Tom Liam Lynch :: New Literacies, New Literatures

This recent speech was posted on ED’s web site.  In it, Secretary Duncan criticizes teacher preparation programs.  He spoke:

In a speech last fall at the Teachers College at Columbia, I noted that education schools have long been treated as the Rodney Dangerfield of higher education. Colleges of education have traditionally been the institution that got no respect—yet still they are described as cash cows for other, more academically-prestigious departments of the university.

Once teachers finish their preparation program, they enter a profession that continues to treat them as something less than highly-skilled professionals. Smart induction policies and well-designed mentoring for new teachers is the exception, rather than the rule. Professional development is generally of poor quality. Pay is based not on your performance in the classroom or your impact on student learning but rather on your credentials and time spent in the job. Performance evaluations of teachers are largely a sham.

So, how do we explain this paradox of on the one hand revering teachers, yet on the other hand, failing to elevate the teaching profession?

In the context of the current political climate, it seems like these questions fit conveniently with hot topics like of teacher tenure, teacher training, and the use of online courses and blended learning models to broaden the school day.  The iZone work I am a part of in NYC is one example of a major city trying to better understand how new approaches to teaching and learning might be used in over 1500 schools.

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I was in the hospital with my new son one night a few weeks when I saw that one of the authors of Disrupting Class, Michael Horn, replied to my previous blog posting.  My son is three weeks today; his father finally has a chance to reply to Horn.  Horn wrote a comment to my posting that begins:

While I appreciated the kudos, a “good catch” does not adequately respond to my point.  Even Horn’s later series of rebuttals do nothing more than dodge the core of the critique.  At the heart of the posting is the concern that the authors of Disrupting Class knowingly misrepresent and dismiss research and scholarship in the field of education.  As a result, the Disruption Theory they create is inherently groundless.  Though it is compelling–no one would argue that the book has had great effects on education policy and reform–it neglects to seriously consider what is going on in actual schools with actual students, and it doesn’t consider what experts in education have to say about those realities.

I agree with Horn that much of educational research doesn’t prove causal relationships (if you do X students will ace their exams).  But that doesn’t mean you disregard it completely.  The weakness of Disrupting Class‘s stance toward educational research is that it finds value only in the answers to questions, not the questions themselves.  What questions would have been raised in their book if the authors had seriously considered educational research? What questions, then, would policy-makers and educational leadership have asked?  Questions, after all, are far more disruptive. 

Here’s an example.  One of the gaps I point out is that the authors make “the hasty assumption that adolescents’ use of technology means they can simply learn from it.”  Horn replied to this critique (which was the third in a list) that “we pointedly don’t rely on point #3 that you cite. Others write about this, but we ourselves don’t hinge our argument on this point.”  I’m sorry, but Horn and his colleagues pointedly do rely on students’ use of technology to learn.  If you remove students-using-technology-to-learn from Disrupting Class there is no book.  Who uses the online courses they speak of?  How do the authors imagine students sharing content they create?  And let’s not ignore the fact that not all students learn well in online courses; not all students have any interest or natural skill in posting materials for classmates to learn from. 

If the authors had consulted–just as one example–Donald Leu’s study in which he compares students’ offline and online literacy skills they might have disclaimed that research shows students’ offline and online literacy abilities have no direct relationship.  Great online readers might be shoddy offline readers.  And vice versa.  If they had considered even just studies that compare students online and offline lives, they might have explored certain realities of applying their theory to a school system: not all students are digitally literate; students’ social digital literacies don’t simply apply to online schoolwork; not all traditionally successful students’ talents translate to the online world; not all students even have equitable access to online worlds and therefore to those crucial online skills. 

The above response, I might add, says nothing about the authors’ disregard for the roles of teachers in student-learning.  While they do compliment educators for their hard work, they don’t seriously consider what it means, for instance, to disrupt teacher education using their framework.  Nor do they consider the setbacks and advances being made in the professional development of educators.  Their solution is to take a master teacher like Jaime Escalante and broadcast him to as many students as possible.  I wonder what kind of relationship Escalante would form with his students in such a scenario.  After all, wasn’t it his ability to connect with his classes that made his success possible? 

In sum, we need a real series of exchanges in which the educational research community dialogues with the authors of Disrupting Class.  Ideally, there would be a think tank in which some organization (a university, consulting group, a city) would invite the book’s authors and an array of educational scholars to the same table to talk about ways to ground so influential a book.  The authors of the book might dismiss educational research, but researchers are also quick to categorically dismiss the book.  Disrupting Class has been incredibly influential and is shaping education reform around the world.  Scholars who ignore that simple truth are too tangled in their own academic robes to see that real principals, teachers, students, and parents are and will be affected by this book.  Time to disrobe, if need be, and to seriously consider what it means to disrupt.

NB: There are other critiques of the book as well. One especially thoughtful review is by John Sener.

Pearson Evaluation Systems has created a totally computer-based test to license teachers. 

