Defending the Indefensible

Sometimes I do stupid things. And today seems like a good day to do something stupid.

This story recently broke about a teacher who said some pretty harsh things to a 5 year-old in her kindergarten class. I won't copy the whole transcript but, in part, she said:

"I've been more than nice to you all year long and you've been ignorant, selfish, self-absorbed, the whole thing! I'm done! . . . Something needs to be done because you are pathetic! If me saying these words to you hurt, I hope it does because you're hurting everyone else around you."

Joanne Jacobs immediately pounced, writing, in part, "I don’t care how aggravating this boy was. He’s five years old."

Robert Pondiscio followed that up by highlighting one of the comments on Jacobs' blog that reads “I wonder how prevalent such abuse is; could this be more widespread than it looks?”

So, back to the plan for doing something stupid. I'm going to defend the teacher's actions. She may or may not deserve it, but I'll give it a stab anyway.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not arguing that it was okay for her to say these things. I thought berating students like this was over the top in my school -- and our kids were two to three times the age of this kid. She clearly shouldn't have said these things, and I'm assuming she realizes that as well.

That said, I'm also going to stick my neck out there and argue that what she did doesn't prove that she's the worst person in the world. To answer the question highlighted by Pondiscio, I firmly believe that such verbal abuse is more widespread than people realize. And not just in schools. I've heard worse things said by teachers, administrators, and parents (not to mention from students as well -- directed at both other students and at adults). I certainly said things that I now regret while teaching, and I know many others who have as well.

Granted, the fact that other people say things that are just as bad or worse doesn't excuse her actions (I can hear my Dad saying "If everybody else jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge does that mean that you would too?"), but it does lend some context. Why do people say things like this? That's the question that I'm not hearing asked.

In my case, and I'm guessing in others as well, one has to be pretty frustrated before they would say something like this. It takes a lot to make me frustrated enough to say something mean to somebody or yell and scream but trying to teach in my school was enough to do it. I can say with utmost confidence that trying to teach in my school was, far and away, the most frustrating thing I have ever tried to do. And discipline problems were, far and away, the most frustrating thing about trying to teach at my school.

Now, I have no idea what her school is like. Maybe her school is idyllic and she didn't like that he asked for strawberry milk even though she only has plain and chocolate. I'm not going to eliminate the possibility that she's simply a monster, but I'd say the odds are against it.

Anybody out there who's reading this and had kids, has taught kids, or has otherwise spent a great deal of time dealing with kids: have you ever snapped and lost your temper? Have you ever said anything you regretted? You probably realized that it was mean and counter-productive after the fact, but you can't go back and not say those things.

In the case of teachers, they snap . . . they lose their cool . . . they say things they shouldn't. And it's because they're human. Some do it more than others, some never do it, but it's something that I think we should confront. And I don't think vilifying teachers who happen to be caught on tape is going to solve the problem. Certainly what she said was over the line and her suspension is deserved, but let's not pretend that this is an isolated incident.

If we really want to prevent things like this from happening, we need to take a closer look at discipline issues. In my school, kids were out of control and teachers were expected to control them virtually single-handedly. If a teacher had a problem with a student, it was generally considered the teacher's fault. That's not an environment conducive to kindness and understanding on behalf of teachers. We have to realize that being a teacher can be frustrating and that discipline problems are a large source of frustration for many teachers. Personally, I think we should try to create systems that intervene in these types of situations before either the teacher or the student reaches the boiling point.

New Role for TFA

I was intrigued by an interesting suggestion that Robert Pondiscio made over at the Core Knowledge blog the other day, and the discussion surrounding it has me thinking. Here's a rundown for those of you who haven't been following along:

1.) Pondiscio writes that Wendy Kopp should consider a different tact for Teach For America (TFA) -- putting the new teachers they recruit in wealthy schools as fill-ins and taking some experienced teachers from these wealthy schools and putting them in poor urban/rural schools that TFA currently helps staff. This way the kids in these schools would be getting experienced teachers instead of recent college grads.

2.) Kopp takes the time to reply to Pondiscio's post and basically argues that the people she recruits are at least as good as the experienced teachers in wealthy schools.

3.) Eduwonkette calls out Kopp for some weak arguments and encourages Pondiscio to run with the idea.

The way I see it, everybody's points have some merit. Let me start with the fatal flaw of the idea and then make some suggestions on how it could be slightly modified into a one that even Kopp might like.

There are two reasons why Pondiscio's current idea will never work (other than the fact that Kopp, the head of TFA, doesn't want to implement it):

1.) Very few of the people who currently apply to TFA will volunteer to go serve in a wealthy suburban school as a placeholder while the experienced teacher from that school spends two years in a high-poverty school. I might be wrong about this, but I think the biggest draw of TFA and similar programs is the chance to make the world a better place. I'm willing to bet that almost every new TFA enrollee plans on transforming their class (if not the school) ala "Dangerous Minds," "Stand and Deliver," "Freedom Writers," etc. Serving in the suburbs for two years just doesn't have the same allure or romanticism.

