form of Government" fails to secure these rights, "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Of course, you don't resort to such drastic action without first exhausting all possible alternatives, but when everything else has been tried with no success and fundamental rights are still withheld from the people, then it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government. This is radical stuff and it is one of the main reasons why, as Braceras herself indicates, that the Declaration and the Constitution should never be confused.
But the implication of this radical notion, perhaps now more than ever, is also strikingly relevant. If the standard for just governments is that the safety and happiness of all the people must be effected and that some reasonable level of equality must be maintained, then it is arguable that our current government is falling woefully short. It would be silly, at least at this point in time, to use the Declaration to advocate an overthrow of our current government, but we have reached a point where the degree of inequality is so outrageous, the extent of public safety so uneven, and the level of general happiness so diminished as to put our leaders on notice that unless significant change comes soon in the direction of greater equality, safety, and happiness for all, then a radical alteration of the current governing system must be regarded as a distinct possibility.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
The Future of Medicare
I count myself a long time admirer of the work of medical ethicist Daniel Callahan. For many years, he has been a voice of sanity and wisdom about the need to allocate our medical funding more judiciously and fairly. I am therefore reluctant to say that his comments in the Sunday Review's "Sunday Dialogue" strike me as just off enough to distort a serious issue: how to fund Medicare in the coming decades.
His 80-year-old, self-sacrificing tone, "our duty is more to those coming after us than to ourselves," sounds reasonable, but, ironically, it is too self-absorbed to be helpful. When he says that the death of people his age is "no social tragedy," I personally identify with this view, while severely doubting whether other 80-year-olds and their families will necessarily concur. In any case, I am skeptical whether this kind of abstract sacrificing of oneself to the next generation is even necessary, given what we know about the economics of medical care.
Of course, Medicare is wasteful in some of the ways Callahan identifies. Overuse of expensive technology and excessively high expenditures on drugs that extend life for only a few months are at the top of this list. The recent stories about Medicare agreeing to fund drugs like Provenge and Avastin are certainly part of the problem and may be what Callahan is particularly concerned about.
His far more radical and I think misguided view, though, is that we should not be too concerned about promoting the health and well being of older people who have, as he puts it, lived a "full life," which he defines as reaching somewhere between 75-80 years old. He especially is concerned that the current level of Medicare cannot be maintained, something about which he is almost certainly correct, and that this must be balanced against the ability of younger people to live a sustainable life. Here, I think he is far more alarmist than necessary, given that young people appear to be flourishing in EU countries where the tax burden is much higher than here and given that the amount of taxes needed to grow Medicare at a reasonable rate need not be that great.
In fact, let's get specific here. Medicare costs ordinary folks about 1.5% of their income each year. For someone making $50,000, that's $750. A lot but hardly a crushing burden. Increasing that by, say, 50% to 2.25% of income, especially on incomes over, say, $50,000 is very doable. That would mean that a person making $75,000 a year would see his tax burden for Medicare go from about $1125 a year to around $1875. Sure, it's a fairly steep increase, but I don't think it is life altering, whereas dramatic losses in Medicare funding could be.
In any case, this little analysis as inexact as it may be should remind us that the kind of glittering generalities Callahan employs in his Sunday Dialogue really don't help with serious problems very much. We need specifics about the amount of sacrifice involved and the degree to which medical costs can be reasonably cut. What we don't need is a framework that makes a leap to pitting young people against old, particularly when many of the solutions to our problems, such as implementing a relatively modest increase in taxes, are not nearly as challenging as they may at first appear.
His 80-year-old, self-sacrificing tone, "our duty is more to those coming after us than to ourselves," sounds reasonable, but, ironically, it is too self-absorbed to be helpful. When he says that the death of people his age is "no social tragedy," I personally identify with this view, while severely doubting whether other 80-year-olds and their families will necessarily concur. In any case, I am skeptical whether this kind of abstract sacrificing of oneself to the next generation is even necessary, given what we know about the economics of medical care.