I’m all for experimentation in new ways of teaching and learning.  I have a hard time buying the idea that Pearson “developed the NES program to help states make sure the educators they certify are prepared to teach effectively in 21-st century classrooms.”  That’s an absurd notion–that because someone sits at a computer to take a series of content-heavy lessons and exams that they are then ready to be in a room with live students.  It’s especially strange when much research–and the Secretary of Education–calls for pre-service teachers to spend more time in classrooms with students working on craft.  An Ed Week article adds that NCATE is taking Pearson’s work very seriously:

James Cibulka, president of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), agreed that NES, as well as other teacher-certification tests, should be aligned with rigorous standards. But he also said it should be just one of multiple measures of a candidate’s effectiveness.

“NCATE welcomes innovative approaches to assessing teaching candidates in pre-service programs, those seeking licensure, and recently licensed teachers, such as NEC is developing,” he said. “Raising the bar for those entering the teaching profession is one important strategy if America is to succeed in raising K-12 student achievement and closing the achievement gap.”

I am befuddled and bewildered.  But I’m also open to learning more.  So, Pearson, let’s hear it.

Here’s what I read on Ed Week:

The state Board of Regents on Monday approved a reform plan for teacher preparation that would place far more emphasis on classroom experience.

OK. Few would argue that giving pre-service teachers more time in the classroom is a bad thing.  In my work with graduate students in a teacher prep program, I find that more time in classrooms, in front of classrooms, and talking about classrooms the better.  But then, I read this:

It also would streamline the process for experts in other fields to become teachers and allow cultural institutions and research centers to award teaching degrees.

Streamline means “speed things up” and cultural institutions and research centers means, well, who knows.  This is concerning.  Pre-service teachers need more time in classrooms, not less.  Speeding up the teacher preparation process might very well put more under-prepared adults in classrooms with our students most in need.  Not a recipe for success, I worry.

Some more specs from Ed Week include:

The reforms proposed Monday would:

• Base evaluations of prospective teachers far more heavily on classroom performance, through both live and videotaped monitoring.

• Reduce the academic requirements for professionals in other fields who want to become teachers and can demonstrate their expertise by passing rigorous subject-area tests. Their training would then focus on teaching skills.

• Allow cultural institutions, research centers and nonprofit organizations to certify teachers. Colleges and universities dominate that role and would continue to be key players.

• Offer bonuses of as much as $30,000 to teachers in shortage areas who accept positions in high-needs schools. Steiner said there is a “deep need” for teachers in science, technology, math, engineering, special education and English as a second language.

In a piece from Education Week, Pedro Noguera of NYU School of Education criticizes the Secretary Duncan’s recent scolding of teacher preparation programs.  The most notable quote from Professor Noguera, as Ed Week notes as well, is the following:

It makes no more sense to blame schools of education for the failings of public schools than it does to blame business schools for the collapse of the country’s financial sector.

A NY Times article recently explored how the New York State Board of Regents is considering opening up “alternative” programs to granting teachers certification.  On the one hand, thinking out of the box is more often than not a good thing for bureaucrats to do.  On the other hand, it makes teaching seem like training, not a “sophisticated profession”.  In the words of Teachers College vice provost William Baldwin,

“I could identify critical shortages in health care, such as primary care physicians, and I don’t think people would be open to allowing certifying doctors that came from an alternate path,” he said. “I think they are responding to the right concerns, but I am not sure this is the right solution.”

I agree.  I also think educational leaders like Teachers College need to take the lead on reforming teacher preparation because, up to this point, a couple weeks after Secretary Duncan’s speech, no one else is offering a plan.

The US Chamber of Commerce has just released a report card, called “Leaders and Laggards,” giving each state an assessment for its use of “educational innovation”.  There are many things worth noting.  Here are two: 1) the report comes at a time when–all too conveniently–the mad rush has begun for Race to the Top funds has begun; and 20 the report seems to rely on fairly traditional understandings of assessing the impact of innovation.  Education Week notes,

What researchers were not doing was measuring “nifty, faddish experiments,” said Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Instead, the analysis was meant to examine whether a state has created a “flexible, performance-oriented culture,” he said.

Nifty? Faddish?  Now that has the ring of innovation.

I created wordles for two of the Secretary of Education’s recent speeches: one given at Teachers College, Columbia University and one given to the US Chamber of Commerce’s Education and Workforce Summit. 

Speech 1: Audience, leaders in education —

Speech 2: Audience, US Chamber of Commerce –

A report from the Alliance for Excellent Education has issued a report that calls for a greater focus on the preparation of high school teachers. They say it’s key for students’ success in college and jobs. Edweek described it like this:

The alliance, a Washington-based group that focuses on improving high schools, also urges teacher-training programs to do better at producing teachers who have both deep knowledge of the content they teach and mastery of the best pedagogical approaches to teaching that material.

The full report is available here. 

