EdWeek recently featured a story about a large survey of teachers and principals. The survey, sponsored by MetLife, was originally given after the publication of A Nation at Risk. The headline of the article was regarding the improvement in teacher satisfaction over the past 25 years, but the survey contains a great deal more information. The write-up is essentially a summary of the survey results and covers 191 pages, but what I find most interesting are the differences between teachers in urban vs. suburban schools.
Here are just a few examples (I've summarized the questions):
For how many students is lack of parent support a hindranace?
Less than a quarter:
Urban - 35%
Suburban 59%
How much of a problem is it to get qualified teachers in your school?
Very or Somewhat Serious:
Urban 40%
Suburban 19%
(Principals were 39/20)
How much of a problem is teacher turnover in your school?
Very or Somewhat Serious:
Urban 48%
Suburban 23%
(Principals were 32/14)
None of these results are too terribly surprising -- and I'm guessing they'd be more dramatic had they limited the comparison sample to those who said they taught in "inner-city" schools rather than all urban schools. On other questions, of course, answers weren't all that different. But I question the utility of generalizing to all teachers when sub-groups differ so greatly. Can we really say "x% of teachers . . ." in any meaningful way?
Methodological Note
Among the 1000 teachers surveyed, 13% said they taught in an inner-city school, 14% in an urban school (which were lumped together as urban), 36% in a suburban school, 19% in a small town school, 16% in a rural school (which were lumped together to make rural), and 1% didn't know. Which leaves us with 27% urban, 36% suburban, 35% rural. But after they weighted the responses to match demographics they came up with: 27% urban, 23% suburban, 49% rural.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Today's Random Thoughts
-The undergrads I'm teaching have found my blog. Which might mean I have to watch what I say -- or might mean that I'll be hiding the answers to the next pop quiz on here.
-I've asked before what happens when all punishments fail, and D.C. seems to be grappling with the same question right now. It seems that plentiful suspensions aren't doing much at many schools. Their solution? "More conversation, less confrontation"
-Aaron Pallas points out some shortcomings of the Mathematica Alt-Cert study. If for no other reason, check it out to read the little illustrative tale (made up, but still funny) at the beginning.
-Spring break has begun, which means I'll finally have time to catch up on all those blog posts I've been meaning to write. Keep your eyes peeled.
-I've asked before what happens when all punishments fail, and D.C. seems to be grappling with the same question right now. It seems that plentiful suspensions aren't doing much at many schools. Their solution? "More conversation, less confrontation"
-Aaron Pallas points out some shortcomings of the Mathematica Alt-Cert study. If for no other reason, check it out to read the little illustrative tale (made up, but still funny) at the beginning.
-Spring break has begun, which means I'll finally have time to catch up on all those blog posts I've been meaning to write. Keep your eyes peeled.
One Year Anniversary
Today marks one year since my very first post. When I started I would've been happy had 10 people per day read my blog, lately it's been averaging around 100 hits/day -- not including RSS feed subscribers (73 people have signed up on Google Reader alone). Over the past year people have clicked on this site 16,153 times and linked to this site 93 times.
I just want to say that it's been fun, and thank everybody for proving my roommate wrong -- apparently somebody does care what I think. Here's hoping for an even better second year.
I just want to say that it's been fun, and thank everybody for proving my roommate wrong -- apparently somebody does care what I think. Here's hoping for an even better second year.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Today's Random Thoughts
-Did you hear the news? People do better when they procrastinate (sometimes). Which means my dissertation is going to be awesome.
-When I saw the headline -- "5 myths about education" -- I was sure we were in for some sort of ridiculous rhetoric. Just as we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, I guess we can't judge an op-ed by its title. Kalman Hettleman actually offers up some good advice, rebutting a lot of the most common rhetoric we hear (plus it's pretty short, so it's definitely worth a read).
-In case you thought I hate charter schools, here's something good (I think) that many are doing -- finding innovative ways to reduce class size. Team-teaching and mentoring won't always work out, but these sound like some worthwhile ways to both develop junior teachers and give kids more attention.
