school reform

With Mike Rose, We Should All Be Asking - Why School?

Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us
by Mike Rose
(The New Press, 2009)

Reviewed by Kenneth Bernstein
High School Government & Social Studies (MD)


Teacher Leaders Network

How we think about and voice the purpose of school matters. It affects what we put in or take out of the curriculum and how we teach that curriculum. It affects the way we think about students — all students — about intelligence, achievement, human development, teaching and learning, opportunity and obligation. And all of this affects the way we think about each other and who we are as a nation.

Perhaps it may seem odd to begin the review of a book with its final words. Yet is also appropriate, because to answer the question Mike Rose poses in his title, it is necessary to consider the destination towards which we head. It is especially appropriate for this book, because this final observation explains succinctly the concerns Rose attempts to address in Why School?:

• what is in the curriculum and why
• how we teach
• how we frame what intelligence is, what we value, in school and society
• issues of opportunity for all, including appropriate remediation
• issue of common obligation that should be part of our culture as a democratic society.

Rose is in many ways uniquely qualified to take on this task. He teaches in the Graduate School of Education at UCLA. He has taught at many levels. His personal background is from working-class roots and he has maintained a sense of respect of the requirements — including intellectual — of what too many dismiss as manual labor. He is very committed to the democratic ideal that allows people to rise above their origins as he was able to do. He is a superb writer and an even better story-teller, not afraid to use stories to teach, to help us understand.

Before going on, let me provide some specifics. Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us is published by The New Press, which is based in New York City, and which was established two decades ago as a not-for-profit alternative to large publishing houses. The publishing house

operates in the public interest rather than for private gain, and is committed to publishing, in innovative ways, works of educational, cultural, and community value that are often deemed insufficiently profitable.

I quote those words from the page containing the copyright information for several reasons. First, this book definitely meets the test of educational and community value, as I hope this review will demonstrate. Next, the mission of the publisher is very much in conformity with both the purpose of this book and the focus of Mike Rose’s life work, which is to have us committed to a broad sense of common purpose. And finally, I truly think this book may well disprove the notion about being "insufficiently profitable."

On that same page Rose informs us that the essays in the book are reworked from a number of previously published pieces on which he holds the copyright. Had one not read those words, or the words in the introduction where he explains the purpose of the book, one might well think this was a book written at one time with one purpose. In that sense it is consistent with much of the work of Rose in his writing and his teaching.



I am more than tempted to offer extensive quotations because Rose is so fluid and insightful a writer. I will offer some to illustrate key points.

Rose begins by telling us a story about Anthony, a young man enrolled in a basic skills program at a community college where Rose was then teaching. He recounts an episode of someone who greets Anthony, a brain-damaged man in his 30s who could barely read and write but who was self-educated. It turned out the man was a dean, but had also once been Anthony’s parole officer. Anthony may not be the kind of person about whom we think when we discuss educational policy, but even twenty years after that encounter Rose helps us understand why it should. Anthony is in the program to better be able to guide his daughter, to continue his self-education, “To create a new life for himself, nurture this emerging sense of who he can be” (p. 4). Rose tells us that the chapters in the book deal with the topics that inform Anthony’s story. Then on that same page we encounter a remarkable paragraph that I feel I must quote it its entirety:
 It matters a great deal how we collectively talk about education, for that discussion both reflects and, in turn, affects policy decisions about what gets taught and tested, about funding, about what we expect schooling to contribute to our lives. It matters, as well, how we think about intelligence, how narrowly or broadly we define it. Our beliefs about intelligence affect everything from the way we organize school and work to how we treat each other. And it surely matters how we think about opportunity - that phrase is a core part of our national story. But opportunity is determined by public attitudes and public policy. Yes, in a sense and at times, we make our own opportunity; that self-reliance is another part of our national story. But from large-scale initiatives and programs (the G. I. Bill or Head Start, for example) to the funding for a coach in a local park, opportunity is created through some form of specific and deliberate action.
Mike Rose was kind enough to talk with me about the book. He decided to write it in 2007 because he was very worried about the nation's future educational policies. It was a time when there was serious discussion on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which in its current incarnation was commonly called No Child Left Behind (after the Bush proposal of that title). He felt that too many of those whose voices were being heard were oblivious to a number of things, many of which had been a consistent part of his own 40 years of teaching. The perspective of the student was missing. The reality of the impact of poverty upon the lives of students was rarely seen. The different reality of rural schools was totally ignored. There was also a shocking devaluation of the learning and skill required for many working class jobs, and a concomitant restricting of the curriculum for the children from working class and immigrant families in order to raise their test scores. Having written on a number of these issues in the past, Rose felt he could start with his previous pieces and rework them as part of a coherent attempt to address some of the issues he felt were either being ignored or not fully and honestly perceived.

Thus while Rose greatly values the opportunity education has provided — and views his own life as an example thereof — he reminds us in his introduction that
education alone is not enough to trump some social barriers like racist hiring practices or inequality in pa based on gender. Furthermore, for disadvantaged populations - particularly the most impoverished - education must be one of a number of programs that would include health care, housing family assistance and so on (p. 13).
He revisits this idea in the chapter titled “No Child Left Behind and the Spirit of Democratic Education” where he reminds us that
The rhetoric of “no excuses” - though it has a legitimate point to make - can deflect our attention from the plain, brutal reality of so many young people’s lives (pp. 30-31).
In “Politics and Knowledge” and “Reflections on Intelligence in Workplace and the School,”, his fifth and sixth (of thirteen) chapters (and there is a conclusion), Rose offers some of his most valuable insights, including his respect for both the capabilities of people of working class background and for the requirements and skill of the work they do. Having come from a working class background, and having studied the thought required to do blue-collar and service work, Rose makes us focus on how we demean and diminish categories of work and the people who fill them, disconnect our schooling from the vocational paths that many of our young people will follow, and perpetuate an unfortunate historical pattern that belittles those not rooted in the academy and the formal professions. As Rose points out, this ignores a crucial part of our past. He reminds us that “Shakespeare was as popular on the frontier as in the city” (p. 68) and “My Uncle Frank, a railroad machinist, would quote Longfellow in his letters’ (p. 69). He writes that
As an ideal, democracy assumes the capacity of the common person to learn, to think independently, to decide thoughtfully (p. 85).
Further, there is a real danger in an attitude that belittles common work as mindless, that the instruction we develop will fail to develop instructional connections among the different kinds of skills and knowledge. And worse:
If we think that whole categories of people - identified by class, by occupation - are not that bright, then we reinforce social separation and cripple our ability to talk across our current cultural divides (p. 86).
There is so much more of value in this book. Rose argues that post-secondary institutions should not be so harsh on the need to provide remedial courses lest we close yet another door of opportunity to those who start with less and whose schooling is insufficient to compensate for that. He writes forcefully that our discussions focused on achievement do not include “curiosity, reflectiveness, uncertainty, or a willingness to take a chance, to blunder” and we rarely hear about “intellect, aesthetics, joy, courage, creativity, civility, understanding . . . think of how rarely we hear of commitment to public education as the center of a free society.” (both quotes from p. 27)

