Quality Counts: A Third Year Check Up Building a Shared Vision and Reading some Tea Leaves November

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Quality CountsA Third Year Check Up Building a
SharedVisionandReading some Tea
LeavesNovember 6, 2009

• Nick Michelli
• Presidential Professor
• The Graduate Center
• The City University of New York

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OrA bridge over the fog.
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The questions I will raise

• How do we form a vision for education in a
  democracy and why is it a precursor to
  assessment?
• Why do we educate in a Democracy?
• What can we expect in federal and state policy?
  (READING THE TEA LEAVES) What are the
  implications for us?

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How do we form a vision for education in a
democracy and why is it a precursor to
assessment.
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How do we form a vision for education in a
democracy and why is it a precursor to
assessment.It used to be that if you had a
vision, you were carried off in a straight
jacket.
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The Importance of aShared Vision

• A shared vision is not an idea. It is not even
  an important idea such as freedom. It is,
  rather, a force in peoples hearts, a force of
  impressive power. It might be inspired by an
  idea, but once it goes further--if it is
  compelling enough to acquire the support of more
  than one person--then it is no longer an
  abstraction. People begin to see it as if it
  exists. Few, if any, forces in human affairs are
  as powerful as a shared vision.
•  

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The Importance of aShared Vision

• At its simplest level, a shared vision is the
  answer to the question, What do we want to
  create? Just as personal visions are pictures
  or images people carry in their heads and hearts,
  so too are shared visions pictures that people
  throughout an organization carry. They create a
  sense of commonality that permeates the
  organization and gives coherence to diverse
  activities.
• Peter Senge The Fifth Discipline
•  

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Are conceptual frameworks shared visions?

• They can be
• If all the important stakeholders participate in
  their formation--faculty in education, faculty in
  arts and science, faculty in schools, members of
  the community.
• If you take the time to be sure you mean the same
  thing by the essentially contested concepts.
• If the vision/framework drives your work
  admission, curriculum, content, pedagogy, field
  experiences, and assessment.

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W.B. Gallies Contribution

• Essentially Contested Concepts
• Inherently subject to multiple interpretations,
  depending on your values, concerns, experiences,
  goals, and beliefs
• Democracy, freedom, social justice, and, yes,
  education.

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We need a shared vision with two partsWhy do
we educate in a democracy?Given that, what is
our vision of high quality teachers?
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Why do we educate in a democracy?What are the
purposes of education?

• 1. Preparing students to have access to
  knowledge and critical thinking within the
  disciplines.

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From Wisconsin Conceptual Frameworks

• Activities and programs that integrate content
  and construct knowledge processes
• Develop reflective educators who are
  metacognitive and constructivist
• Teachers and students together experiencecritical
  thinking.
• Meeting the needs of all children and the belief
  that all children can learn.

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Michellis Analysis
Preparing students to have access to knowledge
and critical thinking within the disciplines.

• What does knowledge mean?
• What are the implications of constructivism?
• What does access to knowledge mean?
• Why within the disciplines?
• What constitutes critical thinking?

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Why do we educate in a democracy?What are the
purposes of education?

• 2. Preparing students to be active, involved,
  socially just participants in our democracy.

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From Wisconsin Conceptual Frameworks

• Understand the fundamental purpose of schooling
  in a democratic society and pursue teaching as a
  transformative experience.
• Education to promote social justice and the
  common good.
• Vision of education that strives for a democratic
  society in which exceptionality, gender, social
  class, race, ethnicity and affectional preference
  are included and affirmed in all realms of social
  and political democracy

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Michellis Analysis
Preparing students to be active, involved,
socially just participants in our democracy.

• Why active and involved?
• Why participants and not citizens?
• What does socially just mean?
• What does democracy mean?

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What are some of the goals when we focus on
preparing students for democracy?

• Emphasis on critical thinking and making
  judgments.
• Developing empathy and respect for alternative
  positions.
• Learning to argue well for our positions and how
  to compromise
• Learning to participate in community meetings
• Learning to give reasons for positions
• Creating classroom communities of inquiry

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Why do we educate in a democracy?What are the
purposes of education?