2.) Wealthy suburban schools wouldn't hire uncertified TFA enrollees with no classroom experience. Many of these schools get hundreds of applicants for each open position and very few would have any problem finding a teacher they find qualified, motivated, and experienced to fill in for their teacher who's jaunting off to help save the world for a couple years.

That said, I still like the idea. I think Kopp was wrong to, essentially, summarily dismiss it. I'm maybe most disappointed in the fact that she cited a flawed study as definitive evidence that TFA shouldn't make any changes. Here are the tweaks I would make to the idea:

1.) For the reasons above I'd scrap the exchange part of the program. Why not recruit both recent college grads and experienced teachers to serve in underprivileged schools?

2.) I'd create a separate branch of TFA for experienced teachers. Similar to the Jennifer Steinberger Pease's idea of an "urban teaching corps" that I discussed earlier.

3.) I'd find some sort of incentive to draw these teachers into serving in these schools for 2+ years. TFA is quite adept at fundraising, so maybe they could raise some money for bonuses or something. I have little doubt that they could find a few thousand mid-career teachers to sign up to spend 2 years doing some community service if they pitched it correctly, could somehow guarantee them a job in their home district when/if they finished, and had some sort of incentive to boot.

TFA prides itself on its ability to select and train high-quality individuals and teachers. I see no reason why they couldn't do this with experienced teachers as well as recent college grads. If TFA is serious about upgrading high-poverty schools I think this is an idea they need to get behind.

Three Months

Since I already linked to an article quoting me today, I figured I'd write one more self-serving post before bedtime. Don't worry: I won't be mentioning myself much for the rest of the week.

I realized that today is the three-month anniversary of the start of this blog -- and that I received my 2,000th hit yesterday.

Sure, Jay P. Greene's blog has received like 14,000 hits in about half the time -- but I'm more than happy with where I am. Heck, it's about 1,900 more hits than I would've expected by this point in time.

I'm going to celebrate by going to bed early.

Another Queston about News Coverage

EdWeek published an article at the top of their website yesterday titled "Reading Scores Get 'Bump' From Student Incentives, Study Finds." The blurb under the headline reads "School-based reward programs that offer students such incentives as cash, free MP3 players, or other gifts appear to produce improved reading achievement across grade levels."

Meanwhile, if you read the article you find out that the this particular study found no effect of incentives on math performance.

So, here's my question: why do the headline and blurb beneath only mention half the story? Sure, the effect on reading scores is more newsworthy -- but that doesn't mean that math scores shouldn't be mentioned. How about this: "Study Finds Student Incentives Boost Reading Scores, Have No Effect on Math Scores."

Updating A Couple Recent Items

1.) The NYC cell phone ban was mentioned in an article in the Spokesman-Review (Spokane) today, and I was given the job of explaining how the ban played out in NYC. My favorite quote from the article, however, is not one of mine -- it's a quote from a student that serves as the final sentence of the article: “A rule that says you can’t use your cell phone whatsoever – I can guarantee you students are going to break that rule.”

2.) Regarding charter schools and "exit doors," there was an interesting piece in the Boston Globe yesterday. The article describes the recent exodus of a number of seniors from the MATCH charter school. It's unclear exactly what happened, but it appears as though the students were afraid (or were told) that they wouldn't meet MATCH's graduation standards, so they transferred to Boston public schools right before the end of the year hoping to earn a diploma. That particular case is interesting, b/c I'm not sure that the charter school gains that much even if they advised the kids to leave (other than upholding their high standards, I guess). Mike Petrilli says that this is evidence that Boston's schools' have standards that are too low. Possibly. But it also might be evidence that some charter schools are dumping their most problematic students on local public schools. A few seniors wouldn't help them much in this regard, but the article says that the school has a 60% graduation rate -- meaning that a number of people must be leaving before senior year as well.

Best Recent Line from an Academic Paper

I love it when a random amusing line is slipped into an academic paper. This one comes from "Rethinking School Reform: The Distractions of Dogma and the Potential for a New Politics of Progressive Pragmatism," by Jefferey R. Henig and Clarence N. Stone and was published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Education:

"The Teachers at most schools present more personalities and skill sets than a Baskin-Robbins does flavors."

Charter Schools and "Exit Doors"

Comparing public and private schools is difficult; in part b/c private schools are allowed to select their students -- both before and during enrollment. Having taught in a school overrun with discipline problems, I tend to believe that the ability to "get rid of" students (having an "exit door," if you will) has a potentially large influence on the climate of a school.