Of course, Medicare is wasteful in some of the ways Callahan identifies. Overuse of expensive technology and excessively high expenditures on drugs that extend life for only a few months are at the top of this list. The recent stories about Medicare agreeing to fund drugs like Provenge and Avastin are certainly part of the problem and may be what Callahan is particularly concerned about.
His far more radical and I think misguided view, though, is that we should not be too concerned about promoting the health and well being of older people who have, as he puts it, lived a "full life," which he defines as reaching somewhere between 75-80 years old. He especially is concerned that the current level of Medicare cannot be maintained, something about which he is almost certainly correct, and that this must be balanced against the ability of younger people to live a sustainable life. Here, I think he is far more alarmist than necessary, given that young people appear to be flourishing in EU countries where the tax burden is much higher than here and given that the amount of taxes needed to grow Medicare at a reasonable rate need not be that great.
In fact, let's get specific here. Medicare costs ordinary folks about 1.5% of their income each year. For someone making $50,000, that's $750. A lot but hardly a crushing burden. Increasing that by, say, 50% to 2.25% of income, especially on incomes over, say, $50,000 is very doable. That would mean that a person making $75,000 a year would see his tax burden for Medicare go from about $1125 a year to around $1875. Sure, it's a fairly steep increase, but I don't think it is life altering, whereas dramatic losses in Medicare funding could be.
In any case, this little analysis as inexact as it may be should remind us that the kind of glittering generalities Callahan employs in his Sunday Dialogue really don't help with serious problems very much. We need specifics about the amount of sacrifice involved and the degree to which medical costs can be reasonably cut. What we don't need is a framework that makes a leap to pitting young people against old, particularly when many of the solutions to our problems, such as implementing a relatively modest increase in taxes, are not nearly as challenging as they may at first appear.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Making Teacher Evaluation Work
For a number of reasons, there has been a lot of interest lately in how to improve the evaluation of teachers. First, the Education Department’s Race to the Top competition which has added billions to reform efforts requires that new systems of teacher evaluation be designed that are more rigorous and selective. Second, there is less money for public education and making sure that schools have the right people in the classroom has become more of a priority than ever. Third, a series of research studies about the factors that contribute most to education improvement have consistently shown that good teaching is, by far, the most decisive variable. It’s pretty clear good teaching makes a big difference for student learning and achievement. So how do we come up with a system that supports and further develops excellent teachers, mentors struggling teachers toward greater effectiveness, fairly and efficiently eliminates the weakest instructors, and reflects the complexities of good teaching at its best?
As recently reported by Sam Dillon in the New York Times, Washington D.C.’s Public Schools think they have an answer. Under their system, administrators and a corps of master educators share responsibility for observing and evaluating teachers using an agreed upon set of criteria that are linked to the research on good teaching. They also rely on student achievement test scores, but the observations are at the heart of the new approach. Unfortunately, some commentators have said that the system is much better at weeding out teachers than helping them to develop pedagogical expertise, and too often the master educators come across as more adversarial than nurturing.
A less touted but perhaps more promising model for evaluating teachers has been used for some time in Montgomery County, Maryland and was recently explored in an article for the New York Times by Michael Winerip. Called PAR – Peer Assistance and Review – this approach enlists hundreds of senior teachers as mentors to struggling teachers, not to evaluate them, but to help them get better. Teachers can only be discontinued when a PAR panel made up of an equal number of administrators and teachers is convinced that improvement has not occurred. This system emphasizes professional development at least as much as evaluation and enjoys district-wide support.
If teacher evaluation is going to work, there is no doubt that good teaching needs to be defined carefully, that a comprehensive program of professional development to help all teachers improve needs to be in place, and that better and more efficient procedures for eliminating weak teachers must be established. All of these are non-negotiables. Somehow, though, these ideas, despite their importance, miss a critical point about the realities of effective teaching, especially in K-12 schools.
