Michigan Public Schools Privatizing Teachers 'Very Real' Possibility

Huffington Post

The privatization of public education in Michigan is a "very real" possibility, a state lawmaker said Monday, the Kalamazoo Gazette reports.

At a town hall forum in Kalamazoo, Democratic state Sen. Bert Johnson said the movement is being driven "by money" at a time when the state's districts face a $300-per-student budget cut -- a total of almost $500 million across the state.

In another attempt to account for the funding shortfall, Michigan's Republican lawmakers proposed last month legislation that would expand charter schools and privatize teacher hirings by employing from for-profit companies. Contracting with private teachers could encourage competitive compensation packages among teachers unions and private companies.

The legislation was introduced by Republican state Sen. Phil Pavlov, who chairs the state Senate's education committee.

The state already outsources much of its public schools' noneducational operations. Nearly half of Michigan's school districts already contract out for one of three noninstructional services of custodial, dining and transportation, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy's 2010 School Privatization Survey. And schools are expecting major savings for doing so. A 6,000-student district is expecting to save over $3.5 million over 30 months by contracting out custodial services, according to the Mackinac Center.

There is also a likelihood that the Republican push for privatization could pass through the state legislature, as there is a two-thirds GOP majority in the state Senate and a 63-47 majority in the state House of Representatives.

A poll of 800 voters commissioned by the Michigan Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union, revealed that over 68 percent are against privatizing teaching services, according to the Livingston Daily.

"What's especially troubling is the proposal to outsource teaching to private, for-profit corporations. This will undermine local control, mean less accountability in the classroom, and gut public education at a time when weshould be focused on investing in our kids' future and creating good jobs that pay a fair wage," We Are the People Michigan spokesman Zack Pohl told the Livingston Daily. We Are the People Michigan is a pro-education and pro-union organization.

But Kalamazoo Public Schools Superintendent Michael Rice said at the town hall forum Monday that statewide surveys indicate residents still support "appropriate funding of pre-K-12 education" and not the the recent slashes to public schools' budgets, according to the Kalamazoo Gazette.

He also noted that districts should be permitted to solicit voters for an increase in local taxes to cover educational expenses if the state won't provide "adequate and stable" school funding.

The Correlates of Effective Schools

Lawrence W. Lezotte and Kathleen McKee Snyder

For many decades, educational researchers have sought to discover why some schools were successful in teaching all children, regardless of their demographics or disadvantages. Over the decades, the accumulated research into effective schools has yielded a set of common characteristics that all effective schools share. These characteristics are so consistently prevalent among successful schools, they have come to be known as the Correlates of Effective Schools.

The original correlate descriptions, which we call the “First Generation,” represent what the original effective schools research found to be the minimum standards of a particular characteristic that a school must meet to be effective. The “Second Generation” of each correlate incorporates subsequent research findings into our understanding of each characteristic, and represents a developmental step beyond the first and, when successfully accomplished, will move the school even closer to the mission of Learning for All. It is the leader’s job to not only see that the original correlate is in place, but to guide the school or district in embracing the next generation of educating our children.

1.            Safe and Orderly Environment

The First Generation: In the effective school there is an orderly, purposeful, and businesslike atmosphere that is free from the threat of physical harm. The school climate is not oppressive and is conducive to teaching and learning.

The Second Generation: The second generation moves beyond the elimination of undesirable behavior and places increased emphasis on the presence of certain desirable behaviors, such as collaboration and teamwork. Since schools as workplaces are characterized by their isolation, creating more collaborative and cooperative environments for both the adults and students will require substantial commitment and change in most schools. Educational leaders must nurture the belief that collaboration, which often requires more time initially, will help schools to be more effective and satisfying in the long run. They must embrace and promote acceptance of and respect for diversity and multiculturalism, help teachers learn the “technologies” of teamwork, and create the “opportunity structures” for collaboration. Leaders must model these behaviors, as well, and “be the world we want to see.”

2.            Climate of High Expectations for Success

The First Generation: In the effective school, the staff believes that all students can master of the essential school skills, and that they have the capability to help all students achieve that mastery.

The Second Generation: In the second generation, the emphasis placed on high expectations for success is broadened significantly. Here, high expectations will be judged, not only by the initial staff beliefs and behaviors, but also by the organization’s—and by association, the leader’s—response when some students do not learn. For example, if the teacher plans and delivers a lesson, finds that some students did not learn, but still goes on to the next lesson, then that teacher didn’t expect the students to learn in the first place. If the leader condones through silence that teacher’s behavior, that leader apparently does not expect the students to learn or the teacher to teach these students.

