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The DCPS Master Education Plan for SY2007: What to Drop; What to Keep; What's MissingErich Martel March 26, 2006 I. OVERVIEW: The MEP's WeaknessesThe MEP contains a number of expensive proposals, many with little or no evidence of success, but written in prose designed to evoke visions of success: theme high schools, in-house academies, "differentiated instruction," parent resource centers," increased graduation requirements, rewards for success (i.e. doing one's job), and expensive technology-based learning programs. Principals will now be "instructional leaders," classrooms will be inviting and all will be "seamless." The MEP is silent on principals' and teachers' responsibility for establishing an orderly and quiet atmosphere conducive to concentration and paying attention, key prerequisites of learning. It promotes a philosophy that students are not responsible for behavior that supports learning. There is simply no acknowledgement of the anti-learning behavior that defines the atmosphere of many schools and leads concerned parents to pick charter schools. There is no mention of students disrupting classes, roaming hallways, acting abusively and inappropriately toward other students and adults, arriving in class with headsets, iPods and cell phones, but no pencil, pen or notebook. All of the fads and learning gimmicks rest on the premise: if the teacher doesn't make learning fun, students have a right NOT to learn (see addendum: recent research on self-discipline in adolescents). This review will suggest specific reductions or cuts in proposed program-related expenditures; describe current flaws in special education that the Blackman Decree doesn't address; and, finally, will analyze the newly released individual high school graduation data (2000 to 2005), the widespread practice of "social graduation" or awarding diplomas to ineligible students, and the absence of real accountability and transparency. That will help Board Members understand why an increase in graduation requirements - at least for the foreseeable future - is counterproductive to improved student learning. Accountability - An Overview: The MEP wrongly suggests that reports constitute accountability. Timely performance reports are important, but they do not create accountability. In a school system, there are two forms of accountability:
Neither form of accountability is firmly in place in DCPS nor can they be found in the MEP. What does exist is a cozy relationship between central officials and school principals. Each principal has wide latitude to interpret statutes, regulations and contracts, confident that central will not object. This disengagement from the schools allows the growth of low teacher morale and student failure. When teachers, parents and students say, "No one cares what happens here," central officials and Board Members should recognize that the MEP is resting upon an unstable foundation. II: SUGGESTED SAVINGS ARE HIGHLIGHTED IN RED:1. POSSIBLE FY2007 SAVINGS: $1,800,000 - Delete the "Principal Leadership Institute" (PLI) Board of Education Member: Does the PLI:
2. Parents Belong in Every School, Not in "Parent Centers"
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| READING - NCE Average | MATH - NCE Average | |||||||||||
| Grade | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | Grade | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | |
| 1 | 49 | 49 | -- | 59 | -- | 1 | 48 | 45 | -- | 56 | -- | |
| 2 | 51 | 45 | -- | 56 | -- | 2 | 54 | 56 | -- | 66 | -- | |
| 3 | 42 | 39 | 39 | 43 | 47 | 3 | 47 | 44 | 47 | 48 | 49 | |
| 4 | 43 | 42 | 44 | 52 | -- | 4 | 44 | 44 | 40 | 49 | -- | |
| 5 | 47 | 44 | 39 | 46 | 48 | 5 | 40 | 48 | 41 | 41 | 38 | |
When translated into raw numbers of students who received scores of Advanced (Adv) or Proficient (Prof) in 2004 and 2005, the decline in top performance suggests concern:
| Grade | READING 2004 | READING 2005 | MATH 2004 | MATH 2005 | |||||||||||
| Adv+ | Prof= | A+P | Adv+ | Prof= | A+P | Adv+ | Prof= | A+P | Adv+ | Prof= | A+P | ||||
| 2 | 4+ | 18= | 22 | -- | -- | -- | 13+ | 20= | 33 | -- | -- | -- | |||
| 3 | 1+ | 4= | 5 | 0+ | 17= | 17 | 0+ | 11= | 11 | 2+ | 13= | 15 | |||
| 4 | 4+ | 19= | 23 | -- | -- | -- | 4+ | 10= | 14 | -- | -- | -- | |||
| 5 | 0+ | 11= | 11 | 0+ | 12= | 12 | 0+ | 7= | 7 | 1+ | 4= | 5 | |||
The color-coding enables the reader to follow a cohort of students from one grade to the next. Although the data from one small school must be treated with caution, the 2004 to 2005 decline deserves explanation, if JC Nalle is to serve as an educational model for "Full Service Community School" expansion.
Mixing the mission of the school with other community services may be a hindrance to learning. Did student performance drop in 2005 after the establishment of the expansion? Do you know? A principal has enough work maintaining school climate and becoming an "instructional leader" and doesn't need the additional job of "Full Service Community School Director."
"Differentiated instruction" or "differentiated classrooms" is an empirically unsubstantiated educational innovation. It is supposed to be the teacher's matching half for the student's individual "learning style." A thorough analysis that debunks the utility of "learning styles" AND the wasted time and money spent on staff development to promote this fad is: "Different Strokes for Different Folks?" by Steven Stahl, Fall 1999 American Educator (AFT), http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/fall99/DiffStrokes.pdf
Studies show that instruction is most effective, when it is matched to a student's knowledge, skill, and performance levels. Attempting to match instruction to impressionistic presumptions of ethnic background, developmental status or learning style is another magic bullet theory, a fad.