School teaching, we now know, can no longer be a private, individualistic, behind-closed-doors endeavor. Teaching is, in fact, at its best when it is a highly public, collaborative and communal enterprise. When teaching and curriculum development are openly and widely shared and when colleagues know each other’s professional strengths and weaknesses well, it is unquestionably the case that teaching gets better. Strong teachers become even stronger and struggling teachers often blossom. When communication throughout a school is transparent and free across subject matters and grade levels, educators are better able to work together to serve the children in their charge. They can plan and coordinate lessons and curricula so that they build on what has come before and anticipate what is to come. When a school creates a culture where teaching and learning are shared enterprises, the areas in need of improvement can be more easily spotted and strategies for making change can be arrived at collaboratively. Such collaboration pushes everyone to perform at their best.
In the end, this is all a way of saying that although we will always need to evaluate individual teachers, an equally important indicator of excellence is the performance of the school as whole and how each individual educator is contributing to the ongoing betterment of that whole. Future systems of evaluation, then, must put more far more emphasis on whole school effectiveness and improvement and on the role that individuals are playing in supporting teamwork, mutual accountability, and shared responsibility for attaining shared goals. The next step for evaluating teaching, therefore, must pair measures of whole school improvement with the assessment of individual performance. Only then will teacher evaluation capture the complexities of K-12 instruction and begin to meet the challenges of 21st century school reform.
As recently reported by Sam Dillon in the New York Times, Washington D.C.’s Public Schools think they have an answer. Under their system, administrators and a corps of master educators share responsibility for observing and evaluating teachers using an agreed upon set of criteria that are linked to the research on good teaching. They also rely on student achievement test scores, but the observations are at the heart of the new approach. Unfortunately, some commentators have said that the system is much better at weeding out teachers than helping them to develop pedagogical expertise, and too often the master educators come across as more adversarial than nurturing.
A less touted but perhaps more promising model for evaluating teachers has been used for some time in Montgomery County, Maryland and was recently explored in an article for the New York Times by Michael Winerip. Called PAR – Peer Assistance and Review – this approach enlists hundreds of senior teachers as mentors to struggling teachers, not to evaluate them, but to help them get better. Teachers can only be discontinued when a PAR panel made up of an equal number of administrators and teachers is convinced that improvement has not occurred. This system emphasizes professional development at least as much as evaluation and enjoys district-wide support.
If teacher evaluation is going to work, there is no doubt that good teaching needs to be defined carefully, that a comprehensive program of professional development to help all teachers improve needs to be in place, and that better and more efficient procedures for eliminating weak teachers must be established. All of these are non-negotiables. Somehow, though, these ideas, despite their importance, miss a critical point about the realities of effective teaching, especially in K-12 schools.
School teaching, we now know, can no longer be a private, individualistic, behind-closed-doors endeavor. Teaching is, in fact, at its best when it is a highly public, collaborative and communal enterprise. When teaching and curriculum development are openly and widely shared and when colleagues know each other’s professional strengths and weaknesses well, it is unquestionably the case that teaching gets better. Strong teachers become even stronger and struggling teachers often blossom. When communication throughout a school is transparent and free across subject matters and grade levels, educators are better able to work together to serve the children in their charge. They can plan and coordinate lessons and curricula so that they build on what has come before and anticipate what is to come. When a school creates a culture where teaching and learning are shared enterprises, the areas in need of improvement can be more easily spotted and strategies for making change can be arrived at collaboratively. Such collaboration pushes everyone to perform at their best.