-Here's one of those ideas that just seems like it will work no matter no matter how hard I try to convince myself that it would fail and/or raise large ethical concerns. Rather than creating magnet schools that draw the best students from traditional schools, this teacher says "What should have been done was to pull out the bottom ten percent." I really can't underscore how large of an impediment behavioral issues are in some schools, and it sure seems like this would help alleviate that (though who knows -- things never seem to work out as planned). What we do with the removed students, of course, raises huge issues.
-When I saw the headline -- "5 myths about education" -- I was sure we were in for some sort of ridiculous rhetoric. Just as we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, I guess we can't judge an op-ed by its title. Kalman Hettleman actually offers up some good advice, rebutting a lot of the most common rhetoric we hear (plus it's pretty short, so it's definitely worth a read).
-In case you thought I hate charter schools, here's something good (I think) that many are doing -- finding innovative ways to reduce class size. Team-teaching and mentoring won't always work out, but these sound like some worthwhile ways to both develop junior teachers and give kids more attention.
-Here's one of those ideas that just seems like it will work no matter no matter how hard I try to convince myself that it would fail and/or raise large ethical concerns. Rather than creating magnet schools that draw the best students from traditional schools, this teacher says "What should have been done was to pull out the bottom ten percent." I really can't underscore how large of an impediment behavioral issues are in some schools, and it sure seems like this would help alleviate that (though who knows -- things never seem to work out as planned). What we do with the removed students, of course, raises huge issues.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Quote of the Day
From Diane Ravitch:
"based on what I have seen to date, I conclude that Obama has given President George W. Bush a third term in education policy and that Arne Duncan is the male version of Margaret Spellings."
"based on what I have seen to date, I conclude that Obama has given President George W. Bush a third term in education policy and that Arne Duncan is the male version of Margaret Spellings."
Monday, February 23, 2009
Today's Random Thoughts
-A brief follow-up on yesterday's commentary. For most of the traits I discussed, you could argue that there's a dichotomy between urban and suburban/rural schools. I didn't bring rural schools into the discussion b/c they're a whole different ballgame in so many other ways.
-Matthew Ladner has a somewhat similar reaction to the one I had to the NY Times article about statistics and basketball over at Jay P. Greene's blog. He also think that teachers should be rewarded for things that help the entire school, though he adds that it can't possibly be too hard to improve on what we currently have. Of course, just because you don't like the current system doesn't mean that designing a new, but haphazard, system will make things any better.
-John Thompson makes a fantastic point over at This Week in Education. During WWII we asked the pilots who survived what the biggest problems were -- which meant that we knew the biggest problems of those who survived. What we neglected to realize was that it was more important to know the biggest problems of those who didn't -- we want to keep people from dying more than we want to make life better for those who don't. The same problem plagues us with school -- rather than asking those who succeed what the biggest problems are, we should be asking those that fail -- in order to prevent more failures in the future. This is one idea I intend to steal.
-Matthew Ladner has a somewhat similar reaction to the one I had to the NY Times article about statistics and basketball over at Jay P. Greene's blog. He also think that teachers should be rewarded for things that help the entire school, though he adds that it can't possibly be too hard to improve on what we currently have. Of course, just because you don't like the current system doesn't mean that designing a new, but haphazard, system will make things any better.
-John Thompson makes a fantastic point over at This Week in Education. During WWII we asked the pilots who survived what the biggest problems were -- which meant that we knew the biggest problems of those who survived. What we neglected to realize was that it was more important to know the biggest problems of those who didn't -- we want to keep people from dying more than we want to make life better for those who don't. The same problem plagues us with school -- rather than asking those who succeed what the biggest problems are, we should be asking those that fail -- in order to prevent more failures in the future. This is one idea I intend to steal.
Sunday Commentary: The Charterization of Urban Schools Districts
In a discussion of vouchers last week, a professor argued that when legislatures propose statewide vouchers three groups dominate the discussion: private schools not willing to exchange autonomy for government money and suburban parents with access to good community schools oppose them, while inner-city parents favor them. While doubtless an oversimplification, such a division makes sense because it reflects the self-interest of all three groups. Based on who has access to power, such a division would also explain why no statewide voucher scheme exists. Though the politics behind statewide voucher proposals are interesting, the ramifications for our schools are more important.
