How do you judge a school?

One way to judge a school is to look at its test scores. Another is to look at individual student growth. How does one weigh factors such as student excitement about learning?

A Life Skill Center in Florida run by White Hat has been criticized and almost was not renewed recently. The Polk County school board voted to extend the contract by a year, but expressed concerns about the schools financial health.

Students and parents spoke at the meeting, and board members were swayed by the students' excitement about attending the school.

When I was in high school, I hated school. I did well on tests, both classroom and standardized because I was a compliant (mostly) student, but I never really liked school.

Now, here is a school board (not a charter school board, but a real live traditional public school district board) that voted to keep a charter school open mostly because the kids like the school. I can find lots of reasons for high school students to like a school that are bad reasons to keep a school open--easy courses, teachers that are nice, or free pizza. So, the question is how does one determine the value of student excitement? Fortunately, in this case, the student excitement seems to be about learning. As we all know, student engagement and enthusiasm is a big part of the learning process. So, I don't want to discount that factor. I simply am not sure how to measure it and it's value.

You see, I'm not sold on test scores, and I'm not sold even on individual student growth. It's not that I don't think those are important, but I don't think that they are the sole determinant of a good or even great school. A great school instills a love of learning that is lifelong. It's easy for me to think of those both peers and more recent high school graduates, who were very successful in their K-12 education, but gave up in college or even after entering the working world and simply stopped learning.

I like the idea of using student excitement as a measure of school "success," but am not sure how to apply that across various cases. Perhaps it must be, as in the Life Skills Center case, decided on an individual basis. Perhaps it's intuitive--something leaders have to sense. Perhaps it's something that you have to sense at first, and then judge by more objective measures once it's observed.

Certainly, the goal of most charter schools is to instill this excitement about being at school (at least that's what I've observed across the country). I hope it's also the goal of most non-charter public schools. But is it enough? Is excitement enough to justify keeping the doors open? For Life Skills Center in the Polk County School District, I guess we'll find out next year.

Teacher Pay: Can we find a bridge over troubled waters?

Way back when Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel wrote "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," they couldn't have imagined the fight going on about changing the way teachers are paid. When both proponents and opponents of changing the current single salary schedule for paying teachers agree that using student test scores as the primary means of evaluating a teacher is a bad idea, how do we bridge the divide?

Michael Mayo, who seems to favor some sort of differentiated pay for teachers argues (as I have here in the past) that paying teachers for students' performance is ludicrous. In fact, he argues that perhaps the legislators of Florida ought to be paid the same way.

Unions in Florida oppose the proposed legislation, partly because it eliminates tenure.

It seems to me, and has seemed to me for a long time, that it's time for this impasse to be passed. Therefore, let me try to be (again) the bridge.

Those fixated on test scores are wrong about a lot of things. They are wrong about test scores being the best indicator of a good education. They are also wrong that one can easily and directly assess a teacher's ability or effectiveness based on a test score, or even set of test scores.

Those who argue that test scores are irrelevant are also wrong. In addition, they seem to be using this argument as a smoke screen for a bigger issue. Those opposed to merit or performance pay for teachers often are really opposed because of philosophical issues, but are using test scores as the sticking point.

Like the Florida teachers who don't want to lose their tenure, many teachers are afraid of any system that might begin to judge them or threaten their livelihood.

The fact is that good schools recognize good habits. They put them on stage and ask those not exercising those habits to develop them. Douglas Reeves says this in Chapter 6 of his book The Learning Leader. He calls it "treasure hunting." If we can recognize these effective traits in teachers, then why not reward them? In addition, if kids are the main focus of our educational system, then we ought to reward teachers, not with guaranteed jobs or salaries, but with rewards that are appropriate to their ability to use effective skills in the classroom.

As I've said before the bridge seems to be to:

1. Help unions understand that the landscape is changing--a teacher is not a cog in a machine, and cannot be paid like one.
2. Help reformers understand that their is more to life than test scores.
3. Help reformers understand that their are recognizable traits of good teaching.

Until both sides realize that the landscape needs to change, this stalemate will continue. Much like Pelosi's probable power play on Healthcare, so far Obama seems to be forcing states to accept a test score based merit system. That type of forced system will be accepted like my two year old daughter accepted her stitches. And I can't blame the unions for objecting. First, they've had no real say, and second it's a system that is almost destined to fail. It's not research based in the least.

On the other hand, if unions don't begin to see that teacher salaries need to reflect the profession that it is (e.g. creative, varied, flexible, unpredictable), then the teaching profession will never achieve the level of respect that teachers seek. If teachers want to be compared to accountants or lawyers or other professionals who are paid salaries largely unrelated to the person's age or years of service, then they have to accept the same flexibility (and some subjectivity) in their pay system.

We aren't there yet, and it's unclear to me at this point whether the unions simply need to get out of the way on this one. The key is that education needs to become about educating kids and not pacifying teachers or politicians. I would like to see a bridge built that gets over these troubled waters, so that we can move on to the real task at hand, finding and rewarding good teachers who will make a difference to kids.