Charter schools are much more similar to traditional public schools than are private schools; but we still run into some of the same problems when trying to compare them -- particularly regarding selection of students. The vast majority of charter schools select students through a lottery, so they can't just select the top x number of students, but parents still have to take the extra step of applying to the school. The differences, if any exist, between parents that apply and do not apply for enrollment in charter schools is another topic for another time. What I hear mentioned less frequently is the extent to which charter schools have exit doors.

At my school, a number of kids went through every disciplinary procedure possible (reprimand, phone calls, detention, parent meeting, classroom switch, suspension, etc.) and continued to harass and disrupt both their teacher(s) and classmates. At that point, the school essentially had its hands tied behind its back. I believe a couple eventually went to alternative schools, but most hung around and continued to cause headaches. You could imagine the effect it might have on the climate of the school if we could simply say "you are no longer welcome here." The child, and his/her behavior, would no longer negatively influence the school -- and other students would know that they would no longer be welcome if they chose to behave the same way.

The problem with this, of course, is what happens to the child once they're disinvited from that school -- they still have a right to an education.

Anyway, I've always wondered whether charter schools have their hands tied behind their backs to the same extent in these circumstances. I've seen video of a new cohort of kids at a KIPP school being told by the principal that they should leave if they don't like the way the school is run -- so I suspect that at least minor differences exist. My guess is that, legally, a charter school has no more right to expel a student than does a traditional public school but, given that the student is there by choice and has a free fallback option, I'd also guess that a charter school would have an easier time convincing a student to leave.

Imagine the following scenario: a principal tells a parent that their child is not doing well in their school and would probably do better in a different environment. In a traditional public school, it's going to be tough for a parent to find another place to put their child. They're either going to have to pay for a private school, apply to a charter school, or move (or apply to enroll in a different public school if NCLB says they can and seats are open). In a charter school, meanwhile, the parent has the option to enroll their child in the local public school for free -- and probably the next day.

This whole explanation is a long-winded way of saying that I find the statistics in this post about KIPP schools around San Francisco very interesting (hat tip: Education Policy Blog). The author breaks down the attrition statistics of the three Bay Area KIPP schools. I remember reading about this in the news, and thinking that it was interesting but far too early to conclude anything. In short, the three schools all enrolled about half as many students in eighth grade as originally started out in fifth grade -- a pretty high rate of attrition. That statistic, in and of itself, however, isn't all that meaningful. The students were from the first cohort to enter the schools, and there are growing pains everywhere. The students could have left for any number of reasons.

What I find interesting is the attrition rate of African-American males -- which far exceeded the overall attrition rate in all three schools. Given that, nationally, African-American males are both the lowest achieving and the most likely to be disciplined, this raises important questions about whether these schools weed out certain types of students.

The first cohorts to enter the three schools had 13, 24, and 35 African-American males enrolled in 5th grade. By the beginning of 8th grade, they had 3, 8, and 8 left -- meaning that, across all three schools, 72 started and only 17 (21%) were left by the start of 8th grade (I don't know how many actually finished).

This, of course, proves nothing -- but it's circumstantial evidence that merits further investigation.

Ok, so let's say that these three schools are, in fact, weeding out the weakest and least-focused students. A charter school that regularly makes use of their "exit door" will never be comparable to a traditional public school that doesn't have this option. So what? Maybe if all charter schools did this, and we created more charter schools, then more excellent schools would exist. In other words, maybe it's an advantage to charter schools that merits more of them rather than hand-wringing. Though somewhat perverse, I don't think that argument is without merit. But I see a major problem:

The kids that are "asked" to leave have to end up somewhere. In a scenario where more charter schools exist, maybe they simply end up at another charter school -- and maybe they learn their lesson, or simply fit in better . . . or maybe they continue to wreak havoc. But in our current situation, I have to believe that it's most likely that they will end up back in the public school for which they're zoned. In which case, it's likely that the other students in the school suffer from the disruptions that this new student creates. This not only creates a competitive disadvantage for the school, it also punishes all students who choose to enroll in the traditional public school rather than a charter school. And that's simply not fair to those students.

Granted, this is mostly speculation -- so don't read this and then decide that charter schools are evil or that expulsion is the ultimate solution -- but it's at least logical to assume that this problem might exist.

Ping Pong Balls and Children's Fates

Thomas Friedman weighs in with this op-ed today about a lottery to enroll in a charter boarding school in Baltimore. Friedman's wife is on the board of the SEED Foundation, which runs charter boarding schools in multiple cities, and is opening the new one in Baltimore. The one in D.C. has, apparently, been quite successful, and the new school had 300 applicants for the 80 spots. Friedman attended the lottery through which enrollees were selected and argues that it's sad to see childrens' fates determined by ping pong balls - and that it shouldn't be this way (not in the sense that charter school enrollment shouldn't be determined by lottery, but in the sense that everybody should have access to a high-quality school).