In the end, this is all a way of saying that although we will always need to evaluate individual teachers, an equally important indicator of excellence is the performance of the school as whole and how each individual educator is contributing to the ongoing betterment of that whole. Future systems of evaluation, then, must put more far more emphasis on whole school effectiveness and improvement and on the role that individuals are playing in supporting teamwork, mutual accountability, and shared responsibility for attaining shared goals. The next step for evaluating teaching, therefore, must pair measures of whole school improvement with the assessment of individual performance. Only then will teacher evaluation capture the complexities of K-12 instruction and begin to meet the challenges of 21st century school reform.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
More Praise of Not Knowing
A quite unusual op-ed piece managed to sneak its way on to the Sunday Opinion pages of the New York Times on Sunday, June 19. Called "In Praise of Not Knowing" and written by Tim Krieder, a writer and cartoonist who is preparing an essay collection entitled "We Learn Nothing," the piece celebrates the thrilling feeling which has become increasingly rare in the internet age of possessing knowledge of something that appears to be unknown to just about everyone else. The author recounts a time in the 1980s when he and a friend learned about an obscure contemporary classical music composer named Harry Partch and the delight they experienced in seeming to be the unique holders of this rarefied knowledge. This, of course, was before Mr. Partch could be googled and turn out to have, among other things, a lengthy Wikipedia entry to his credit.
In the end, though, what Mr. Krieder really wants to discuss is how rare it has become in an era of "instant accessibility" to enjoy the exhilaration of not knowing the answer to every question that can be posed. Not knowing, he argues, fuels curiosity and the drive to find things out. Having ready answers to everything, whether correct or not, actually deters the motivation to learn, to uncover life's greatest quandaries. More than ever, he seems to be arguing, we must work at keeping some of the available answers at bay. It follows, too, that we must value the questions at least as much as the answers, and devote more time to helping learners develop a sense of wonder and encouraging them to revel in what appear to be the unconquerable mysteries of life.
As Mr. Krieder says in his conclusion, learning to turn ignorance into mystery and not knowing into a sense of wonder may have become the most neglected of skills. "It turns out," Mr. Krieder affirms, "that the most important things in this life--why the universe is here instead of not, what happens to us when we die, how the people we love really feel about us are things we're never going to know."
So, I say, let the not knowing begin. We have nothing to lose but a few answers that were most likely arrived at prematurely without a whole lot of thought or effort anyway.
In the end, though, what Mr. Krieder really wants to discuss is how rare it has become in an era of "instant accessibility" to enjoy the exhilaration of not knowing the answer to every question that can be posed. Not knowing, he argues, fuels curiosity and the drive to find things out. Having ready answers to everything, whether correct or not, actually deters the motivation to learn, to uncover life's greatest quandaries. More than ever, he seems to be arguing, we must work at keeping some of the available answers at bay. It follows, too, that we must value the questions at least as much as the answers, and devote more time to helping learners develop a sense of wonder and encouraging them to revel in what appear to be the unconquerable mysteries of life.
As Mr. Krieder says in his conclusion, learning to turn ignorance into mystery and not knowing into a sense of wonder may have become the most neglected of skills. "It turns out," Mr. Krieder affirms, "that the most important things in this life--why the universe is here instead of not, what happens to us when we die, how the people we love really feel about us are things we're never going to know."
So, I say, let the not knowing begin. We have nothing to lose but a few answers that were most likely arrived at prematurely without a whole lot of thought or effort anyway.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Sanitized History is Boring History
Here's a little something I sent to the NY Times a while back that did not get into the newspaper:
Op-Ed Contributor
Sanitized history is boring history
By STEPHEN PRESKILL
Staten Island, N.Y.
Results released Tuesday by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the gold standard of standardized tests, indicate that American students at all levels are alarmingly ignorant of the most basic facts of our own history. Sam Dillon of the New York Times reported on Wednesday, June 15th that only 20 percent of 4th graders, and a shockingly low 12% of high school seniors, showed proficiency on the history exam. The conclusion is inescapable that the vast majority of students possess virtually no knowledge of history.
As Dillon pointed out, most 4th graders could not explain why Abraham Lincoln was significant, and only a tiny percentage of students could identify what Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court case, was about.