Freedom in charter schools: a two edged sword

The president of the Albuquerque Public Schools system has expressed outrage that a charter school director makes over $200,000. The article on the KOAT web site doesn't state whether the salary quoted is with or without benefits, but does compare the salary to the $250,000 plus salary of the APS superintendent.

The charter school leader explained that he fills the role of superintendent as well as a principal for three schools--something that the APS superintendent does not do.

The dilemma for charter schools is that they have some freedom in deciding what is important and how to fulfill their mission. The problem is that some will always judge based on inputs rather than outputs. It seems that both sides of the education choice debate agree that both school leadership and teachers make a difference in a good education. The two edged sword is that if a group of charter schools, such as this example from New Mexico, chooses to hire an excellent (we'll assume for now) leader and pay him what he is worth on the open market, they are criticized. They are criticized not for the output of the school, but for choosing a non-standard input. Criticizing the schools' decision based on the chosen inputs is as ridiculous as criticizing a student based on his or her looks rather than on performance.

Perhaps the problem in many schools--both charter and non-charter--is that school leaders aren't paid enough so we don't get a good supply of quality leaders. That is at least one possibility. Why not allow this set of charter schools to see if it will work.

However, the other side of the sword is that the board must not choose to pay a school leader a salary well above industry averages based on something other than expected school performance. In addition, the board must not continue to pay a school leader a higher than market salary if the school doesn't perform at a commensurate level.

To test this, let's use the example of teacher pay. When a charter school in New York said that it would pay teachers $100,000 per year, I didn't see any complaints--raised eyebrows of curiosity, but no complaints. However, I imagine if the school produced poor results over a few years, people would begin to wonder why the school continued to pay those higher than average salaries when the teachers didn't seem to be doing a good job. In the same way, this Albuquerque charter school leader should be judged based on output rather than input. If he can lead these schools in a way that produces superior results, perhaps he ought to praised (and perhaps required to show that he can replicate his model or train other principals) rather than criticized. On the other hand, if he can't produce schools with superior results, then it should become obvious to all that he isn't worth the money and receive a salary cut or be dismissed.

The point is that freedom to innovate should include innovations with salary. Simply because a salary is higher than average should not be reason to indite the school leader or the board. The results of the school should be used to judge.

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Having made the point above, there is the legitimate question of whether the charter schools' boards have thought through the philosophical and mission aspects of paying Mr. Glasrud such a large salary or if they have done it for other non-strategic reasons. It seems to me that it is in the boards' best interest to have some written document that describes their strategic reasons for paying such a non-standard salary.

Who knows what a good teacher is?

Apparently Jim Horn, according to Jim Horn over at School Matters. He spends a good chunk of a blog criticizing Bill Gates, Doug Lemov and Elizabeth Green for their mechanistic view of creating a good teacher. He criticizes Green and Gates for not knowing that many of Green's training methods or commandments have been known for a long time.

The blog goes on and on about the failures of Elizabeth Green and her lack of understanding about what makes a good teacher. Horn then gives a brief reading list for those ignorant of his wonderful knowledge.

He is correct. People who write about teacher training probably should know something about it. I'm no expert on teacher training, although I've taught and used many methods found in research.

However, I began to realize as I read that Horn has no solution for the current problem in schools. He strongly criticizes Doug Lemov's 49 commandments for teachers and likens his method to a production line in a factory, but has no solution of his own. In addition, he says nothing about why, if his knowledge of what makes a good teacher is so widespread, that schools have such big problems hiring and training good teachers. He also doesn't explain what many of us have been asking for years, "Why don't bad teachers either get trained or else get fired?"

I agree with Horn that a great teacher isn't a machine, but I don't think that Lemov believes that either. There is a difference between saying that there are techniques that work consistently to help kids learn and saying that there is some mechanistic way to use these techniques. A teacher, even with the 49 commandments still has to understand the art of how to use them in the same way that any artist needs to learn brush strokes or that a violinist needs to understand proper posture and bow position.

Of course, the greatest artists often take license to vary from the "rules," but it's only when they understand the rules and get really good at them that they can begin to improvise. I recently spoke with a classically trained violinist who now plays primarily in a country band. He told me that it's his classical training that allows him to be a bit "loose" when he plays country music. He has the ability to ignore proper body position and posture sometimes because he can correct in other ways while handling the bow. I'm not a country music fan nor a violinist, but it is quite impressive to watch, especially now that I know that he is doing it.

It strikes me that teachers are the same way. Lemov's 49 commandments may not be gospel, but they may well provide those introductory rules, especially for teachers who need that very basic help, whether for the first time or because they never learned the rules twenty years ago. I also imagine that Lemov would agree that a great teacher can often use these techniques with greater variation and perhaps even ignore some of them at times as they begin to sense what students need in a given setting.