Why? The same division exists around charter schools. And while vouchers seem temporarily halted, charters continue to fly high. Democrats and Republicans alike push charter schools as the largest part of any solution to our education system's woes. More importantly, they push such schools predominantly in impoverished urban areas. With few exceptions, well-to-do suburban neighborhoods seem (relatively) satisfied with their choice between high-quality neighborhood schools or paying for an elite private school.
Politicians often refer to parts of the world as "Balkanized" when they divide into many small countries. In the same sense, urban districts are currently becoming "charterized." Where students once attended a few large schools they now can choose among many small schools. And the trend seems unstoppable. Not only do charter schools continue to spread, but new charter-style public schools seem spread at least as fast as districts rush to break-up old monoliths into multiple themed academies and open new specialized schools.
As a result, the trajectories of urban and suburban districts differ distinctly. Suburban students will attend community-controlled schools with nearly every other student from their neighborhood. Urban students will almost-randomly fan out to find the small school that best fits their interest (or is most convenient) and attend with fellow wanderers.
Suburban and urban schools, of course, already differ greatly. But the distinct dichotomy at is developing often goes unmentioned -- and may have important ramifications. Knowing who will benefit more is likely impossible, but we can predict a few things that will happen:
Suburban schools will build community and social cohesion -- local residents will attend the Friday night football games, the school play, and discuss how the local schools have changed since they attended them. Urban schools will not. Students from the same block may attend ten different schools.
Suburban schools will be comprehensive. Since they must cater to the needs of everybody in the community, they will stretch themselves thin to offer every subject and activity they can. Urban schools will be specialized. They will all, essentially, attempt to be magnet schools. One would not expect an advanced physics course at the the Literature Academy or a football team at the Choral Academy.
Urban parents will face a myriad of choices -- possibly, but possibly not, including a default community school. Suburban parents will try to decide if the local community school is good enough, or whether to pay to go elsewhere.
While it remains unclear whether one experience is necessarily better, such distinct differences necessarily mean that urban and suburban students will experience school differently -- which is rather ironic when one considers that reforms were begun to eliminate differences between suburban and urban schools. Is different better? Only time will tell.
The charterization of urban schools seems inevitable, and we anxiously await the post-charterization test scores. But the ramifications go beyond student achievement; we are witnessing the decoupling of school and community in urban America, and we need to figure out what this means for both students and society.
______________________________________________________
Corey Bunje Bower is a Ph.D. student in education policy at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. Before beginning his studies he taught sixth grade at a low-performing middle school in the Bronx that has since been shuttered. His research focuses on issues surrounding high-poverty urban schools -- including teacher retention, discipline, and school climate.
Sunday Commentary is a running feature on Thoughts on Education Policy. Submissions are open to all who are knowledgeable about education and willing to write a concise, thoughtful piece. Submissions may be sent to corey[at]edpolicythoughts.com.
Why? The same division exists around charter schools. And while vouchers seem temporarily halted, charters continue to fly high. Democrats and Republicans alike push charter schools as the largest part of any solution to our education system's woes. More importantly, they push such schools predominantly in impoverished urban areas. With few exceptions, well-to-do suburban neighborhoods seem (relatively) satisfied with their choice between high-quality neighborhood schools or paying for an elite private school.
Politicians often refer to parts of the world as "Balkanized" when they divide into many small countries. In the same sense, urban districts are currently becoming "charterized." Where students once attended a few large schools they now can choose among many small schools. And the trend seems unstoppable. Not only do charter schools continue to spread, but new charter-style public schools seem spread at least as fast as districts rush to break-up old monoliths into multiple themed academies and open new specialized schools.
As a result, the trajectories of urban and suburban districts differ distinctly. Suburban students will attend community-controlled schools with nearly every other student from their neighborhood. Urban students will almost-randomly fan out to find the small school that best fits their interest (or is most convenient) and attend with fellow wanderers.
Suburban and urban schools, of course, already differ greatly. But the distinct dichotomy at is developing often goes unmentioned -- and may have important ramifications. Knowing who will benefit more is likely impossible, but we can predict a few things that will happen:
Suburban schools will build community and social cohesion -- local residents will attend the Friday night football games, the school play, and discuss how the local schools have changed since they attended them. Urban schools will not. Students from the same block may attend ten different schools.
