There is definitely a common theme among them all: disappointment. But there’s another common theme as well: hope. We hope this is the start of something. We hope that the door remains cracked open. We hope that our voices can one day be joined with others in offering suggestions, not in asking questions.

Well, it seems that in light of the evidence from the last 24 hours, Arne Duncan and the DOE felt disappointment too and reached out to us in what can only be defined as hope after a very awkward call for us all.

Yesterday afternoon, the phone rang in two classrooms in two different parts of the country: one in California and one in Kansas. And the voice on the other line introduced himself as Arne Duncan. Anthony Cody (read his account of the conversation here) and Marsha Ratzel (read her really beautiful beat-for-beat post here), two educators who have been the executive producers of our recent campaign to get teachers to the policy table, both spoke to Duncan who apologized for uncomfortable and technologically strained call.

He went on to ask about their experiences, he sought input about some key issues, and insisted that he was interested in this being the beginning of a conversation with our group, not the end of one.

We are still at the table, fellow teachers. And it is clear that we have both parties trying to make this dialog work. Sometimes it feels like a Tower of Babel, yes, with two groups trying to speak the same language, but maybe the disappointment of an awkward call becomes our Rosetta Stone.

It is clear that the door is not closed. In fact, it has creaked open ever wider.

I will, of course, update you as I learn more.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, department of education, DOE, education, ESEA Blueprint, k12

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So it was with our call yesterday with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Now, I’m not saying that I thought we were about to make a huge difference in education with one 30-minute call. But I was hopeful that we were on the same page regarding the intention of the call. I was under the impression that they had granted us entry in order to hear suggestions from teachers to better the specificity of the Blueprint. Rather, it was what we had feared; he wanted us to come at him with questions, so that he and the members of the DOE could respond with answers from the Blueprint itself or from the Race to the Top policy.

Disappointing, because I believe that they are so fully neck-deep in Race to the Top, they could never about-face even when presented with the evidence to do so. They have so fully committed outrageous amounts of funds and, worse, so fully invested their reputation in this misguided and harmful program that they answer everything with this “RTTT grin,” like it is the answer to all possible concerns.

But I get ahead of myself. Here’s a rundown of the actual conversation:

It all began with this robotic, antiquated dial in phone conference system which garbled words, created echoes, and dipped in volume. We had suggested using Elluminate. And it got me thinking how ironic this was that we were sitting there, talking to DC about 21st century skills, when we couldn’t even communicate using those very tools. That’s not to say that the 12 of us weren’t doing our best. We had a ning set up to backchat during the process, and frankly that conversational B-story deserves its own post.

Because through our backchat we could pass notes of encouragement, of policy suggestions, of frustrations. And yes, there were many. Starting with the fact that Duncan and the DOE took 10 minutes of the 30 introducing their policies and trying to encourage us with what they were already doing. They threw out words like collaboration, teacher voice, fears about job loss, class size reduction, the fact that we’ve been asked to do more with fewer resources, the fact that we need better evaluations, and that we have been losing a more well-rounded curriculum. He claimed that he realized that in education there seem to be “many ways to fail, but few rewards to success.” They don’t want to micromanage. They felt that NCLB was punitive. It went on. Now, of course he said everything we all want to hear. But his disconnect lies not in what is being said as a goal, but in how they intend to make it all happen.

Ok, so they believe in collaboration. So why don’t we in schools have it? He believes in a more well-rounded curriculum. Well, then why make success still based on test scores? Where are the solutions?

It’s like saying, “We like pizza!”

To which we respond, “Well then, why are we still serving Melba toast?”

“Well, we believe in the power of pizza, so everyone make pizza!”

“Great, we’re with you on this one, we like it too, but how do we make pizza with no dough, tomatoes, cheese, or toppings?”

“Pizza good!”

The Blueprint is not an answer, it’s a goal. That’s where the disconnect lies.

Anyway, after Duncan talked, the robot voice introduced our first speaker, Marsha Ratzel, who had a great intro prepared which unfortunately couldn’t be heard due to the limitations of the technology. Then I was up. ( Beat beat) while I dial in a code to have my mute disarmed, (Beat beat) while the robot-voice introduced me.