• 3. Helping students imagine and achieve all the
  possibilities for their places in the society and
  to have full access to lifes chances.

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From Wisconsin Conceptual Frameworks

• Profound respect for the dignity of all learners.
• Professional competencies that enable them to be
  effective teachers and responsible citizens in a
  diverse and dynamic world.

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Michellis Analysis
Helping students imagine and achieve all the
possibilities for their places in the society
and to have full access to lifes chances.

• Why imagine?
• Why achieve? Is all the possibilities
  possible?
• What does places in society mean?
• How does access to lifes chances fit?
• Can this be part of a definition for social
  justice?

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• We cannot become what we cannot imagine
• --Maxine Greene

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Why do we educate in a democracy?What are the
purposes of education?

• 4. Enabling students to lead rich and rewarding
  personal lives characterized by understanding the
  full range of human knowledge, including access
  to technology, the aesthetics, creativity, and
  personal health.

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From Wisconsin Conceptual Frameworks

• Reflection is a powerful tool for lifelong
  learning and for personal and professional
  transformation.
• Reflection enables learning-centered individuals
  to review, reconstruct, reenact and critically
  analyze their own actions and beliefs to
  determine a course of action.

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Michellis Analysis

• Enabling students to lead rich and rewarding
  personal lives
• characterized by access to understanding the full
  range of
• human knowledge, including technology,
• the aesthetics, creativity, and personal health.

• Can leading rich and rewarding personal lives be
  measured?
• Why is it important to say full range of human
  knowledge?
• Are technology, aesthetics, and creativity
  honored?
• Is education responsible for personal health?
• What makes learning lifelong?

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A Perfect Storm (From 2006)

• NCLB
• Pressure for high stakes testing at all levels
• Pressure for scientifically based research
• The Levine Report Educating School Teachers
  (www.edschools.org)
• Pressure on Accreditors
• Using test scores to evaluate and compensate
  educators.

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Time for the tea leaves. . .

• You share a broad view of why we educate in a
  democracy, reflected in your conceptual
  frameworks.
• What can we expect in federal and state policy?
  How do we fit in?

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Who is this man?
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Which tea leaves am I reading?

• The USDOE Official Biography
• Race to the Top Regulations
• Major policy addresses on teacher education at
  University of Virginia and Teachers College
• Teacher Quality Partnership Grants

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From the official USDOE bio

• In his confirmation hearings, Duncan called
  education "the most pressing issue facing
  America," adding that "preparing young people for
  success in life is not just a moral obligation of
  society" but also an "economic imperative."

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• "Education is also the civil rights issue of our
  generation," he said, "the only sure path out of
  poverty and the only way to achieve a more equal
  and just society."
• "to enhance education in America, to lift our
  children and families out of poverty, to help our
  students learn to contribute to the civility of
  our great American democracy, and to strengthen
  our economy by producing a workforce that can
  make us as competitive as possible."

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• Duncan graduated magna cum laude from Harvard
  University in 1987, majoring in sociology. He was
  co-captain of Harvard's basketball team and was
  named a first team Academic All-American. He
  credits basketball with his team-oriented and
  highly disciplined work ethic.
• From 1987 to 1991, Duncan played professional
  basketball in Australia, where he also worked
  with children who were wards of the state.

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He was part of a team that later started a new
public elementary school built around a financial
literacy curriculum.
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Prior to joining the Chicago Public Schools,
Duncan ran the non-profit education foundation
Ariel Education Initiative (1992-1998), which
helped fund a college education for a class of
inner-city children under the I Have A Dream
program.
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Duncan served as the chief executive officer of
the Chicago Public Schools, a position to which
he was appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, from
June 2001 through December 2008, becoming the
longest-serving big-city education superintendent
in the country.
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Among his most significant accomplishments during
his tenure as CEO, an all-time high of 66.7
percent of the district's elementary school
students met or exceeded state reading standards,
and their math scores also reached a record high,
with 70.6 percent meeting or exceeding the
state's standards.
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The number of teachers applying for positions
almost tripled since 2003, from about 8,600 to
more than 21,000, or about 10 applicants per
teaching position. The number of teachers
achieving National Board Certificationthe
highest education credential available to
teachersincreased from 11 in 1999 to 1,191 in
2008, making Chicago the fastest-growing urban
district in this area of achievement.
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Race to the Top Fund 4.35 Billion
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Race to the Top Fund 4.35 Billion July 29
Criteria Absolute Requirement

• No legal, statutory, or regulatory barriers to
  linking data on student achievement or student
  growth to teachers or principals for the purpose
  of teacher or principal evaluation.