I have a number of thoughts about the article:

1.) Boarding school. Interesting. Evidence seems to indicate that a lot of things about the home-life of inner-city students hold them back, so I guess this is one way to potentially overcome that. By my calculation, a student who attends 180 7-hour days of school spends about 14% of their time in school over the course of a year -- about 22% of their waking hours if they sleep 8 hours/night. A boarding school could potentially oversee kids for a majority of their time. I'd like to know more about how they use the extra time they have with the kids as a result of this set-up.

2.) Friedman reports that SEED schools are funded by both public and private funds. I know in most places that charter schools receive less funding per-pupil than other public schools, but I wonder how much money some of these schools raise from private sources and how their total funding (private + public) compares to other public schools in the district. If anybody has seen these figures anywhere, please let me know.

3.) I wonder how the parents of the children who applied to the lottery compare to others in Baltimore. Are parents who want to send their kids to a boarding school more concerned about their education, more eager to get rid of their kids, or no different from others?

4.) I agree that children's fate shouldn't be determined by a ping pong ball, but what's the solution? Obviously, high-quality schools for all; but is the SEED Foundation moving us toward this goal? We'll assume for the moment without further investigation that their schools are, in fact, wonderful places. Given this, are they replicable? Do we have the personnel and finances to replicate these schools for every student in Baltimore and other cities? I'm guessing not, but I'd also guess that not every student in Baltimore wants to attend a boarding school. In that case, can SEED schools be part of a system that provides excellent options for all? I don't see why not.

How Small is Small Enough?

I'm short on time today, so I'm allowing Mike Petrilli to do my thinking for me. He asks a very good question:

"Will teachers ever think their classes are small enough?" (to which his answer is "Doubtful.")

When I was teaching, my classes ranged from 23-29 students over the course of the year (due to student mobility). And, yes, I thought they were too large -- if for no other reason than because it was quite difficult to effectively monitor that many students at the same time. I was pretty convinced that my classes would have been fundamentally different if I had 10-15 students.

I don't know of any feasible way to fund a 50% reduction in class size, but let's say it happened. If I were teaching a class of, say, 13 students would I think that my class was small enough? I'm not sure what the answer to that question is. I have little doubt that I could teach 13 students more effectively than 26, but I also have little doubt that I could teach 6 or 7 students more effectively than 13 -- so I'm not sure I'd have a strong incentive to think my classes were small enough even with only 13 students. Even if I had two students, I'm not sure that I would say that my class was small enough because I might be able to do a lot more good with only one of the students at a time.

So maybe he's right, maybe teachers would never say that classes were small enough.

But maybe that's not quite the right question. I can't imagine not wishing for fewer students in my class, but I can imagine thinking that other policy ideas would do more good than reducing class sizes. Let's say, for example, that somebody provided me a list of 10 reforms and asked me to rank them in order of which reforms might do the most amount of good. I could imagine "reducing class size" falling down that list as the size of my class shrunk.

Then again, my perception of the size of my class would probably rely largely on the size of other classes that I saw and experienced. If I had 13 students and the average class size in the country was 8, I'd probably still complain.

Anyway, enough rambling. Back to the question. At what point would class sizes be small enough?

Teaching and Barriers to Entry

Depending on whom you ask, there may or may not be a teacher shortage. I think everybody would agree, however, that there is a shortage of quality teachers and that there are certain positions that go unfilled each year. My school, for example, was short 2 science teachers, a special ed. teacher, and a Spanish teacher my second year -- and a Chorus teacher (after the original teacher and her replacement both quit in the first two months) for most of the year during the second year I taught.

So, in some way, shape, or form, more teachers are needed. What's interesting is how this problem has been addressed. A variety of strategies have been tried: bonuses, fellowships, cutting red tape on hiring, etc. But the most prevalent one seems to be simply lowering the barriers to entry. In other words, making it easier to become a teacher.

I, personally, would not have started teaching if the policy hadn't been in place. Even though I had no training in education, I was allowed to spend one intense summer (supposedly) learning the basics and then jump right into a classroom. Teach For America, The New Teacher Project, and who knows how many other local, regional, and national programs have popped up as alternative routes to certification.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with this strategy, you have to admit that it's interesting. And I wonder what it says about the field of teaching. What if we had a shortage of doctors; would we address that by lowering barriers to entry? I can't imagine we would b/c nobody wants a doctor operating on them who is smart but knows little about the human body. What if there was a shortage of lawyers; would we shorten law school? If we had a shortage of bus drivers, would we let them finish the training courses while driving routes full-time? If we had a shortage of police officers, would we give people temporary badges while they figure out how to do their job?

I don't know the answers to above questions. I guess people used to be temporarily deputized in order to form posses to track outlaws in the old days (at least in books and movies anyway), so maybe there is some precedent for this. But I wonder which fields we'd be willing to lower entry requirements for and which we wouldn't. And why.