I can’t for the life of me remember exactly what happened with my answer. It’s a bit of a blur. And I became flustered with the sound problems so I didn’t come off as eloquent or witty as I would have liked. Marsha Ratzel posted the text of our intended contribution here. But what was frustrating is that at some point, only 30 seconds in, I was stopped, being asked if where I was going with this was the need for critical thinking.

But it wasn’t only about critical thinking, I said. It’s about our assessments not reflecting the skills we all agree will prepare students for college and career readiness. “We’re all here to make suggestions,” I said. And what I suggested is that funds be redirected to the thousands of teachers out there to train them in the development and scoring of more critical thinking assessments.

“Well it just so happens, Heather…” they began, saying that they are planning to funnel $350 million for state assessment systems. But what we’re talking about, I tried to explain, is teacher created and classroom assessments, not state created assessments. He then told me that the funds are to encourage states to bring in teachers to the assessment scoring process. But we are suggesting that the money go to bringing teachers into the creation of assessments that test more authentic, project based skills. Once again, disconnect.

They spoke with much pride about RTTT allowing everyone to be eligible for their funds. But once again, there’s this disconnect, because everyone being Eligible does not mean everyone has Access.

Duncan mentioned his support of NBCT and NWP but never addressed the current threat to either program.

Beyond me, only 3 other speakers were permitted the microphone and each were truncated and answered with responses from the Blueprint or RTTT.

Here are posts from the other speakers and their take on the conversation.

Chuck Olynyk – “Word Game”

Anthony Cody- “Talking Into a Tin Can on a String 3000 Miles Long: Our Talk with Duncan”

Nancy Flanagan – “Speed Dating with the Secretary of Education”

Mary Tedrow – “Monday Chat with Duncan”

I’ll add more as they are produced.

There is definitely a common theme among them all: disappointment. But there’s another common theme as well: hope. We hope this is the start of something. We hope that the door remains cracked open. We hope that our voices can one day be joined with others in offering suggestions, not in asking questions.

For that is our goal here, fellow teacher, to stop asking questions. We can no longer afford to spend our precious time at the policy table asking questions that they control the answer to. The awkwardness of this conversation had more to do with this difference than anything else. They kept answering questions we were not asking. We kept making suggestions to policies they clearly see as their own solutions.

Our path is now clear. We need to wage a battle of solution, not confusion. Each message that is now produced from a teacher should no longer be a Question awaiting a response, as they are comfortable with. No. We must approach the DOE as advisors. Every letter, every video, every sign, must offer solution, disallowing confusion as to our purpose. When Duncan grants us entry again, or when he grants the next group entry, there can be no doubt that we are there not seeking clarification, as they may hope, but seeking to advise as teachers and experts in education.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, Blueprint, department of education, education, ESEA, k12, Teacher Letters to Obama

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From there, the 12 of us flushed out each topic, bringing in what we know about the ESEA Blueprint and other reports, bringing in our own experiences as well as those from fellow educators, and bringing in what has worked and what has not. We have been focusing more on solution then complaint, though it’s been a bumpy path. After all, our strength as a group is in our diversity of thought, tone, and philosophy. But if you work with a group of people who are all like yourself, you forget that you have room to grow in your own ideas. And we all have a few stretch marks to show for it. But we also have produced a great baby of a script for introducing our ideas to the Secretary of Education and members of the Department of Education.

I am encouraged that the door is open to us. But I admit that I will be disappointed if this does not bloom into something other than this call. After all, we are bringing them a platter of topics and possible solutions, but this is by no means a buffet of procedures. Sure we can list solutions, but for true change to take place, we must scaffold reform. Reform is a step-by-step process and one that teachers must be a part of.