You have already read the final paragraph of this magnificent book, a relatively slender volume (169 pages without the acknowledgements and footnotes), but one that contains much of value. I would hope  all who are now engaged or hoping to become engaged in the making of educational policy would take the time to read and ponder what Rose has to offer. As Rose writes in his concluding chapter, there are a series of questions we must urgently explore:
how to educate a vast population, how to bring schooling to all, what to teach and how to teach it, who will do it, what the work will mean to them — what we can help it mean to them . . .because we haven’t satisfactorily answered them (p. 164).
Rose has a special concern about our troubled history educating children of the working class, a history I would argue is being extended by some of the effects of No Child Left Behind and may well be exacerbated by some of the policies being promulgated by the current administration.

Perhaps you will decide that you disagree with Mike Rose on some of the issues, but if you read this book you will, I can assure you, find yourself considering some of those questions we have yet to satisfactorily answer in new ways. That broadening of our thinking about educational questions is by itself a strong justification for reading the book.

So let me be blunt. Read the book. Urge others to read it as well. I plan to pass on the link for this review to many I know involved with educational policy, from my local school board and superintendent to Members of the House Committee on Education and Labor. That may not remove the volume from the category of “insufficiently profitable” that The New Press uses as part of its justification. I think that would not bother Mike Rose. The book clearly meets the primary test of the publisher, that is a work “of educational, cultural, and community value.” If more people will take the time to consider the issues Mike Rose addresses, I know he will be more than grateful.

In short, read this book. You will not be sorry.

Kenneth J. Bernstein is a National Board-certified teacher of social
studies at Eleanor Roosevelt High School Eleanor Roosevelt High School
in Greenbelt, Md., and a member of the Teacher Leaders Network. He is
nationally known as a blogger on education and other issues under his
online name of teacherken. Bernstein is also a 2010 recipient of The Washington Post’s Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Award.

Leadership for "Rigorous" Schools

Rigorous Schools and Classrooms: Leading the Way 

by Ronald Williamson and Barbara Blackburn
(Eye on Education, 2010)

Reviewed by Renee Moore, NBCT
English Teacher (MS)
Teacher Leaders Network


Rigorous Schools and Classrooms: Leading the Way is a follow-up to Barbara Blackburn’s 2008 book, Rigor is Not a Four-Letter Word (see Karen Molter’s review here) and to fully appreciate the points, the books should be studied together. Both authors are former teachers (Williamson is also a former principal) whose educational careers run the gamut from K12 classroom to respected university researchers.

While Blackburn’s first book in this set was aimed at teachers and the classroom level, this book is designed primarily to show school leaders how they can navigate an entire school into a more rigorous culture and support teachers as they increase the level of rigor in their classrooms. The authors acknowledge there are many differing definitions of academic rigor in use today, and give a brief summary of those definitions and the many recent reports calling for more rigor in our schools. For Williamson and Blackburn, the preferred definition of rigor, which came from a practicing school principal, is:

creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, each student is supported so he or she can learn at high levels, and each student demonstrates learning at high levels (p.28).

As you might guess from that definition, a great portion of the book is aimed at the role of expectations. Years ago, my teacher-researcher friend Joan Cone did a powerful study entitled “The Gap is in Our Expectations.” In it, she examined what happened when a high school chose to end its ability-based tracking program. The hardest part of their process was getting the  formerly lower-tracked students and the faculty to believe those students could do or would even attempt the same level of work as their peers. This same struggle with mindset, according to the authors, is at the heart of today’s push for academic rigor.

Among the many statistics cited in Rigorous Schools is one that reflects student expectations, or rather how those expectations are not being met. It comes from the 2006 report on high school dropouts, The Silent Epidemic, and notes that “66% of dropouts [said they] would have worked harder [in school] had more been demanded of them.”  The authors also reference a 2009 study of “low performing schools in Newark, NJ…where it was found that allowing students to struggle with challenging math problems led to improved achievement and results on standardized tests.” Williamson and Blackburn go on to openly challenge several myths about rigor, as well as teacher and student responses to it.

The book is full of charts and other tools for administrators to use as they both develop and evaluate rigor within their schools. Much of this material is taken from the first book, to which readers are frequently referred. In this second volume, the focus remains on the role of leadership. Quoting another principal the authors assert, “The school leader is most influential in creating and maintaining a rigorous culture. Without leadership, expectations will wane and outcomes will be mixed at best.”

One key chapter addresses “Ownership and Shared Vision” as a requirement for increasing rigor, as the authors rightfully acknowledge that to be effective and lasting, such a schoolwide shift cannot be a top-down decision nor a technique practiced by a few teachers scattered around the building. Another chapter addresses the role of the school leader as an advocate for the institution, building support from outside the school for a more rigorous culture within it.

The discussion around increasing rigor, particularly at the secondary level, takes on even greater significance as the Obama Administration pushes its goal of every U.S. student graduating from high school "college and career-ready." Many wonder how this can be accomplished given the glaring inconsistencies and inequities in American education today. The authors include a sample advocacy chart of facts from one high school that could be applied to schools and states around the nation; for instance:

“The fastest growing part of the high school curriculum at the moment are AP or college level courses. The fastest growing part of the college curriculum is remedial or high school classes.”

“High school tests [state standardized tests] address content that does not exceed the 9th or 10th grade.”

“15% of our students lose their scholarships at the end of their freshman year [of college], due to low GPA.”

These facts could easily have come from my own community in the Mississippi Delta or hundreds of others across America.

Most of the charts and tools in the book are downloadable from the website, including the PRESS Forward action plan and template to facilitate moving towards a more rigorous school. The book also includes very practical discussions of some of the most challenging details of such a school transformation including grading, scheduling (especially to provide time for teacher collaboration), student support, resistance from stakeholders, and suggestions for shared leadership.