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Race to the Top CriteriaJuly 29, 2009

• Extent of statewide longitudinal data system
• Presence of alternate routes to certification for
  teachers and principles that allow for providers
  in addition IHEs.
• Define effective teachers and principals with
  data that includes student growth.
• Compensate and promote principals and teachers
  who are highly effective.

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Race to the Top CriteriaJuly 29, 2009

• Link student achievement data to teachers and
  principals.
• Link this information to programs where each of
  those teachers and principals was prepared for
  credentialing.
• Publicly report the finding for each
  credentialing program that has twenty or more
  graduates annually.

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Race to the Top CriteriaJuly 29, 2009

• Use rapid time student data to inform and guide
  the support provided both teachers and
  principals. professional development.
• Presence of a charter school law that does not
  prohibit or effectively inhibit increasing the
  number of charter schools or otherwise restrict
  student enrollment in charter schools.
• Turn around struggling schools by closing them,
  converting to charters, or contracting with
  educational management company.

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Where is Race to the Top?

• Budgeted for .4.35 Billion in American Recovery
  and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
• For comparison, total federal spending in FY 08
  was 101.9 Billion.
• By the closing there were well over 1,000
  comments on the 7/29 regulations, many objecting
  to the degree of inflexibility in the
  regulations. Final regs due any day.

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Teacher Quality Partnership Grants

• Round 1 Sept. 30 43 million to 28 institutions
  to reform traditional university teacher prep
  programs and residency programs.
• In 2010 an additional 100 million will be
  awarded.
• No Wisconsin institutions received awards in
  Round 1.
• One example, 11 million (6 grant 5 match) to
  produce 100 new teachers in 5 years. That is
  110,000 each.

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Secretarys Major Policy Addresses on Teacher
Education

• University of Virginia, October 9, 2009
• Teachers College, Columbia University, October
  22, 2009

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UVA

• Education is the civil rights issue of our
  generation.
• Great teaching is a daily fight for social
  justice.
• In the next 4 years we could lose 1/3 of our
  veteran teachers, need for 1 million by 2010.
• 35 of public school students are Latino or Black
  while less than 15 of teachers are.

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UVA

• Teacher education programs produce 220,000
  teachers a year while alternate routes produce
  fewer than 10,000 a year.
• Education schools are the neglected stepchild.
• The dont attract the best students or faculty.
• They are heavy on educational theory and light on
  core area knowledge and clinical training under
  master teachers.

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UVA

• Student teachers are not prepared to use data to
  improve instruction.
• Many are not prepared for the rigors of teaching
  in high-poverty and high-need schools.
• Education schools are the Bermuda Triangle of
  higher education--students sail in but no one
  knows what happens to them when they come our,
  which are succeeding, which are failing, which
  training worked

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Teachers College

• Every teacher education program should make
  better outcomes for students the overarching
  mission that propels all their efforts.
• Teacher Education programs are the Rodney
  Dangerfield of higher education--no respect from
  Oval Office to the Provosts Office, from
  University Presidents to Secretaries of
  Education.
• Three out of five ed school alum surveyed for
  Levine report said training did not prepare them
  adequately for work in the classroom.

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TC

• What are the obstacles to reform? Too simple to
  blame education schools.
• Schools of education renowned for being cash cows
  for universities.
• Arts and science play an essential role in
  strengthening the content knowledge, ignore their
  teacher education programs, and them complain
  about the incoming freshmen not knowing content
  because their teachers didnt.

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TC

• Race to the Top rewards states that publicly
  report and link student achievement data to
  programs where principals and teachers were
  accredited.
• Federal government is funding a large expansion
  of teacher residency programs in high-need
  districts and schools.
• Louisiana and New York City are examples of
  places where teaching the impact of teacher
  education programs on outcomes are underway.
• Universities are partnering with school
  districts, opening up lab schools, magnet
  schools, , and charter schools, and professional
  development schools.