Our topics which we will be covering are as follows:

College and Career Readiness

Great Teachers and Leaders

Diverse Learners

Safe and Successful Schools

Complete Education

Innovation

The one I am specifically working on with the wise and awesome Marsha Ratzel is Topic #1, College and Career Readiness. Now, I think this is an important topic (as they all are, of course) because it is something that we can agree on with the DOE’s Blueprint. Our job is and always has been to help our students be prepared for college or career, whatever that career may be. But our argument is that current assessments do not test the very skills that leaders in either business nor higher education are looking for. And the reality is that, in education, assessments drive instruction.

So in a way, we are working in a system where the tail is wagging the dog. Therefore, we need to make sure that the tail is applicable or the dog gets fleas. OK, that metaphor didn’t work at all, but I think you get my drift.

So Marsha and I looked at the Partnership of 21st Century Skills, which provided the results of a poll of over 2000 business leaders who all believed that the following skills are needed for a 21st Century employee:

* Critical Thinking

* Problem Solving

* Communication

* Collaboration

* Creativity

* Innovation

We also looked at such studies as those from the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges who polled professors, many of whom work with freshmen and in introductory courses in the Cal State, UC, and California community college systems who also just happen to mention the same skills as being necessary for entering freshmen to have upon the start of their higher ed careers.

Therefore, if we are to provide a real curriculum of college and career readiness, we must also be assessing those skills and not the drill and kill content that is currently being tested. We also say that there are thousands upon thousands of talented teachers out there who have already been developing better assessments and more critical thinking curriculum, and who are just waiting to have their talents tapped.

By the way, Marsha and I both agree that our current curriculum is engaging or rigorous; it’s just not what we should be testing. Let’s use the content, the rich history, the math, the science. But let’s assess how a student communicates a response to an inquiry or contributes collaboratively to a wiki. Let’s assess how a student performs in a mock job interview complete with cover letter and resume. Let’s assess the growth of a student by looking at a growing portfolio that reflects the best of that student’s work throughout the year or, better, yet, throughout a number of years. Let’s assess a students contributions to a public service project. Let’s assess a student’s executive summary of the results of solving a local community problem.

Additionally, we argue, we cannot make high stakes decisions based on the results of our current assessments because they aren’t testing the very skills the scores are supposed to indicate. How can we call a student NOT college and career ready based on test results that don’t assess those very skills?

Anyway, that’s the gist. And yet, for many of us in our little group, this call is only the B-Story as we try to wrap up this very hard and tiring school year, a year plagued by pink slips and budget cuts. We all still work to make these kids ready for colleges that are becoming increasingly unaffordable and career ready for jobs that are now in drought. But our job remains the same, to help our students towards their futures.

Oh, yeah, and just to keep you guys in the loop, amongst it all, the teacher I was paying to ride the bus with my middle school speech team had to back out so I had to find another willing teacher to take my place in a bus full of excited, yelling debate students. It’s become a photograph of teaching really: A bus of students traveling in front of me, as I drive my CR-V down the 605 with one hand and dial the number for the DOE with the other. But at least my superintendent and principal have agreed to allow me to pay this audio-tolerant, bus-riding teacher out of my Speech funds. Some of the teachers in our advocacy group of 12 have to call in sick tomorrow just to participate in the call.

I’ll update my readers soon of what befalls our little troop of educational reformers.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…” And that includes you, dear reader.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, college and career readiness, department of education, education, ESEA Blueprint, k12

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© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, college and career readiness, department of education, ESEA Blueprint, k12

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And her questions are loaded with lessons as well.  Her spin on how to comment using the questioning format is as simple a tactic as when the powers-that-be first decided to change the format of a the normal game show and said, “hey, why not have the CONTESTANTS come up with the questions!”

And so Jeopardy was born.

And so a new blogger is born as well as a new fan.

Puglisi creates commentary in a fresh new way, and I, for one, am hooked.

Enjoy and pass it on.

-Heather

aka Tweenteacher

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, blogging, education

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Here’s my letter I just posted this morning:

Dear Arne Duncan,

I am a teacher, a blogger, an author, a wife, and a mother. Before I go into what I think we need to do to help education, I want to acknowledge what you have inherited and how difficult it must be to fix a machine where so many cogs are broken. I know too that education feels like a black hole, an inherited problem for your administration, but it has been a culminating failure of multiple administrations, of a society who consistently votes against their own children, as well as a failure of the educational system, which has led us to where we are today.