There are several things I like about this book. The ideas that the authors are promoting contrast sharply with the test-prep driven malpractices that are being forced on teachers and students in lower performing schools — practices which we know will ultimately short-circuit true learning and sabotage long term academic accomplishment. Another potential benefit is that open, school-wide discussions about rigor do force us educators to examine our own deeply-rooted prejudices about expectations for different types of students.

I have seen educators hide behind a well-intentioned wall of paternalism towards some groups of students until the possibility of rigor for all is broached. I recommend this book, if not as a guide, certainly as an important discussion starter, for school improvement.

Renee Moore teaches in the rural Mississippi Delta. A former state teacher of the year and Milken Award winner, she serves on the boards of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Her blog TeachMoore is featured at the Teacher Leaders Network.

Expert Advice about Parent Engagement: An Interview with Larry Ferlazzo

The ever-resourceful Larry Ferlazzo joined the Teacher Leaders Network in 2008, to our great benefit. Larry was already well-established as a leading edu-blogger, widely known for his daily outpouring of useful (most often web-based) teaching ideas and resources. Larry entered the blogging arena with a tight focus on English Language Learners – a focus he still maintains – but gradually broadened his output to include many other topics, including one close to his heart: parent and community relationships.

Larry’s “first career” as a community organizer in the labor arena has made him not only a passionate but an authoritative advocate for school programs that work to ENGAGE rather than simply INVOLVE families. His long-time interest led to the publication of his first book, Building Parent Engagement In Schools, co-authored by Lorie Hammond, a former middle school ESL teacher with a special interest in school-community gardens, who is now a professor at California State University-Sacramento.

In support of their book, Larry has developed a new blogging site focused specifically on engaging parents in schools. He teaches Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced English Language Learners (as well as native English speakers) at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California. In this interview, we talk about his parent engagement ideas and also learn about his upcoming books — one on teaching strategies that work with English language learners, and another (smiling) on everything else.

— John Norton, TLN co-founder and moderator


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Larry, it's fairly rare in my experience to find a teacher writing a book about working closely with parents. More often I've seen this kind of advocacy coming from reformers in the outside community who believe schools haven't been responsive enough to parents and families. Why did you feel compelled to write it?

Part of the reason I wrote it is because during my 19-year community organizing career prior to becoming a teacher my primary work with schools was through parents — parents who were working to improve their neighborhoods and their local schools. That experience grounded me in believing that "no school is an island" — that in order for schools to be successful they need to be connected to local residents, and for a neighborhood to be successful, it needs to be connected to the local schools.

As a teacher in a challenging inner-city high school, I can understand how many teachers and administrators feel that engaging with parents in a substantial way is just one more thing that they might not have time to do. I wrote the book to illustrate that, in fact, it can be done with less time that they think and get a bigger "pay-off" — for the parents, teachers, and students — than they could imagine.

How did your background shape your own parent interactions as a teacher?

My current perspectives come out of my direct experience as a teacher participating in the initiatives discussed in the book. After doing thousands of home visits as a community organizer, when I changed careers I naturally gravitated to making home visits to parents of my students. While I was doing them, I was able to use my organizing experience to connect to parents and help them use their energy to initiate projects that benefited everybody. For example, in one of my visits with a recent Hmong immigrant family, the father explained how impressed he was with our use of computers to help teach his daughter, and how he wished they could have a computer and the Internet at their home so he could use it to learn English, too. He shared that he couldn't get a drivers license because he needed to read English in order to pass the test, and the local bus system was not very good so it was difficult to attend adult school. 

I asked him if he thought other parents would share the same concern and, if so, would he be willing to organize a meeting. He agreed, and out of that we were able to develop a family literacy project that provides computers and home internet access to immigrant families so the entire household can improve their English.  Students in the program have averaged improvements in English assessments that are four times greater than those in a control group, and the project was named by the International Reading Association two years ago as the best example of using technology to teach reading — in the entire world.

This whole effort came out of the organizing process of listening to stories; helping people connect to others with the same story; helping them to develop a different interpretation of it and developing a plan to respond to it; and then putting it into action.
 
Who do you imagine to be good audiences for the book?

I think parents, administrators, teachers, and teachers-in-training might find this book useful. It's designed as a book very busy people can read quickly. I also think the framework of parent involvement versus parent engagement can easily be adapted to other aspects of community, school, and organization work.
 
You make a clear distinction in the book between what schools (and many PTO members) have traditionally called "parent involvement" and the more powerful descriptor "power engagement." School leaders often complain about the difficulty in achieving "involvement." Might they have more success with "engagement" in your opinion?

Prior to becoming a community organizer, I ran soup kitchens and emergency shelters on Skid Rows. One day, as I was sweeping our front porch, a police officer pulled up and started yelling at me because we weren't controlling things too well — there were lot of complaints from neighbors.  One man who had passed out in front of our soup kitchen got up and told the policeman, "Officer, Larry tries. He tries hard. We just don't listen to him!"

We can continue to say what people should be doing (as I was doing back then) and feel frustrated about them not responding (as I often felt back then). In other words, we can continue to be "right."  Or, we can look at different ways of doing things and try them out. In other words, we could try to be "effective."

I explain in my response to your next question how I view involvement as different from engagement. I think using the engagement criteria can have far greater results than involvement, and it sure can't be any worse!
 


You devote several chapters to stories about specific initiatives that model the kind of school-home interaction you favor: The Home Visit Project, the Technology and Family Literacy Project, the Community Gardens effort, and community organizing efforts that connect schools with other local institutions that are working for neighborhood improvement. What key characteristics of these projects make them engagements, rather than involvements?

The dictionary defines "involvement" as "to envelop or enfold — take over."  The definition of "engagement" is "to interlock with — mesh." If you look at whose energy drives things, I'd say in involvement, ideas and energy come from the school's "mouth," while in engagement, the energy comes from schools using their "ears" to listen to parent ideas and concerns and to build genuine reciprocal relationships.

In organizing, we talk about the difference between irritation and agitation. In involvement, we tend to irritate more — telling parents that they should do things that the school considers important. In engagement, we agitate by challenging parents to act on the concerns they've voiced in the context of conversations.

In involvement, schools do a lot of one way "communicating"  — flyers, computerized phone calls, newsletters. In engagement, there's more of an emphasis on two-way "conversation."

The purpose of parent involvement tends to focus on improving the school. The purpose of parent engagement is to improve the entire community.

Community partnerships that schools develop through parent involvement tend to be "narrow and shallow" — let's have a police officer assigned to the school, let's get the local business partnership to sponsor a scholarship. In parent engagement, they tend to be more "broad and deep" — let's look at neighborhood safety, let's work with businesses and government to provide support so all high school graduates can attend college if they want to.