As a long-time educator and follower of educational trends, I am not at all surprised by these results. They are exactly what I expect. There has never been a time when American high school students have done well on history examinations. And there is every reason to believe that the level of historical knowledge among the general public is just as abysmal. Over the years, the New York Times has reported many times how little our 17-year-olds know, but it has also shown — using its own specially prepared tests — that adults don’t know much more than their children.
I believe that James Loewen, author of “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” has the most plausible answer for why we don’t know our history: History is not retained or understood because it’s almost always taught in a boring way — and the reason it’s boring has everything to do with the half-truths and outright lies we tell about it.
Is it really surprising that students don’t know about the Brown case when so many teachers provide them with so little historical context for understanding what a dramatic step forward that case represented? Why should our students know about Lincoln when we so frequently withhold from them what a wily politician he was or how far he progressed in his understanding of slavery and race during the course of the Civil War? Unlike a good movie about real life that is often interesting because all the boring parts have been taken out, we tend to teach history in high school with all the boring parts left in and all the really fascinating material removed so as to not to offend anyone.
This has been true for decades. Our history text books bored students to death for most of the 20th century because everything controversial about American life — including the racism, the sexism, the cultural genocides, the overwhelming social and economic inequities — has been omitted.
If we ever find the courage to tell the true and often tragic story of American history, our students will sit up, take notice, and learn. In the meantime, don’t expect change any time soon. Social studies is famous for being the most boring subject in school, and so it will remain as long as its textbooks and its teachers are unable to face up to the gut-wrenching but arresting truths about that history.
Stephen Preskill is the chairman of the Education Department at Wagner College on Staten Island, N.Y.
Op-Ed Contributor
Sanitized history is boring history
By STEPHEN PRESKILL
Staten Island, N.Y.
Results released Tuesday by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the gold standard of standardized tests, indicate that American students at all levels are alarmingly ignorant of the most basic facts of our own history. Sam Dillon of the New York Times reported on Wednesday, June 15th that only 20 percent of 4th graders, and a shockingly low 12% of high school seniors, showed proficiency on the history exam. The conclusion is inescapable that the vast majority of students possess virtually no knowledge of history.
As Dillon pointed out, most 4th graders could not explain why Abraham Lincoln was significant, and only a tiny percentage of students could identify what Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court case, was about.
As a long-time educator and follower of educational trends, I am not at all surprised by these results. They are exactly what I expect. There has never been a time when American high school students have done well on history examinations. And there is every reason to believe that the level of historical knowledge among the general public is just as abysmal. Over the years, the New York Times has reported many times how little our 17-year-olds know, but it has also shown — using its own specially prepared tests — that adults don’t know much more than their children.
I believe that James Loewen, author of “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” has the most plausible answer for why we don’t know our history: History is not retained or understood because it’s almost always taught in a boring way — and the reason it’s boring has everything to do with the half-truths and outright lies we tell about it.
Is it really surprising that students don’t know about the Brown case when so many teachers provide them with so little historical context for understanding what a dramatic step forward that case represented? Why should our students know about Lincoln when we so frequently withhold from them what a wily politician he was or how far he progressed in his understanding of slavery and race during the course of the Civil War? Unlike a good movie about real life that is often interesting because all the boring parts have been taken out, we tend to teach history in high school with all the boring parts left in and all the really fascinating material removed so as to not to offend anyone.
This has been true for decades. Our history text books bored students to death for most of the 20th century because everything controversial about American life — including the racism, the sexism, the cultural genocides, the overwhelming social and economic inequities — has been omitted.
If we ever find the courage to tell the true and often tragic story of American history, our students will sit up, take notice, and learn. In the meantime, don’t expect change any time soon. Social studies is famous for being the most boring subject in school, and so it will remain as long as its textbooks and its teachers are unable to face up to the gut-wrenching but arresting truths about that history.
Stephen Preskill is the chairman of the Education Department at Wagner College on Staten Island, N.Y.
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