Beyond School

The comment thread on Gary Stager’s HuffPo article on the Duncan appointment wouldn’t allow this long response, so I’m posting it here.

Gary,

I’m still informing myself (and as others have noted, your links are now more of my homework), so I’m going to withhold judgment somewhat.

I will say that all the reading I’ve done so far – and I’ve been reading a lot – confirms that Duncan’s record in Chicago is far from miraculous.

But I’ve read some ‘benefit of the doubt’ types who note that Duncan’s hands may have been tied by the Daley machine. Since Duncan’s appointment is now a fait accompli, we can only hope he’ll surprise us under Obama.

I’ll also note that, a propos the tempest around gay-basher Rick Warren’s selection for the inauguration, Duncan gave strong support to a “gay-friendly” school in Chicago. (Yes, I’m aware such an idea smacks of “separate but equal,” but wrote here about why I still think it’s a good idea.) While not an educational feather, it’s still a refreshing one to see in a cabinet member’s cap.

We may as well add that Duncan is on record as condemning the lack of funding for NCLB, its stick-instead-of-carrot posture (which could be changed), and its low-cognition assessments. If he “reforms” NCLB along these lines – and yes, many more – I can think of worse outcomes.

In the end, the decisions on education under the Obama administration are Obama’s responsibility; what he said regarding HRC at State pertains to education as well: “I’ll make the decisions.”  And while I’m as nervous as the next guy over so many of his moves lately, I guess I’m holding out hope that all the recent theater is outside-the-box tactics in a longer-term strategy that will make progressives proud. His campaign – a masterpiece of proving the nay-sayers wrong – makes me think more than twice that I can unriddle his long-term plan. So maybe he is selling out or simply making stupid choices; but maybe he’s not. He’s so damn poker-faced and close to the chest, it’s beyond me to know at this point.

I also take heart in the fact that he tapped Darling-Hammond to lead his transition team, and by choosing Duncan instead of a Rhee or Klein, arguably signaled his opposition to those more extreme edubiz proponents. I also take heart in the possibility that BO is so enamored of the “cabinet of rivals” idea in the Lincoln book he’s been touting lately that his appointment of Duncan might not equal an endorsement of Duncan’s record. Again: fait accompli – I’ll cling to any shred of hope until actions in office shred it beyond clinging.

This is all a long-winded way of saying you may be right, but until we see more, you’re not yet. Let’s hope you never are

Parting shot: To me, the money quote of your article was this:  “Perhaps we need federal legislation requiring a fully qualified superintendent in every school district!”

I’ve been thinking the same thing since I began watching the Texas Board of Edu-Creationism try to jimmy Genesis into science classes and, worse yet, textbooks nationwide (Texas standards wag the national textbook industry dog: if Texas votes to deny Darwin, all the science textbooks will aim to please. I still pray somebody stateside takes on the Smart Mobs idea to protest this putsch).

So I’d revise your money quote to add Board of Education members to the list of politicians requiring expertise in education. Failing that, we’re prey to anti-primate jackasses evermore.

Who is Arne Duncan and how will his choice as Secretary of Education affect education in the US (and, for better or worse in this hegemonic age, much of the rest of the world)? I’ve spent so many hours since the announcement reading reactions online that both my eyes and my brain cells are fried. (Enjoy the Diigo bookmarks if you’re masochistic.) All that reading will have to steep for a while before I can serve it as tea.

Until that happens, I’m going to focus on one controversy surrounding Duncan, and toss out some thoughts on it. That controversy is performance pay for teachers.

Bill Ferriter’s excellent recent post on this issue at the Tempered Radical got me thinking. I replied there,

Thinking about it a little more, this is what I can come up with so far:

We’d have to define “merit” to include the higher-order thinking skills – analysis, synthesis, evalutation/critical thinking, creativity – that the best learning projects require. This is not the opposite of the “fact-based, right/wrong, multiple choice” testing that NCLB and the College Board/AP/SAT pushes, but what you might call the upward extension of it. Mastery of facts is the beginning, not the end, of the assessment for meritorious teaching and learning.

If we start there, that means teacher merit is measured by the types of projects that are assigned in the classroom – not by the standardized testing industry – and by the performance of students who complete these projects. This further means that said teacher measurement is performed not centrally, but locally – or perhaps by boards consisting of local and central judges. (I know that “central” is vague.)

My thinking is that if teachers were rewarded for designing learning activities that measured positively against a checklist of such higher-order thinking traits – and crucially, that the measurement was based not on a single unit, but on a portfolio of all units assigned throughout the semester or year (this eliminates the dog-and-pony show liability of single principal evaluations) – then the best teachers would be rewarded with higher pay, while the worst ones would have an incentive to change their practice for the better. Teaching to the test wouldn’t be the goal any more; teaching to higher instructional standards would be.

As for what those higher instructional standards would look like, we need look no further than Linda Darling-Hammond for answers. Her presentation linked in an earlier post lays the groundwork for such guidelines.

As I commented on Will’s post about the Duncan pick,

Since Darling-Hammond led BO’s ed transition team, she may have had his ear long enough to fill it with good sense on how to reform NCLB’s assessments for the better – so that they align with better teaching-and-learning.

And I just discovered Bill Ferriter posted a follow-up to my comment, so off I go to fry a few more cells. Bill’s worth it.