Schools that emphasize involvement tend to believe that power is a finite pie -- if parents get some, then schools will have less.  Parent engagement takes the approach that the more people who participate, the bigger the whole pie gets and the more possibilities for positive change are created.

I'd sum up the difference as saying involvement is more a "doing to" and engagement is a more a "doing with."

I want to emphasize, though, that schools, communities, and the real world is not all this or that.  There's a lot of ambiguity out there. Parent involvement is good. I just think parent engagement is better.
 
In our Teacher Leaders Network conversations, our teacher-members often imagine "hybrid" teacher roles that allow teacher leaders to both teach students and do other important work on behalf of the school and community. Can you imagine a role for teacher leaders that would have them leading parent engagement efforts as part of their job descriptions? And if so, why would that be worth the investment of "teacher units" that might be required?

I mentioned earlier the pay-off our home computer project has had for families. Though I'm an advocate of being "data-informed" and not "data-driven," there is plenty of data that also shows how home visits, school-community gardens, and community organizing have had a direct affect on student academic achievement. In fact, school districts in Texas that were very involved in community organizing in the 1990's and then got away from it in the face of standardized testing pressure are now approaching community organizing groups to request that they work with them again. They see it in their self-interest not only for direct student achievement progress, but as a way to rebuild support for more local school funding after recent bond measures have failed.

It is difficult to fit this kind of work into an already overworked teacher schedule. Officially creating time in a workday schedule, I think, could be a great move for schools.

I understand you have other books in the works. Could you tell us about those?

Linworth Publishing, who has published the parent engagement book, is coming out with my second book next month.  It's called "English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work" and shares how I've adapted what I learned in community organizing to teaching ELL's.  It focuses on looking at students through a lens of their "assets" and not their "deficits."  It's very practical (and research-based) and I think teachers will find it very helpful.  Writing it was helpful to me, at least!

My third book will be published by Eye On Education in the spring of 2011, and will share various instructional and classroom management strategies (also research-based) that teachers can effectively use to respond to common challenges in the classroom. Assuming that I can survive writing three books in two years, I might take a break from book-writing after that.

You'll definitely deserve one! Any final thoughts?

I'd like to end this interview, John, as I end most discussions
of parent engagement and parent involvement that I lead. I suggest
that people ask themselves this question:

Do you want to see
yourself as a person who can get parents to help a little bit in
schools; or a person who can help them transform how they see themselves, and how
others seem them, as acting on the world instead of being a bit player
in it?

A Compelling Case for Detracking Schools

Detracking for Excellence and Equity

By Carol Corbett Burris and Delia T. Garrity
(ASCD, 2008)

Reviewed by Sherry L. Annee
Biotechnology Teacher
Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School (IN)
Teacher Leaders Network

What are the indicators that a book has made a significant contribution within its discipline? It’s one that challenges and moves the reader to take notice of the information, internalize it, and act upon the new knowledge and one the reader quotes and reflects upon long after reading it. Detracking for Excellence and Equity by Burris and Garrity is such a book! For example, read these compelling claims by the authors:

“Tracking, by its very nature, causes the achievement gap to widen.”

In a tracked system, the “talents of late bloomers go undiscovered.”

“Track movement occurs in a downward direction far more frequently than it does in an upward direction.”

“When schools are determined to level the playing field for disadvantaged students and ensure that all have access to their finest curriculum, students begin to see college and career possibilities that before seemed out of reach.”

“The reality is that you can’t close the achievement gap until you close the curriculum gap that is created by tracking.”

“The practice of tracking is based on the belief that the capacity to learn is shaped by biology ad childhood environment, and that there is little that schools can do to affect learning capacity.”
Whether or not you agree with the previous statements, you must read this book. Burris and Garrity are persuasive and credible because they support their assertions with research and firsthand experience as former teachers and current administrators in New York.

They’ve witnessed the achievement gap and apathy that occur as a result of tracking. They worked for a superintendent who claimed that “By the year 2000, 75% of all South Side High School students will earn a Regents diploma” — quite a bold statement given it represented a 17% increase from the number of students receiving the Regents diploma when superintendent William H. Johnson set the goal in 1993. By 2000, 84% of South Side H.S. students earned a Regents diploma and in 2005 that number increased to 97% as a result of a systematic and purposeful elimination of tracked courses.

In their book Detracking for Excellence and Equity, Burris and Garrity define tracking, debunk the myths associated with it, tackle the politics of detracking, and address how to dismantle tracking and develop an effective curriculum process, support teachers, and maintain reform.

Chapter 4, which is perhaps the most compelling chapter, outlines the “Three Ps” that sustain tracking: prejudice (intellectual, racial, and socio-economic), prestige (teacher, parent, and student), and power (parent, teacher, administrator, and board member). Once a school leader has been able to identify resistant stakeholders in the community and confront their deep-seeded myths and fear with various types of data, many people emerge with a greater understanding of detracking and the educational obstacles associated with it. The authors acknowledge that “the most difficult phase of detracking is when a school begins to question its assumptions and beliefs about teaching practices” but frequently reinforce that it is important to differentiate the learning experiences but not the standards or learning objectives.

The authors’ coverage of detracking is so comprehensive that it leaves readers with far more answers than questions — while simultaneously inspiring us to improve the educational opportunities for students at our local schools. Upon finishing the book, one is left cheering for Garrity and Burris as they claim, “By altering our methods of instruction in heterogeneous classes, we can accomplish what tracking never could — excellent educational experiences for all students.”

You Can Be a Change Leader

Leading Change in Your School: How to Conquer Myths, Build Commitment, and Get Results
By Douglas B. Reeves
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) (2009)

Reviewed by Elizabeth Stein
Special Education Teacher (New York)
Teacher Leaders Network

My interest in this book was first sparked by the title. After all, with words like "leading change" and "conquer," any action-minded educator is likely to get drawn in. It was the author who caught my attention next. Being familiar with Douglas Reeves's work on change leadership, including his monthly column in Educational Leadership, my interest was clinched.
 
In Leading Change in Your School: How to Conquer Myths, Build Commitment, and Get Results, Reeves does not promise magic formulas. Instead he aims to instill hope and confidence in teachers and administrators who would like to transform their thinking into actions as change leaders. This is not just another "how to" book that proposes a framework of sequential steps, leaving readers with that "I’ve heard this before" feeling. The author strives to have the reader easily connect to the educators described in the book.