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TC

• NCATE and AACTE are firmly behind the new drive
  to link teacher preparation programs to better
  student outcomes.
• NCATEs new accreditation will be modeled in part
  on Tennessees evolving experiment requiring all
  undergraduate teacher candidates to spend their
  senior year in year-long residency programs. I
  hope other states and schools of education shift
  more to the residency model.
• AACTEs project is based on Californias
  Performance Assessment for Teachers with 14
  states signed up to pilot the performance.

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TC

• Our best programs are
• Coherent and up to date
• Research based
• Provide students with subject mastery
• Have a strong substantial field based program
  driving work in classroom management, student
  learning, and preparing to teach diverse students
• A shared vision of what constitutes good teaching
  and best practices
• A single minded focus on improving student
  learning and using data to inform instruction.

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TC

• Every teacher education program should make
  better outcomes for students the overarching
  mission that propels all their efforts.
• Teacher Education programs are the Rodney
  Dangerfield of higher education--no respect from
  Oval Office to the Provosts Office, from
  University Presidents to Secretaries of
  Education.
• Three out of five ed school alum surveyed for
  Levine report said training did not prepare them
  adequately for work in the classroom.

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TC

• Examples of excellent programs include
• Emporia State University, 80 students supervised
  by full time faculty and all elementary education
  professors are in public schools every day.
  Senior year is 100 field based.
• Alverno College, requires rigorous field
  experience in the public schools and has faculty
  and local principals assess videotapes of student
  teachers. 85 of Alverno students are in
  teaching five years later.
• Black Hills State University has a partnership
  with Rapid City using school based math coaches
  and graduate level courses for teachers to boost
  math achievement among Native American students.

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TC

• When ESEA is reauthorized we will reinvest in
  teacher education programs
• We will encourage partnerships with states and
  teachers to address shortages in high needs areas
• We will encourage programs committed to results
  use data, including student achievement data, to
  foster continuous improvement.

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The Levine Report Educating School Teachers

• Focus on student achievement as the primary
  measure of teacher education program success.
• generate a data base that can be used to assess
  and improve the performance of education schools
  by providing information on the performance of
  the teachers and principals who were prepared at
  the institution.and assess which types of
  teacher education are most effective

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The Levine Report Educating School Teachers

• Close failing teacher education programs,
  strengthen promising programs and expand
  excellent programs by creating incentives for
  outstanding students and career changers to enter
  teacher education at doctoral universities.

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• Henry Adams said that a teacher affects
  eternity--he can never tell where his influence
  stops.

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WAIT!!! Would this count as a good example of
an educational experience?How would we measure
the outcomes?When will we know the effect?
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The National Network for Educational Renewal
Member Settings

• Cal State Chico and Chico Public Schools
• Colorado State University and Public School
  Network
• The University of Connecticut and the UC Public
  School Network
• Georgia Center for Educational Renewal at GSU
• Hawaii Institute for School Partnerships
• Illinois State University and Chicago Public
  Schools
• University of Southern Maine and SM Partnership
• Brandon (CA) School University Partnership

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The National Network for Educational Renewal
Member Settings

• St. Cloud Network for Educational Renewal
• Metropolitan St. Louis Consortium for Educational
  Renewal
• The Missouri University School Partnership
• The Nebraska Network for Educational Renewal
• New Jersey Network for Educational Renewal at
  Montclair State University
• The City University of New York and the New York
  City Public Schools
• Albuquerque/University of New Mexico Partnership
• Miami University Partnership (OH)

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The National Network for Educational Renewal
Member Settings

• The Wright State/Dayton Partnership
• South Carolina Network for Educational Renewal
• Arlington University School Network
• University of Texas at El Paso/El Paso Network
  for Educational Renewal
• Brigham Young University School Partnership
• University of Washington Partnership
• Benedum Collaborative/West Virginia University
• The Wyoming School Partnership/University of
  Wyoming

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So, where does this leave us?