Horn's argument does not demonstrate that good teachers are not built. He also doesn't demonstrate that Lemov's 49 commandments don't work. He simply makes fun of people he doesn't like. Don't be fooled. Teaching can be improved. If it can't, then bad teachers should be fired without attempts to make them better. If it turns out that there is more than one way to make a great teacher, then have at it. Very few in the charter school world is saying that we want bad teachers. In fact, we are simply saying that we want to make good teachers. If a teacher can't be good or doesn't want to work at being good, then he or she isn't a teacher--or at least shouldn't be.

Bail out education? Not Robert Reich's way!

Robert Reich used to be influential as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. In this article he discusses the need to bail out education because of the drastic impact that budget cuts are having and will continue to have over the next few years. He cites increased class sizes and elimination of arts, music and even history programs as examples of intolerable results of the budget cuts.

Reich says that to fill all of the budget holes in education, it would take less than half ($200 billion compared to $700 billion) of what it took to bail out banks and financial institutions. However, there are some legitimate places that schools can cut budgets without the effects in the classroom that are either being contemplated or have actually been implemented.

Reich is wrong to paint this as a doomsday scenario and to make the solution so easy. Kids can learn with 30 kids in the classroom. There is debate about who should go to college and the value of a college education for everyone. There are also other ways to make sure qualified (depending on what he means by that) students go to college without bailing out the whole system.

The doomsday prophecies about schools are not true. This is not doomsday. Plenty of countries produce much better K-12 education than the U.S. and spend less money, have less adequate teacher training, and fewer choices in their educational programs. It's not that I favor 30 kids in the classroom, but many charter schools manage with fewer kids in the classroom and manage a tight budget.

In addition, we aren't talking about just $200 billion. It would likely be $200 billion per year for a number of years until the economy turns around and gets back to the year 2008 levels. Who knows how long that might be and how much money would be spent in the long run?

Economists are already concerned about the size of the current deficit, what if we add another two, three or four years of additional federal spending to fill education's budget holes? Schools, both K-12 and post-secondary, can and should be more efficient with their money. The federal government can support that by rewriting federal legislation that makes schools responsible for outcomes and not inputs. let's bail out education by putting money into the essentials of education and into ways that can make it productive and customer focused, not faculty or administration focused. Let's bail out education by removing the shackles and giving educational institutions the freedom to do what they know is best--with help and information, but not with unnecessary requirements.

Utah legislature tries to fix one problem, causes another?

The Utah Senate approved a bill that would change the way charter schools are funded. Under current law, Utah charters schools are funded from a pool of money that is separate from property taxes. Trying to create equity, the Senate's bill funds charter schools from property tax revenues.

Opponents see this as taking away from districts. Charter school leaders see this as a fair solution. Afterall "Those families who elect to take their children to a charter school pay property taxes," said Judi Clark, executive director of Parents for Choice in Education.

The issue of how to properly fund charter schools has been difficult. It seems only fair that if a school district is not educating students, then it shouldn't be paid to do so. It shouldn't keep the windfall. On the other hand, many of the fixed costs of running a school district remain.

From my experience in the education world, it's clear that many district leaders don't like budget problems. That may seem like a silly statement. Afterall, no one likes budget problems. However, from my experience in the business world, it seems that business people normally have a better handle on how to cut budgets and how to lay off employees when necessary. That doesn't mean that business people like laying people off. I've been in too many meeting in which lay offs were decided, and I don't recall any of the manager through executive level people liking it.

School districts and charter schools must learn to coexist. Charter schools aren't likely to be going away soon, and they are educating kids. School districts aren't going away soon and they are educating kids. Utah has opened up a can of worms by trying a late session radical change in the way they fund schools. The intent is good. I just hope they haven't let all of the worms out at once.

Florida teachers' union doesn't seem to understand

The FEA is fighting a performance pay model. While I'm not a huge fan of the Florida proposal, I'm even less of a fan of the Florida union's arguments. The argument against blindly using test scores is a good one. There have to be adjustments for the students particular needs and abilities. In addition, the primary pay for any pay system has to be based on an equivalent pay for the value created for the system.

The union argues that teachers can be fired in the current system when they don't perform, but that missed the point. A pay system isn't just about hiring, retaining and firing. It's about ensuring that people are appropriately level of performance and the value that they create. In the current system, a teacher who has been teaching for two years may create just as much or more value than a teacher who has been teaching twenty or more years. There is no reason (at least no good reason) that a teacher with twenty years of service ought to be paid more than a teacher with two years of service. The union leaders don't seem to understand that.

So, instead of making alternate proposals for a fair pay system, the union seems determined to turn back RTTT funding in order to keep an antiquated and unfair pay system.

Instead of blindly opposing the performance pay legislation, the union would be wise to devise an alternate pay system of its own and negotiate a new system on the merits. It appears that the idea of a high effective teacher and appropriate pay for highly effective teachers is coming. The union needs to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

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Link to our performance pay proposal