Reeves says,

The Change Leaders described in this book are veterans and novices, women and men; they represent a broad spectrum of cultures and backgrounds. They are introvert and extroverts, teachers and administrators, exceptional and ordinary. You will find, I hope, people like you, sharing similar challenges but perhaps with different results. Their stories are completely authentic.

The reader can easily connect to the reality that change is not an easy task to accomplish. Reeves states that when it comes to leading change there are often overwhelming challenges that lead inevitably to cynicism. As a result of traveling to many schools around the world, Reeves explains that he has found a number of effective change leaders who share common characteristics. For example these effective change leaders:

• engage colleagues rather than manipulate them
• focus on ideas-not personalities
• balance their sense of urgency

Reeves goes on to say:

...these are people who not only implement change successfully, but also appear to thrive on it. Their colleagues are no more insightful, desperate, or well-informed than the average. Rather, these change leaders share a common commitment to the notion that ideas are more important than personalities.

As I read this, I readily grasped the author's attempt to create an "I can do this in my school" mindset. This book is a great read for those who are new to the idea of becoming a change leader or for those who wish to extend their abilities. It is helpful for teachers or administrators who have already succeeded with a few ideas and feel the need to continue making positive changes.
 
Throughout the book, I noticed how skillfully the author brought idealism and realism together. For example, Reeves explains:
 
Sustainable change requires reorientation of priorities and values so that the comfort and convenience of the individual is no longer the measure by which the legitimacy of change is considered. Rather, we respond to a vision of change that is so compelling and whose benefits for others are so overwhelming that we see students and colleagues not as cogs in the machine but as stars in a galaxy that outshines our fears and dwarfs our apprehensions.

At the same time-and this is the key to change leadership-we know that each star in the firmament holds an essential place, and without it, a constellation would be diminished. Thus the paradox of change leadership is the elevation of a vision far greater than the individual and, at the same time, the elevation of the individual to a place that is unique, powerful, and essential.

Reeves blends his poetic ideals with the reality that everyday people can make the choice to be successful change agents. His book describes leaders who are everyday people-in schools across the globe-who have succeeded.

 The book is organized into four parts that include:

1. Creating Conditions for Change
2. Planning Change
3. Implementing Change
4. Sustaining change

Each chapter builds upon the next to allow the reader to absorb realistic views that can be transformed into the actions of successful change leaders. In addition, an appendix provides supporting documents to guide the reader to begin changing rhetoric into reality. Each part of the book is comprised of 3 to 5 chapters that fully outline specific experiences and steps for taking action.
 
Reeves's writing style, along with the information provided in the book, make for an interactive reading experience. For instance, the author encourages the reader to share his own successful change leadership stories by visiting ChangeLeaders.info, which is a noncommercial website devoted to sharing successful ideas and research.

I recommend this book for all who desire to break the barrier of the cynicism of change. The reader can be left with the thought that by applying simple yet powerful ideas, determined educators can enjoy the experiences that result from taking the initiative to be successful change leaders.

And Then I Got to Dewey . . .

Classroom Conversations: A Collection of Classics for Parents and Teachers
by Alexandra Miletta and Maureen Miletta
(2008, The New Press)

Reviewed by Marti Schwartz
Novice-Teacher Educator (Rhode Island)
Teacher Leaders Network

Reading the articles gathered together in Classroom Conversations: A Collection of Classics for Parents and Teachers by Alexandra Miletta and Maureen Miletta (a mother-daughter pair of teacher educators who comment on each article) was a fascinating walk with many of the giants of education thinking who have shaped our path over the past century. Each article offered up wise words, grouped into five broad topics: Understanding Children, What’s Worth Learning, The Work of Teaching, On Equity and Issues of Social Justice, and The Final Word: Purposes of Education in a Democracy.

I picked this book up eagerly, squeezing it into early summer reading, seeking just the right one — or two — or even three articles which would illuminate the most important ideas for my novice teachers when we met in late July. As I read the introduction, I was reminded of one of my third grade students who wrote that “Ribsy by Beverly Cleary is a book that has stood the test of time because it has been read a lot and it has great words that everyone can use. Also they would be happy in the end because Henry finds Ribsy.”

So, too, Miletta & Miletta comment: “For our own well-being and in order to forget ahead, we often turn to our favorite writers, whose wise words and thoughts fill our bookshelves and files. These are people whose work stands the test of time. As educational fads and jargon come and go, we feel a strong connection to these great thinkers who have shaped our beliefs and practices in education and who continue to have an influence in the field.”

And these articles, these thinkers, from Vivian Gussin Paley and Eleanor Duckworth advising us to listen and learn from our students, to Peggy McIntosh and Sonia Nieto who seek to open our eyes to the cultural realms of our students in order to help us to understand their needs — all have wise words for us. Focusing on the arts — teaching the whole child (including both moral and intellectual attentiveness, according to David Hansen and so many others) — developing creative and critical thinkers, echoed and reechoed by so many writers within this text…confirm what (hopefully) most educators know and live by.

Each article is prefaced by an introduction written by one of the collection’s authors, with a conclusion offered by the alternate partner. Their comments summarized key points, quoted the highlights, gave background on the article’s author, and put forth the big ideas. Sometimes this made reading the actual article almost redundant.

In terms of article selection, it was not until I got to John Dewey (whose article was written between 1899-1906) that I became excited. YES! I shouted, over and over again. Maureen Miletta introduces his words with these:

When I read this essay, I am moved by Dewey’s faith in the ability of the teacher to make decisions about what to teach and how to teach it. When he talks about decisions of that nature being made by people outside the school system who have no expert knowledge of education but are motivated by non-educational motives, I am struck by its applicability to today’s headlines. The restrictions placed upon the teacher result in the flight of the truly intelligent and imaginative person who might be attracted to the profession were it not for the imprisonment of the spirit that the lack of freedom implies.
 

It is amazing to me that educators faced many of these still-familiar concerns more than a century ago, and yet we now face national standards (with little educator input) and increasingly scripted curriculum, both of which unfortunately illustrate the continued lack of faith in the practitioners to whom the education of America’s children has been entrusted.

Many of these articles in this collection are well worth reading and re-reading. Many of the problems persist, and obviously will continue to vex those who believe that “schools should offer what students need to take part in a democratic society and its culture — a complex package for everybody’s children that would equip them for full participation in work, culture, and liberty.” (Joseph Featherstone, p.287). Unfortunately for my purposes, Classroom Conversations doesn’t open any new doors, or particularly extend our thinking on these issues, even with the comments from Alexandra and Maureen Miletta. In seeking solutions, my novices will need to look elsewhere.