Suburban schools will be comprehensive. Since they must cater to the needs of everybody in the community, they will stretch themselves thin to offer every subject and activity they can. Urban schools will be specialized. They will all, essentially, attempt to be magnet schools. One would not expect an advanced physics course at the the Literature Academy or a football team at the Choral Academy.
Urban parents will face a myriad of choices -- possibly, but possibly not, including a default community school. Suburban parents will try to decide if the local community school is good enough, or whether to pay to go elsewhere.
While it remains unclear whether one experience is necessarily better, such distinct differences necessarily mean that urban and suburban students will experience school differently -- which is rather ironic when one considers that reforms were begun to eliminate differences between suburban and urban schools. Is different better? Only time will tell.
The charterization of urban schools seems inevitable, and we anxiously await the post-charterization test scores. But the ramifications go beyond student achievement; we are witnessing the decoupling of school and community in urban America, and we need to figure out what this means for both students and society.
______________________________________________________
Corey Bunje Bower is a Ph.D. student in education policy at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. Before beginning his studies he taught sixth grade at a low-performing middle school in the Bronx that has since been shuttered. His research focuses on issues surrounding high-poverty urban schools -- including teacher retention, discipline, and school climate.
Sunday Commentary is a running feature on Thoughts on Education Policy. Submissions are open to all who are knowledgeable about education and willing to write a concise, thoughtful piece. Submissions may be sent to corey[at]edpolicythoughts.com.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Incentivizing vs. Rewarding
Nancy Flanagan asked a very good question in the comments of Sunday's post that got me thinking.
In the original post I asked what we should incentivize when paying teachers and discussed the difficulties in trying to make this decision. Indeed, some basketball teams are finding that incentivizing certain outcomes encourages players to do things that actually hurt the team. In other words, it's crucial to carefully think through what is incentivized and, in some cases, it may be better to incentivize means rather than ends. I postulated that the simplest solution in basketball is to just base bonuses on wins but that education has no such bottom line measurement.
Nancy suggested rewarding teachers who earn national board certification, and I noted that this is a measure of good a teacher is -- not how well they performed in a given year. To which she responded:
"Are you trying to make a distinction between a teacher's general ability to increase student learning, and year-to-year test data, which will fluctuate? Which of these is more important to incentivize?"
And I think I finally have an answer. It's more important to incentivize performance, but it's more important to reward quality. Let me explain.
Two chief complaints exist about the way teachers are paid:
1.) Better teachers aren't paid any more -- which isn't fair
2.) There's no incentive for teachers to work harder or do better -- which doesn't fit with economic theory
The problems are related, but different -- and we can attempt to fix both of those problems in different ways. Measuring the quality of a teacher is easier than measuring the performance of a teacher. Studies using sophisticated value-added measurements show large fluctations in performance year-to-year. It's not really plausible that teachers really skip around that much in terms of effort, quality of lesson plans, or anything else they can control. Much of the fluctuations must be due to a combination of environmental factors (different kids and different classes click better with different teachers) and measurement error in test scores. So simply rewarding teachers for their test scores in a certain year relies on some combination of teacher quality, performance, and chance. In other words, it's not really satisfying our desire to pay better teachers more.
On the other hand, it's much easier to determine who is a "better" teacher over time -- through observations, test score results, national board certification, etc. So it makes more sense to boost the pay of teachers who we've determined are better because we think they're good rather than because we think they did a good job this year.
At the same time, this doesn't solve the conondrum with teachers not having an (economic) incentive to push their kids to achieve. In order to fix this, incentives based on yearly performance need to exist. Of course, measuring yearly performance is incredibly difficult -- but that's another topic for another time.
So, in short, my answer to Nancy's question is" "yes," and "both."
In the original post I asked what we should incentivize when paying teachers and discussed the difficulties in trying to make this decision. Indeed, some basketball teams are finding that incentivizing certain outcomes encourages players to do things that actually hurt the team. In other words, it's crucial to carefully think through what is incentivized and, in some cases, it may be better to incentivize means rather than ends. I postulated that the simplest solution in basketball is to just base bonuses on wins but that education has no such bottom line measurement.