• Give up on a broader view of why we educate?
• Figure out how to provide evidence for harder to
  measure goals?
• Lobby for what is important? With whom?
• Attend to both the politically important measures
  and the broader view?

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What are some of the goals when we focus on
preparing students for democracy?

• Emphasis on critical thinking and making
  judgments.
• Developing empathy and respect for alternative
  positions.
• Learning to argue well for our positions and how
  to compromise
• Learning to participate in community meetings
• Learning to give reasons for positions
• Creating classroom communities of inquiry

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What does teaching for social justice mean?

• Social justice as nondiscrimination.
• Social justice as nonrepression.
• Social justice as opening up lifes chances to
  all students.
• What does Father Coughlin have to do with this?

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Here is where we stand now

• We argue that democracy and social justice are
  not separable as conceptsyou cant have one
  without the other.
• In its essence, socially just democratic living
  is conjoint associated living characterized by
  the care for others, consideration of the views
  of others, argument that is based on reason,
  civic participation, and living a life defined by
  nonrepression and nondiscrimination of others.
• Michelli and Keiser, Teacher Education for
  Democracy and Social Justice, (New York
  Routledge, 2005).
• And, the what edition in 2009????

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Providing Evidence of Hard to Measure Outcomes

• The Lincoln Center Institute School of the Arts
  and Imagination
• Dr. Scott Noppe-Brandon
• Dr. Madeline Holzer
• Dr. Maxine Greene
• What are the outcomes of aesthetic education?
• Aesthetic Capacities
• Deep Noticing identifying and articulating
  layers of detail in a work of art through
  continuous action with it over time.
• Embodying to experience a work of art through
  your senses, as well as emotionally, and also to
  physically represent that experience

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Providing Evidence of Hard to Measure Outcomes

• Questioning to ask questions throughout your
  explorations that further your own learning to
  ask the question, What if?
• Identifying Patterns to find relationships
  among the details you notice, group them, and
  recognize patterns
• Creating Meaning to create your own
  interpretation based on the previous capacities.

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Providing Evidence of Hard to Measure Outcomes

• Teaching for Social Justice
• Marilyn Cochran Smith and associates at Boston
  College have developed measures to examine
  teaching for social justice.

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Providing Evidence of Hard to Measure Outcomes

• Focus on School Climate
• Educators have written about and studied school
  climate for 100 years. School climate refers to
  the quality and character of school life. It is
  based on patterns of peoples experiences of
  school life and reflects norms, goals, values,
  interpersonal relationships, teaching and
  learning practices and organizational structure.
• However, school climate is more than an
  individual experience It is a group phenomenon
  that is larger than any one persons experience.
  A sustainable, positive school climate fosters
  youth development and learning necessary for a
  productive, contributative, and satisfying life
  in a democratic society.

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Sound like a shared vision??

• The National School Climate Standards. Adopted
  or under consideration for adoption in 12 states.
• The School Climate Inventory measures school
  climate (teachers, students, administrators,
  parents)
• Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, Pickeral. School
  Climate Research, Policy, Practice and Teacher
  Education. Teachers College Record, January,
  2009.

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Two Alberts

• Not everything that can be counted counts, and
  not everything that counts can be counted.
  --Albert Einstein
• What matters is what we measure.
• Albert Shanker
• That is NOT the same as We measure what matters.

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Mary Diezs Three UmpiresA Baseball/Assessment
Parable

• Three Umpires Perspectives
• I call them as they are!
• I call them as I see them!
• They arent until I call them!!

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• Henry Adams said that a teacher affects
  eternity--he can never tell where his influence
  stops.
• Quoted in Secretary Duncans Address at Teachers
  College, Columbia University, October 22, 2009.

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The future belongs to those who believe in the
beauty of their dreams. Eleanor Roosevelt
A small group of thoughtful people could change
the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that
ever has. Margaret Mead The Cost of Liberty
is less than the price of repression. W.E.B.
DuBois
The future will be better tomorrow.
George W. Bush
We are the ones we have been waiting for! Barack
Obama
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Let me know how it goes!Keep in
touch!Nmichelli_at_gc.cuny.edu917-882-7670