Reform Policies Rise or Fall on the Backs of Teachers

By Mary Tedrow

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices
(NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)  have
joined forces to develop a new set of national standards – begun by
a cadre of policy makers, and with little attention given to gathering teacher
insights or earning teacher buy-in.

This is a mistake.

No matter what is decided in the latest round of tinkering
with standards, here's a little secret: EVERY SINGLE mandate will survive only if a classroom teacher sees that it is effectively implemented.

Do not kid yourself. . .

• Data is collected and reported by
teachers first.

• IEPs are implemented, upheld and
carried out by teachers first.

• Community connections and parent
contact is done by teachers first.

• Rates of attendance, observation
of psychological issues, drug dependence, parental abuse, health issues,
nutrition issues - all observed and reported on by teachers first.

For those who sit some distance from these issues and make
decrees, extend your imagination for a moment to see how that looks on the
ground.

In and out of the classroom since 1978, my job has grown
ever more complex, all while the hue and cry over failed schools has grown
increasingly shrill. Most reform initiatives have been slowly piled onto
my original skill set. As a result, I find it hard to imagine what it must be
like to walk into a classroom today as a novice, even though I'm working beside
them.

There is no longer a learning "curve" that
allows beginning teachers to move from beginner to master to expert. Instead, it's a straight
vertical climb that most novices can only deal with effectively by working round the
clock beginning in year one. Hence: a frustratingly high rate of burnout and departures in the first five years and more finger-pointing
at failed schools.           

Ironically, hard-working young teachers sometimes see
few results because their hard work does not always benefit children but others
outside the classroom.  I've seen numerous instances where promising
teachers have thrown up their hands in frustration and walked out because the
initiatives seemed nonsensical, overwhelming, and often child unfriendly.

New teachers, fearful of recriminations, rarely kick about
the nuttiness we sometimes endure. But they are voting with their feet.
Sadly, those who grow frustrated the fastest are those most attracted by
what they believed would be an opportunity to influence the lives of children.

To date, the chief beneficiaries of the new standards movement appear to be test developers and scorers whose profits also rest on the backs
of teachers. The College Board, creator of Advanced Placement and SAT
tests, looms as a large presence in the newest standards discussion.

If policy makers hear one thing from teachers, it should be
that the job must be completely restructured and supported at the ground level if we have
a hope of helping all of our students become successful. It really is time to
take a bold step and approach reform in its literal sense and RE-FORM the work
of teachers. The current standards program just nibbles at the edges of what
needs to be done, while sucking in more time and dollars.

And yet, teachers who can speak authoritatively to the
needed changes are not seated anywhere near, much less at, the table.
 Instead we are fed a steady diet of end-of-course testing and little in
the way of time and resources to help ourselves and other teachers develop the teaching skills necessary to bring
an impoverished child to the state-defined level of college and career ready
standards.

From my perspective, devising new ways to "hold
teachers accountable" to current conditions is a phenomenal waste of time.
It squanders a huge resource — those who know kids and the public system of
teaching best — in favor of buying more assessments, holding more blue ribbon panel discussions,
writing new laws and creating delays that avoid opportunities to develop and
support a truly world-class teaching force.

We won't get anywhere by adding to the list of jobs teachers
are already asked to accomplish. The newest set of rules will just line
someone else's pockets while ignoring the realities of teaching and learning.   

Here's another little secret:  There are accomplished
teachers who are having great success with real children right now whose
knowledge and talents goes untapped for the greater good. Successful classroom teachers
already know who is falling behind. We don't need a test or a new definition of
a standard to tell us. We already know what we need to get the job done
better.  Ask us. Give us the support to get the children, and a new
generation of teachers, ready for the future.

Mary Tedrow is a National Board Certified Teacher in Virginia, who teaches high school English and journalism.

 

Teacher Leadership 3.0 – An Interview with Gayle Moller

 When Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders first appeared in the mid-1990s, teacher leadership was not on the lips (or minds) of most superintendents and principals. Or, for that matter, most teachers.

In the ensuing years, through three editions, Sleeping Giant has become a much-read classic, inspiring countless teachers to come out of their isolation and accept roles as leaders, colleagues and collaborators. Although the book has also become a staple in higher education leadership programs, in the new edition co-authors Marilyn Katzenmeyer and Gayle Moller continue to speak directly to teachers in classrooms and schools, urging them to wake up and take greater ownership of their profession.

To celebrate the appearance of this new edition — updated to reflect the many advances in teacher leadership during the past eight years — we spoke to co-author Gayle Moller, who in 2003 served as an expert advisor during the creation of the Teacher Leaders Network. We also invite you to read TLN member Nancy Flanagan’s review of Sleeping Giant, as well as her Teacher Magazine essay about the book's impact on her own life. — John Norton

* * * * * * * * * *

Thanks for talking with us, Gayle. You have many fans in the TLN community. Awakening the Sleeping Giant was first published in 1996. A second edition appeared in 2001. Why did you and co-author Marilyn Katzenmeyer decide that the time had come for a third edition?

In 1996, when we first wrote about teacher leadership, there were few people who acknowledged that teachers could be leaders. At the same time, when teacher leaders read our book they said: “You wrote about me!”

The opportunities for teacher leadership have increased substantially since those days. Our editors at Corwin Press approached us, noted the continuing interest in the 2001 edition, and suggested that the time might be right for an update. Marilyn and I knew the population of teacher leaders was continuing to grow, so we agreed.

What’s changed since 2001?

In the last eight years, school system leaders have begun to acknowledge that they’re not getting the results they would like. And many realize that mandates and limited professional development are not effective ways to improve results. The perceptive district leader is now turning to teachers who are competent and can work with their colleagues at the school building level.

New teacher leadership roles — literacy coaches, mentors, and staff developers — are becoming commonplace. In addition, the National Board certification process has helped many potential teacher leaders realize how they can improve their own practice and help other teachers. External support systems, like the Teachers Leader Network, are encouraging teachers to move outside their “comfort zone” to interact with other teacher leaders. When Education Week relaunched Teacher Magazine in 2006 with a specific focus on teacher leadership, many of us took it as a sign!

What's new or revised in the 3rd Edition?

We’ve done quite a lot of revising in this latest edition. Throughout the book, we show how teacher leadership has evolved over the last 20 years by linking current research and practice to new developments. There’s a new chapter written specifically for teachers who take on new instructional leadership roles. In that chapter we address things like deciding to be a teacher leader, negotiating the principal-teacher leader relationship, working with peers, and facilitating professional learning.