The second generation represents significant challenge to the leaders who must help their schools, as cultural organizations, transform from teaching-centered institutions to learning-centered organizations where teachers have high expectations of themselves as teachers, and have access to more “tools” to help them ensure that every child learns.

3.            Instructional Leadership

The First Generation: In the effective school, the principal acts as an instructional leader and effectively and persistently communicates that mission to the staff, parents, and students. The principal understands and applies the characteristics of instructional effectiveness in the management of the instructional program.

The Second Generation: Here the concept of instructional leadership is broadened to encompass all adults, especially the teachers. The role of the principal becomes “a leader of leaders,” rather than a leader of followers. The leader’s greatest contribution in this generation will be to articulate a vision to which all stakeholders can commit, and create a community of shared values guided by the “magnetic north” of the mission. This broader concept of leadership recognizes that leadership is always delegated from the followership in any organization and that expertise is generally distributed among many, not concentrated in a single person.

4.             Clear and Focused Mission

The First Generation: In the effective school, there is a clearly articulated school mission, through which the staff shares an understanding of and commitment to the instructional goals, priorities, assessment procedures, and accountability. Staff accepts responsibility for student learning.

The Second Generation: The first generation prompted the rise of two issues. The first focused on the meaning of “learning for all.” Did we really mean all students or just those with whom the schools had a history of reasonable success? When it became clear that we really did mean all students, especially the poor and disadvantage, the second issue surfaced. It asked the question: Learn what? Partially because of the accountability movement and partially because of the belief that disadvantaged students could not learn higher-level curricula, the “what” focused primarily on low-level skills.

In the second generation, the focus shifts toward a more appropriate balance between higher-level learning and the basic skills that are prerequisite to their mastery, and from a teaching-centered orientation to one that is learning centered. Designing and delivering a curriculum that responds to the demands of accountability, and is responsive to the need for higher levels of learning will require substantial staff development. It will incumbent upon the leader to promote the “learning for all” mission and to ensure that teachers have the necessary skills and tools to accomplish it.

5.            Opportunity to Learn and Student Time on Task

The First Generation: In the effective school, teachers allocate a significant amount of classroom time to instruction in the essential skills. For a high percentage of this time students are engaged in whole-class or large-group, teacher-directed, planned learning activities.

The Second Generation: One of the reasons that many of the mandated approaches to school reform have failed is that, in every case, the local school was asked to do more! In this generation, a characteristic of the most effective schools is their willingness to declare that some things are more important than others; they are willing to abandon some less important content so that the students master the critical content in the limited time available. Leaders will have to help their teachers become more skilled at interdisciplinary curriculum and at practicing “organized abandonment.” They will have to ask the question, “What goes, and what stays?”

The only alternative to abandonment would be to adjust the available time that students spend in school, so that those who need more time to reach mastery would be given it. This may require us to reexamine past policies and practices, such as our notions about the length of the school day or school year. If we choose to extend learning time, it must be in a quality program that is not perceived as punitive by those in it, or as excessive by those who must fund it. These conditions will be a real challenge indeed!

6.            Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress

The First Generation: In the effective school, student academic progress is measured frequently through a variety of assessment procedures. The results of these assessments are used to improve individual student performance and also to improve the instructional program.

The Second Generation: In this generation, technology will permit teachers to do a better and timelier job of monitoring their students’ progress. This same technology will allow students to monitor their own learning and, where necessary, adjust their own behavior. The use of computerized practice tests, the ability to get immediate results on homework, and the ability to see correct solutions developed on the screen are a few of the available tools for assuring student learning. We will also continue to shift away from standardized norm-referenced tests toward more authentic assessments of curriculum mastery. This generally means that there will be less emphasis on the paper-pencil, multiple-choice tests, and more emphasis on assessments of products of student work, including performances and portfolios.

It will be up to the educational leader to ensure that there is tight alignment between the intended, taught, and tested curriculum. This will require that the leader engage the stakeholders in addressing two questions: “What’s worth knowing?” and “How will we know when they know it?” This will demand our best thinking and plenty of patience to reach consensus. The good news is that once we begin to reach consensus, the schools will be able to deliver significant progress toward these agreed-upon outcomes.

7.            Home-School Relations

The First Generation: In the effective school, parents understand and support the school’s mission and are given the opportunity to play an important role in helping the school to achieve this mission.

The Second Generation: During the first generation, the role of parents in the education of their children was always somewhat unclear. While schools often gave “lip service” to having parents more involved in the schooling of their children, many educators really did not know how to effectively handle increased parent involvement. In this generation, the relationship between parents and the school must be an authentic partnership. However, it has become clear to both teachers and parents that the parent involvement issue is not simple. The leader must help teachers and parents confront this issue—and not each other—in a way that builds trust and the understanding that both teachers and parents have the same goal—a quality education and a successful future for all children!