Nancy suggested rewarding teachers who earn national board certification, and I noted that this is a measure of good a teacher is -- not how well they performed in a given year. To which she responded:
"Are you trying to make a distinction between a teacher's general ability to increase student learning, and year-to-year test data, which will fluctuate? Which of these is more important to incentivize?"
And I think I finally have an answer. It's more important to incentivize performance, but it's more important to reward quality. Let me explain.
Two chief complaints exist about the way teachers are paid:
1.) Better teachers aren't paid any more -- which isn't fair
2.) There's no incentive for teachers to work harder or do better -- which doesn't fit with economic theory
The problems are related, but different -- and we can attempt to fix both of those problems in different ways. Measuring the quality of a teacher is easier than measuring the performance of a teacher. Studies using sophisticated value-added measurements show large fluctations in performance year-to-year. It's not really plausible that teachers really skip around that much in terms of effort, quality of lesson plans, or anything else they can control. Much of the fluctuations must be due to a combination of environmental factors (different kids and different classes click better with different teachers) and measurement error in test scores. So simply rewarding teachers for their test scores in a certain year relies on some combination of teacher quality, performance, and chance. In other words, it's not really satisfying our desire to pay better teachers more.
On the other hand, it's much easier to determine who is a "better" teacher over time -- through observations, test score results, national board certification, etc. So it makes more sense to boost the pay of teachers who we've determined are better because we think they're good rather than because we think they did a good job this year.
At the same time, this doesn't solve the conondrum with teachers not having an (economic) incentive to push their kids to achieve. In order to fix this, incentives based on yearly performance need to exist. Of course, measuring yearly performance is incredibly difficult -- but that's another topic for another time.
So, in short, my answer to Nancy's question is" "yes," and "both."
211th Carnival of Education
Sorry for being a day late and a dollar short -- I neglected to realize that I had 45 papers to grade the same day I was supposed to be putting this together. Nonetheless, welcome to the 211th Carnival of Education -- we have posts on all sorts of things.
We, of course, have the stars of the show: those attractions that all the kids flock to first.
Diana presents A Measure of Privacy posted at The Core Knowledge Blog. skoolboy discusses "creaming" and charter schools in Toward a New Definition of Creaming posted at GothamSchools. And Jason Flom explores all sorts of things in Learning Curve posted at Ecology of Education.
This being a carnival of education, we have plenty of educational attractions set up in different subjects.
Carol Richtsmeier wins the funniest post award for her ruminations on trying to hold everything together in her post YB Disasters, Smackdown Meltdown & Goat Heads posted at Bellringers. Speaking of dealing with stress from school, Steve Spangler has an interesting video embedded in his post Potato Gun Wars - Teachers Relieving Stress or Just Having Fun? posted at Steve Spangler's Blog. Larry Ferlazzo discusses some games to help make school fun for the kiddies as well in his post The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... posted at Larry Ferlazzo's Websites Of The Day For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL.
Any time you gather together a bunch of teachers, you'll always get plenty of advice:
We, of course, have the stars of the show: those attractions that all the kids flock to first.
Diana presents A Measure of Privacy posted at The Core Knowledge Blog. skoolboy discusses "creaming" and charter schools in Toward a New Definition of Creaming posted at GothamSchools. And Jason Flom explores all sorts of things in Learning Curve posted at Ecology of Education.
This being a carnival of education, we have plenty of educational attractions set up in different subjects.
Philosophy
Jose presents Recourse To Love [The Love Below Series] posted at The Jose Vilson, talking a little bit about his kids, domestic violence, and what love may really mean. Joanne Jacobs presents Should I let kids fail? posted at Joanne Jacobs. Nancy Flanagan presents Standards Finale: Good, Bad, but not Evil posted at Teacher in a Strange Land, saying, "Please--tell me why we should invest millions in the creation of national standards? Because we can?"
Politics Greg presents Obama Education Secretary Condoned Systemic Child Abuse As Chicago School Head posted at Rhymes With Right. Kelly presents Stories from School: Practice meets Policy: Yes We Can posted at Stories from School: Practice meets Policy. Piotr Stepien presents Be Mass Media Free posted at we overstep, saying, "Stop addiction to news, television shows and any low level mass media."