To encourage more conversations about teacher leadership, we’ve added two new instruments. The “Teacher Leader School Survey” measures how supportive a school culture is of teacher leadership. We’ve also included the “Teacher Leader Self-Assessment,” which can help potential teacher leaders determine how they currently match up with leadership standards.

The book is based on a leadership development model that includes planning for action. In this new edition, we introduce an action research process called the “Influencing Action Plan.” It’s a practical tool that helps teacher leaders work through strategies to address school site problems and issues.

Finally, we wrote a new chapter on the future of teacher leadership. In that chapter we predict, based on current developments, what teacher leaders might be doing in the years ahead.

I've been told your book is a long-time "best seller" for the publisher and is often required reading in college courses. As a subject of study, how has teacher leadership evolved in academia -- both at the undergraduate and graduate levels?

This question reminds me of a conversation we had in 1995 with a well-known editor of educational publications. He was giving us feedback on our first draft. Although he had invited us to write this book, after reading the draft he said that he didn’t agree with us that there could be degree programs in teacher leadership. I’m sure that he regrets that statement now, because today a search of the Internet produces links to numerous teacher-leader degree programs both at the master’s and doctoral levels. 

Corwin Press recently sent us a list of 65 universities who used the 2001 edition of our book in classes during the 2008-2009 school year. Also, Marilyn and I receive many requests from doctoral students to use instruments included in our book for their research studies.

The changing licensure and certification areas in several states, including Kentucky, Delaware, Alabama and others, include teacher leadership as an area teachers may add. North Carolina has adopted a teacher leadership standard for beginning teachers. Just last week, it was announced that the Kansas State Department of Education and ETS will work together to create the first national assessment to identify teacher leaders for certification. These changes will impact curriculum and coursework at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Before I retired, I taught a course in teacher leadership at Western Carolina University for seven years. This is a required course for any student receiving a master’s degree in education. Western Carolina believes that when teachers gain new knowledge and skills through a graduate degree program, they have a responsibility to influence their colleagues toward improved practice.

Higher education is also supporting centers designed to provide leadership development for undergraduate and graduate teachers. One example is the Center for Teacher Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, led by Terry Dozier, a former National Teacher of the Year who served as the Clinton Administration’s top policy advisor on teaching issues.

We are also seeing more research. In 2004, Jennifer York-Barr and Karen Duke synthesized the last 20 years of research on teacher leadership, and much more has appeared since. Although most of the research is descriptive of teacher leader impact, there is an impetus to find measurable results that link it to student learning.

So it seems that teacher leadership development and research is gaining recognition in higher education.

Your original subtitle back in 1996 was "Leadership Development for Teachers." In 2001 you chose "Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders," which also appears on the 3rd edition. Did you give any thought to a new subtitle, reflecting the growing feeling among some teachers that they have a personal role in developing themselves as leaders? What's your own view?

Yes, we thought about another subtitle. But we felt that “Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders” was still a good description of the purpose of the book. The personal role of teachers in their own development is reflected in the Leadership Development for Teachers model that serves as the foundation for the book. In this model we invite teachers to answer these personal questions:  Who am I? (personal assessment) Where am I? (school culture), How do I lead? (influencing strategies), and What can I do? (planning for action). 

For all the editions of this book, we wrote “Application Challenges” at the end of each chapter. These suggested activities focus on how PK-12 teachers, administrators, and higher education faculty can provide experiences to help teacher leaders navigate the complexity of leading other adults. Notice the first group we addressed is “teachers.”

We not only feel teachers have a responsibility for their own learning, as leaders they also must help with the professional development of their colleagues. In my work with teachers, I’ve found that the idea of being accountable for others’ learning is new to them. So in one chapter we address how teacher leaders are responsible for facilitating the learning of themselves and others.

We also believe that everyone has a role in providing teachers with leadership development opportunities. You do this through your moderation of the Teacher Leaders Network. Marilyn and I contribute through our book and Leadership Development for Teachers, a professional development program we created. School district leaders and school administrators now offer many more opportunities for teachers to grow and develop as leaders. And certainly higher education has taken a more active role in this area.

I believe we all have ownership in teacher leadership development. Even so, no group will be more influential than teacher leaders themselves. If other supports aren’t forthcoming, then teacher leaders need to advocate and work with the system to get what they need.

In the new edition, how do you and Marilyn sort out the different definitions of teacher leadership — from informal school-based roles, to "official" job descriptions, to quasi-political roles at the local, state and national level where policy is made and influenced?

Our definition of teacher leadership has evolved through the three editions. We’ve added a new component to our definition in this edition. We now say that teacher leaders accept responsibility for achieving the outcomes of their leadership.

In our discussions with school leaders, especially teacher leaders, we found disillusionment with people who take on leadership responsibilities and don’t follow through with their commitments. So we felt we needed to acknowledge that leaders are competent when they are accountable.

Sorting out the variety of roles for teacher leaders is complex. The roles span from leading in individual classrooms to national policymaking. We explore informal teacher leader roles in our book — these are situational and the most difficult to put into categories. Informal roles usually come about when a teacher sees a problem and steps in to exert leadership. These informal roles may be short-lived or continue as long as the teacher has commitment to the issue.

What are relatively new are the formal, instructional leadership roles — especially those that place teachers in coaching or peer assistance roles. We’ve always had some formal teacher leaders, such as department chairs or grade-level team leaders, but asking teachers to move into their colleagues’ classrooms to address instruction is daunting. We’ve written a new chapter focused on these kinds of formal roles.

Finally, we believe the emerging teacher leadership we now see in the policy making area must be encouraged. In the last chapter of our book we offer ideas on how teachers can be advocates beyond their school buildings. Building advocacy skills is part of leadership development. The Center for Teaching Quality is a model for helping teachers learn and practice these skills as they work to influence the development of policies that impact their students and their teaching lives.

In 2006, you co-authored a book about teacher leadership with another colleague, Anita Pankake, aimed specifically at school principals. Why the urge to write Lead with Me: A Principal's Guide to Teacher Leadership and how did the ideas in that book influence the new edition of Sleeping Giant?

Ask a teacher leader about the person who most influences his or her daily work and the answer is “the principal.” Within the current structure of schools, this is the individual who has the formal power to promote or discourage teacher leadership. Although assistant principals and other formal leaders are important, the principal is the key to the success of teacher leadership. Principals not only have power over fiscal and human resources, they have information that teachers need in order to be effective as leaders.

Looking at the bigger picture, Anita and I were concerned about the sustainability of improvement in a school. A new principal comes into a school and often changes are made that become obstacles to continuing effective practices. We feel that principals have a responsibility to build a critical mass of teacher leaders to help sustain the work that helps students learn. 