Taken with permission from the book Stepping Up: Leading the Charge to Improve Our Schools by Dr. Lawrence W. Lezotte and Kathleen McKee Snyder. Available at www.effectiveschools.com

Five Myths About the Common Core State Standards

By ROBERT ROTHMAN

The Common Core State Standards are one of the most significant initiatives in American education in decades. Yet the swiftness with which they were developed and adopted has left educators uncertain about exactly what they are. A number of myths about the standards have emerged.

Myth #1 The Common Core State Standards are a national curriculum.
Americans have long had a leery view of a national curriculum, but the Common Core State Standards do not create this scenario. Standards are not curriculum: standards spell out what students should know and be able to do at the end of a year; curriculum defines the specific course of study—the scope and sequence—that will enable students to meet standards. There are many possible curricula schools could use that would lead students to the Common Core State Standards.

For example, one of the Common Core standards for English language arts in grade 5 states: “By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 4–5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.” This standard does not spell out how teachers will teach students to “read and comprehend literature.” Nor does it indicate which texts to use. The standards document includes a number of suggested texts that are of appropriate complexity (in grades 4 and 5, these include Antoine St. Exupéry’s The Little Prince, Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow,” and Kadir Nelson’s We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball), but these are meant to be examples, not a reading list. 

Myth #2 The Common Core State Standards are an Obama administration initiative.
The Obama administration is a strong supporter of the Common Core State Standards initiative, but the administration did not lead it. The initiative was, and continues to be, state-led.

No federal official was on the work teams and feedback groups that developed the standards. Then, once the standards were released, forty-five states and the District of Columbia—each acting on its own—chose to adopt the standards.

The Obama administration clearly supported the effort. In its Race to the Top program—a $4.3 billion competitive grant program that awarded funds to states that pledged reforms in four key areas—the administration awarded 40 points out of a possible 500 to states that adopted “a common set of K-12 standards” which were internationally benchmarked and that prepared students for colleges and careers-- such as the Common Core State Standards. States could conceivably have won the grants without adopting the Common Core standards specifically. In February 2010, President Obama said he might tie funds from the federal Title I program to adoption of the Common Core standards, but the administration never followed up on that plan. The administration provided incentives but did not force states to adopt the standards. 

The administration did provide $330 million to two state consortia to develop assessments to measure the Common Core standards, but these funds support development. States are building the assessments, and once the assessments are in place, they will be administered and operated by states. They are not federal tests.

Myth #3 The Common Core standards represent a modest change from current practice.
In preparation for adoption of the Common Core standards, several states conducted analyses that found considerable alignment between them and their current standards. Yet while the content of the two sets of standards is similar, the level of knowledge and skills the Common Core calls for is in many respects quite different from what current standards expect and what schools currently practice.

Take English language arts. Perhaps the main idea of the Common Core ELA standards is the notion that students should read increasingly complex texts in order to be prepared for the reading they will do in postsecondary education. Yet research the standards-writers relied upon showed that the complexity of texts assigned in high school has actually declined over time, while the reading requirements of entry-level college courses have increased. The Common Core Standards raise the expectations for text complexity considerably. 

Myth #4 States cannot implement the Common Core standards in the current budget climate.
Implementing the Common Core standards, which involves revising assessments, developing curriculum materials, providing professional development and tools for teachers, and other tasks, will cost money. And officials in 76 percent of districts in Common Core states said in a survey released in September 2011 by the Center on Education Policy that inadequate funds for implementation was a major challenge.
Yet the survey also found that 80 percent of districts had efforts to implement the standards under way or planned for 2011–2012. And more activities are likely once the assessments to measure the standards are in place.

Myth #5 The Common Core State Standards will transform schools.
Advocates have high hopes for the Common Core State Standards. They believe that a common set of expectations that are geared toward what students need to know to succeed after high school and that are benchmarked to the expectations of high-performing countries will lead to substantial improvements in student learning.

Yet even the most passionate advocate of standards will acknowledge that standards, by themselves, do not improve education. Standards can do a great deal: they can set clear goals for learning for students and teachers, and establish guidelines for instruction and performance. But to have an effect on the day-to-day interaction between students and teachers, and thus improve learning, states and districts will have to implement the standards. That will require changes in curricula and assessments to align with the standards, professional development to ensure that teachers know what they are expected to teach, and ultimately, changes in teacher education so that all teachers have the capability to teach all students to the standards. The standards are only the first step on the road to higher levels of learning.

Robert Rothman is a senior fellow at the Alliance for Excellent Education and the author of Something in Common: The Common Core Standards and the Next Chapter in American Education (Harvard Education Press, 2011).