I agree that more time on content knowledge and pedagogy would benefit teachers in training.  However, the time allotted by most programs (a year, two at the max) is hardly enough time to train teachers sufficiently.  (Doctors have med school and residency; lawyers have law school for three…)  One specific piece of teacher training that merits attention is the way in which student teaching relates to the coursework of the academic institution issuing the degree.  In a perfect world, public schools would have a certain number of rooms for educational researchers and professors–whose salaries would be covered 50/50 by both the school and the university–and schools would be more akin to medical residencies. 

It would be nice to think that this report is the first step to teacher preparation reform. 

This article recently described how 2 out of 5 teachers are disheartened with the profession.  It connects this study–conducted by a NYC-based research group–to Arne Duncan’s recent murmurings that rewarding teachers and focusing on teacher preparation is essential to improving education.  What can teacher preparation programs be doing, I wonder, to help pre-service teachers have a more realistic sense of what teaching is and isn’t? 

Well done California and UC, Davis School of Education.  Well done.  THE Journal sums up what they are doing like this:

Using funds from a new $1 million grant awarded by the California Postsecondary Education Commission, a team from UC Davis, led by Joanne Bookmyer, director of teacher research at the Cooperative Research and Extension Services for Schools (CRESS) Center, will distribute grants of up to $30,000 to teams of three to five K-12 teachers, who will determine for themselves what measures they can take to improve their effectiveness in the classroom, engage students better, and gain greater mastery of the subject matter being taught.

More than just making the money directly available to teachers, what makes this smart is that the teachers have to work in teams.  By doing so, Bookmyer and others have ensured that teachers will be collaborating in their pedagogical efforts (always a good thing) AND they make it far more likely that the grant proposals they get will be more deeply thought through and more likely to be accomplished.  It’s a model approach to grant giving that’s worth experimenting with elsewhere.

Arne Duncan’s work in Chicago schools has received criticism recently as the NY Times reports that a University of Chicago study says students benefited little.  While I’m skeptical about how data is gathered and interpreted, it’s worth considering whether the Secretary did or didn’t improve schools in Chicago.  I’m more interested, given Duncan’s recent speech at Teachers College, in his plans to support teacher preparation programs. 

Still, I recently met with a principal of a large public high school yesterday who suggested that New York City’s own system of assessing schools (called the Quality Review) is inherently flawed–favoring small schools, English Language Learners, and special education students.  His is a large school, with English speakers, and most students have no individualized education plan.  The principal is concerned that his school is destined to be marked low.

Questions raised about Duncan in Chicago can well be asked of Klein in New York.

Arne Duncan’s speech yesterday at Teachers College might be seen as many in teacher preparation and graduate schools of education as a rally cry.  The NY Times wrote:

During a speech at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Mr. Duncan said that too often the schools of education were simply seen as a “cash cow” for universities, because they are relatively inexpensive to run and have high enrollment.

“By almost any standard, many if not most of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st-century classroom,” he said.

Mr. Duncan said that he had met hundreds of teachers who complained that they did not get enough practical training with classroom behaviors, particularly with poor students.

The next few weeks will say volumes about how seriously educational leaders have taken the charge.  It would be fitting if the first to bolster its attention and support of teacher preparation was Teachers College. We might start by  looking more seriously at what New York State does and doesn’t do to encourage 21st century teaching and learning.  We might then talk seriously about New York City’s own efforts called NYC21C. 

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke here today about the need to target teacher preparation programs in an effort to support school reform.  The USDOE’s site wrote the following:

More than half of the nation’s teachers graduate from a school of education. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that 220,000 students graduate from a teacher college every year. In recent years, several alternative certification programs such as High Tech High, The New Teacher Project, Teach for America, and teacher residency programs have emerged. But those programs produce fewer than 10,000 new teachers annually.

“To keep America competitive, and to make the American dream of equal educational opportunity a reality, we need to recruit, reward, train, learn from, and honor a new generation of talented teachers,” Duncan said. “But the bar must be raised for successful teacher preparation programs because we ask much more of teachers today than even a decade ago.”

Colleges of education need to make dramatic changes to prepare today’s children to compete in the global economy. Teacher-preparation programs should ensure that new teachers will master the content of the subjects they’ll teach and they will have well-supported field-based experiences embedded throughout their preparation programs. Their ultimate goal should be to create a generation of teachers who are focused on improving student achievement and ready to deliver on that goal.

Perhaps this will also be a rally cry to the Board of Teachers College to do more for its teacher preparation programs: scholarships, research grants, a more serious instructional technology support initiative.  Just to name a few.

The first lady posted this piece in US News.  At one point, she draws attention to the role of universities and teacher preparation programs, as in this excerpt:

We need universities to double down on their efforts to prepare
teachers and to improve and expand effective alternative routes to
certify teachers. We need to encourage more experienced professionals
to consider teaching as the next chapter in their careers. And we need
to treat teachers like the professionals they are by providing good
salaries and high-quality professional development opportunities. We need parents to do their part as well to match that
leadership in the classroom with leadership at home. We need to set
limits and turn off the TV. We need to put away those video games and
make sure that homework gets done. We need to reinforce the example
that’s being set and the lessons being taught at school and make sure
that learning continues at home.