Anita and I also work with principals who want to build teacher leadership in their schools, so we could see the need for a “how-to” book on this topic. The book provides specific strategies for promoting, developing, and sustaining teacher leadership.

Throughout Awakening the Sleeping Giant, 3rd edition, we stress the importance of principals and their responsibilities for building teacher leadership. An entire chapter is focused on how to develop a supportive school culture for teacher leaders. In this edition, we include the new tool called “Teacher Leader School Survey.” We’ve used this instrument with literally thousands of teachers and they find it powerful — especially when other teachers from their schools complete the same survey and they discuss the school’s results. 

We don’t put all the responsibility on the principals, because teachers have an obligation to build a positive relationship. In one chapter in our new edition we help teachers learn how to negotiate their leadership roles with their principals. Relationships are complex and none more so that the one between the principal and the teacher leader. Once we recognize this, we can work to make it a productive one.

As one of the co-founders of the Teacher Leaders Network, I was great to see the recognition you and Marilyn gave to the TLN community in the new edition. As an early adviser to TLN, you've had the opportunity to observe its development and listen to the many virtual conversations that have taken place among its members over the past six years. What roles do you think organizations of teacher leaders that cut across school, district and state boundaries can play in strengthening the profession and improving schools?

During my career, external organizations like you’re describing were the lifeline I needed in order to be successful “back home.” My primary work was in leadership development and if it had not been for the National Staff Development Council and the International Network of Principals Centers, I don’t know how I could have survived. Although I lived in a large urban area during most of my career, I was isolated from like-minded folks. At that time, there were no virtual professional communities like TLN, so I attended conferences, took on leadership roles, and read the organizations’ publications. Over time I developed a network of colleagues, and some are my friends to this day.

So you can see my bias for this type of organization for teacher leaders. These are the organizations that give teachers the courage to live out their convictions, sometimes in hostile environments. To “talk” with people who care about the same issues helps teacher leaders to know that they are not alone. Imagine finding someone in a state far from yours who is facing the same challenges! When teacher leaders can be part of a social network that helps them in their professional lives, it is powerful. TLN is an example of this power. I know because I’ve read TLN members’ stories that both inspire me and cause me anguish about their dilemmas.

For years, Marilyn and I have dreamed about a national organization for teacher leaders. Principals and other educational administrators have several national organizations, such as the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Why isn’t there an organization for teacher leaders?  Many teacher leaders are active in ASCD, NMSA, and other subject-specific professional organizations, but there is no general organization designed specifically for teacher leaders. In our new edition, we explore this possibility. Maybe the TLN members will initiate this for all teachers who are or want to be leaders.

In the preface to your new edition, you quote one of my colleagues — Melissa Rasberry at the Center for Teaching Quality — who said, "The stars are aligning for teacher leadership." What are the possible futures for teacher leadership? What has to happen to achieve the most positive future, from your point of view, and how likely is that?

Isn’t that a wonderful quote? It has inspired me for several years. Thank you, Melissa! In this edition we wrote a new chapter on the future of teacher leadership. With so many initiatives in the early stages of development, we felt it was important to push for change in the future.

I’d like to share a few examples of what we hope will emerge:

•    First, the flat teaching profession must give way to meaningful career ladders for teachers. Depending on the personal circumstances of teachers, they can select the challenges they want to take on or remain competent in their individual classrooms. Regardless of teachers’ decisions, we need predictable and fully funded avenues for teachers to take on leadership responsibilities. There should be an organizational expectation of leadership — unlike the current school culture where teachers are often ridiculed if they take on leadership roles.

•    Next, if teachers agree to assume additional responsibilities they should receive commensurate pay. Like many people, I remember the attempts at merit pay over the years, so we need to learn from these mistakes and build a comprehensive system based on multiple criteria assessed by several people. Performance-based compensation programs are developing across the country. Several members of TLN worked on an in-depth report that describes what should exist in these types of programs.

•    A final example of our futuristic vision is the measurement of and attention to working conditions in schools. This is a foundational issue for promoting teacher leadership. The Center for Teaching Quality has created a measurement tool for this purpose. In many states, the results are publicly communicated.  The most important step, though, is that school systems take the results seriously and work with schools to make changes when the working conditions are not supportive of teaching and don’t create an environment that can sustain leadership.

Your last question is “how likely is it” that these trends will become the norm in our profession. Personally, I believe that we do not have a choice. We have to make sure they become a reality. Otherwise we will continue to lose outstanding teachers, who are ready to be leaders, to other professions -- or to administrative roles that take them further from the classroom than they really want to be.

Will there be a 4th edition?

Whew, you always ask the most difficult questions!  Marilyn and I both recently retired. We felt an obligation to complete this recent edition as our parting gift to teacher leaders. Of course, who knows what the future holds for anyone, including Marilyn and me. Thank you for asking.

The Battle We Must Win (Redux)

Submitted by Renee Moore on Mon, 04/14/2008 - 10:08pm.

Grandson

So, we can put men on the moon, invade and run other countries, and create an economy that dominates the world....but we can't educate our own children? Says who?

Apparently, Jonah Goldberg in his June 12th editorial in the LA Times, "Do Away With Public Schools." Goldberg argues: "Really, what would be so terrible about government mandating that every kid has to go to school, and providing subsidies and oversight when necessary, but then getting out of the way?"

I can think of a couple of things: the main one being giving up on what should be one of our highest priorities as a nation because we don't have the moral or political will to get it right.

Neither past nor present failings (some of which, by the way are greatly exaggerated) of public education are sufficient cause to throw up our hands as a nation and leave education at the mercy of the market economy. Even with subsidies from the government (where have we heard this before), there would be greater chance of more children not getting an education at all.

When Hurricane Katrina approached the Gulf Coast, the government (and many others) assumed it didn't have to make means available to evacuate large numbers of people because if folks wanted to leave, they could. Not until we saw bodies floating, people on top of buildings, elderly and disabled trapped in nursing homes, or whole families in rental houses did those who could have prevented much of the horror realize their mistake. The majority of poor, uninsured people in this country have jobs. To what type of schools could they afford to send their children? Nevermind that there are precious few privately run schools that accept or are equipped to work with children who are handicapped or have special needs.

President Bush says to pull our troops out of Iraq would be a signal of weakness to our enemies. Closing our public schools would be an admission of a much greater moral failing. America is more than capable of providing quality education to every one of our children. It's a matter of the heart.

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