History
Greg Laden presents Darwin's Birthday Gallup Poll on "Belief in Evolution" posted at Greg Laden's Blog. Liam Goldrick presents Then and Now posted at The Education Optimists. Bill Ferriter discusses the disappearance of creativity from the classroom in Creativity is Dead, Ken. . . posted at The Tempered Radical.
Carol Richtsmeier wins the funniest post award for her ruminations on trying to hold everything together in her post YB Disasters, Smackdown Meltdown & Goat Heads posted at Bellringers. Speaking of dealing with stress from school, Steve Spangler has an interesting video embedded in his post Potato Gun Wars - Teachers Relieving Stress or Just Having Fun? posted at Steve Spangler's Blog. Larry Ferlazzo discusses some games to help make school fun for the kiddies as well in his post The Best Online Games Students Can Play In Private Virtual “Rooms” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... posted at Larry Ferlazzo's Websites Of The Day For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL.
Any time you gather together a bunch of teachers, you'll always get plenty of advice:
Clix presents On Not Writing posted at Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable. Rani presents How to write a personal letter- Advocacy posted at Rayray's writing, saying, "Do you need to write an advocacy letter and don't know how, then read on."jim presents Free College Money: The FAFSA on Blueprint for Financial Prosperity posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Relax presents 5 good reasons why you should buy a lot of books posted at The Wise Curve, saying, "Most of my monthly spending goes to books. Before you say that I’m crazy, please let me share with you why we should buy a lot of books." OnlineCollege presents Is Online Graduate School Right for You? posted at Online Graduate School. Marcus Smith presents Will You Please Shut Up?? (How to Handle Distractions and Hecklers) posted at MarcusASmith.com.Annette Berlin shows you how to make make quick, disposable playthings using your computer in Printable Toys For Young Children posted at Craft Stew. Mathew Needleman presents How to Explicitly Teach a Strategy posted at Open Court Resources.com Blog. Rich Bordner offers advice from his students on classroom management in Classroom Management: not for the Faint of Heart posted at The Pugnacious Irishman.
And, as at any good carnival, you have plenty of people who are off on their own trying to invent the next corndog. See if you think any of them are on to something.
oldandrew presents Why Sir Alan Steer Should Stick his Stupid Lying Report up his Arse posted at Scenes From The Battleground.
Jim McGuire presents A Don't Care T-shirt posted at The Reading Workshop.
Dan Callahan presents Bad, evil, naughty law!, about the proposed ban on cell phones, posted at geek.teacher.
michael mazenko presents Who's Educated? posted at A Teacher's View.
Pregnant Woman presents Identical Triplets - Three Bundles Of Joy posted at Pregnancy.
SwitchedOnMom presents MCPS Stimulus Package?for Tutors posted at The "More" Child.
Mary Ann Zehr presents A GED Just Isn't as Good posted at Learning the Language.
Kim discusses trying to decide on public vs. private schools in My Public School Interview posted at Kim's Play Place.
Darren presents Teacher Fired For Spending A Quarter At School posted at Right on the Left Coast: Views From a Conservative Teacher.
rightwingprof presents Horse Sense For Educators posted at Right Wing Nation.
John Holland presents Besharov and Call: Fact and Fiction posted at Inside Pre-K.
Mister Teacher presents Off task, with love posted at Learn Me Good.
Lightly Seasoned presents Let's Predict the Future, Shall We? posted at Lightly Seasoned.
And what would a carnvial be without a little self-promotion? If you've managed to stick around this long, you're just the person I'm looking for. I recently started two new features here at Thoughts on Education Policy and I need your help. Have some crazy, illuminating, stories from your teaching days? Submit your best war stories to be featured in Tales from the Trenches. Have something meaningful to say and nowhere to say it? Submit your thoughts to Sunday Commentary.
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of education using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
Monday, February 16, 2009
This Week's Carnival of Education
I'm hosting the Carnival of Education this week, so submit anything you want included. You can submit using this handy link or you can e-mail them directly to me. Please note that the deadline is 7pm Central on Tuesday even though the first page says midnight -- pieces submitted to the website after 7 will be automatically forwarded to next week's host.
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