But I need you to turn your face to us, the teachers in the crowd now, for advice. We need you and our leaders to listen to those of us who have been fighting alongside our children all along. For too long have we been left out of the rooms and away from the tables, and look where we are today. We are the ones you have to focus your attention on now: not the test-makers, not the textbook companies, us.

To simplify my thoughts so that perhaps they might be heard, I have honed in on four main components that I believe are deeply important for educational reform:

1. There is an equation of success for education. It is simple and it can only work with all variables intact and supported:

Student effort + teacher guidance + government funding + family support = school and student achievement

No longer can schools or teachers be solely held accountable for the failures of a broken system. Yes, I see in your blueprint that you are trying to acknowledge that there are elements outside of education that must be addressed, but this must be more aggressive and targeted for true change to begin.

2. Yes, teacher quality is an issue, but it is one that can be solved without villain-ising teachers as a whole. You cannot cut down an apple tree because of one diseased fruit. The systems you criticize: tenure, the seniority list, etc…we all understand your criticisms of them. But they do not define the majority of hard-working, talented, and self-sacrificing troops of experienced and new teachers out there who are dedicated to this profession.

Each of them talk about the complexities of these issues, complexities that you are overlooking, I assume, to appear strong to those who want to see a Democratic bicep. But just because many of your constituents do not understand the subtleties does not mean you need to cater to them, swinging an axe over your head, beating your shield. Change will show strength, Mr. Duncan. And change can only happen with teachers at your side and at your table.

3. The National Standards do not reflect enough the skills our students need for their future. Educational Technology is vital. A student cannot apply for a job without understanding some degree of Internet Literacy. Yet funding for Ed tech has been cut. You claim that students must be “College and Career Ready” but vocational funding has been cut, electives have been cut, student choice has been cut. And student choice and sampling of interests has long been the basis for professional taste testing in the K-12 system. A student who hasn’t tasted Speech and Debate or Woodshop, who hasn’t tried Home Ec or Orchestra, who cannot see through the sea of students in their AP class or cannot get remedial help in Reading will not be “college and career ready.”

4. Teachers, great ones, are always training. Just as students evolve, so must teachers. I understand somehow that education is unique in that you see teachers as the authorities who go through their prep programs and should, somehow, come out (cue microwave ding!) done with our own education. But to maintain the skills of our students’ futures, we ourselves must be proficient in an ever-evolving skill set as well as be brilliant and engaging communicators. Yet funding for our own training continues to be cut time and time again. There must be a shift in how society feels about what it means to desire current training. It is not a weakness, but a strength to be constantly learning. And while I don’t expect society as a whole to believe it, I do expect my Secretary of Education to believe it and support it.

The bottom line is this, Mr. Duncan: the very principals in your blueprint are degraded by the recent cuts and lack of funding. We need you to swivel your gaze back to those who know best. We are here, right in front of you. Our intentions are for the good of the student. We know our missive and we are living it every day. Listen to the teachers.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, budget cuts, education, Facebooks, letters to Obama, Social networking

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The rumor on the winds that whispers through the halls is that funding for the National Writing Project will soon be threatened. I understand that the Obama administration is moving to consolidate expenses by merging a number of programs into one fund. I realize that the intent is to create this bigger pool of money that can be used to pay for any number of programs, but the fact is that by bleeding programs together, you undermine the uniqueness of purpose and proven success that has become the National Writing Project. You are messing with what works, breaking what never needed to be fixed.(...)
Read the rest of Mr. Duncan: Save the National Writing Project (1,018 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, education, k12, obama, professional development, writing project

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“Realistically, some schools will close this fall. It’s incredibly important to all of us that our students continue to learn,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. “Educators need to start thinking now about having temporary home school in place using both phones and the Internet.”(...)
Read the rest of Arne Duncan and His Distance Learning Missive (579 words)