Tracey Hall, writing for the Center for Applied School Technology (CAST), which supports differentiated instruction,
"Differentiation is ... a compilation of many theories and practices. Based on this review of the literature of differentiated instruction, the "package" itself is lacking empirical validation. There is an acknowledged and decided gap in the literature ... and future research is warranted."
"Many authors of publications about differentiated instruction strongly recommend that teachers adapt the practices slowly, perhaps one content area at a time. ... As noted previously, studies on the package of differentiated instruction are lacking. However, proponents note that reports of the full model of differentiation are promising."
Hall, T. (2002). Differentiated instruction. Wakefield, MA: National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum ( http://www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_diffinstruc.html)
Board of Education Member:
In many educational journals, one can find reports of "promising" or "emerging practices." Some even have a column entitled, "promising practices." Promising means: "Claims of success are based on anecdotal evidence." It also creates incredible hoops that teachers are forced to jump through; so, when it fails, it will always be the teacher's fault for having missed a hoop.
Please do not force teachers to adapt their instruction to an untested, unverified, impressionistic, feel-good theory of teaching and learning. How does one know when, how and for whom to differentiate? That's the problem. Some advocates say, "survey students' interests," hardly a very scientific way to plan instruction - or spend $1.5 million.
"Differentiated instruction" is also an excuse to spend more money on computer-based instruction. Computerized instruction is mostly a hype. In many classrooms and libraries, computers act as baby-sitters, while students roam the internet for what really interests them.
There is no solid evidence that National Board Certification produces better teachers. There is better evidence that those who seek National Board Certification are already good teachers. Several articles on both are cited below. The following excerpt from "Great Expectations" (EducationNext, Spring 2006) describes a value-added study of National Board certification that found no advantage in student performance among students of National Board certified teachers (http://www.educationnext.org/20062/pdf/50.pdf ):
"A lack of research evidence about the effects of NBCTs on students made the National Board especially vulnerable to criticism. This was highlighted in the fracas that occurred in 2002 when one of the critics, J. E. Stone, of East Tennessee State University, released a seven-page report, “The Value-Added Achievement Gains of NBPTS-Certified Teachers in Tennessee.
"Stone found that none of the 16 board-certified teachers in Tennessee who taught grades 3–8 (the only grades for which value-added scores were available) met a standard for exceptional teaching set by an incentive program in Chattanooga. Stone concluded that his results “present a serious challenge to NBPTS’s claims” and that “they suggest that public expenditures on NBPTS certification be suspended.”
"[T]his tiny report by a single professor prompted no less than the Education Commission of the States to empanel four independent experts to review the validity of Stone’s research. The panel acknowledged that Stone had addressed an important policy question and that the absence of studies of this type was due in part to “the Board’s own approach in identifying excellent teachers—examining practices rather than the learning of their students,” but concluded that Stone’s study was badly flawed (primarily because his sample of 16 teachers was too small to enable generalizations) and his claims were therefore completely unsupported.
This did not slow down Stone, who, in a recent paper with George Cunningham, claimed, “NB teachers don’t come close to producing the learning gains produced by teachers who have been identified as highly effective by means of a value-added assessment.” In this paper, Cunningham and Stone assert that a “good value-added assessment is more likely to accurately identify teachers who really pack a punch than the less accurate, more expensive process used to identify and certify National Board teachers.”
(Stone & Cunningham: "Value-Added Assessment of Teacher Quality As An Alternative to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards: What Recent Studies Say," http://www.education-consumers.com/Cunningham-Stone.pdf)
The following paper by Harold Doran, a DCPS TAC member, describes forms of value added assessment. http://www.pacificresearch.org/pub/sab/educat/2004/Value_Added.pdf
In Prof. Stone's view, Tennessee Value Added Assessment, developed by U. of Tenn Prof. William Sanders, is the most effective form. The following article compares the SAS-EVAAS model based on Sanders' Tennessee Value Added model with a less comprehensive hypothetical example. http://www.sas.com/govedu/edu/services/effectiveness.html
Here is a non-technical talk about the value of value-added assessment: http://conference.oise.utoronto.ca/papers/FallonDpaperClarifying.pdf
Board of Education Member,
Have you seen documentation of the success of this program? How was it evaluated?
If you haven't seen concrete data from the several sites where it was conducted (including Wilson H.S.), then you should not vote in support of its expansion. The Wilson HS LSRT heard reports of its effectiveness, but saw no written documentation.
On page 69, the MEP says SummerBridge: "improves ... achievement"
"Expand the SummerBridge program ... piloted successfully in four schools in summer 2005; improves student achievement; ..."
But, on page 95, the MEP admits, "it is difficult to evaluate a particular program .... There are clear, initial positive impacts from DCPS' pilot ...SummerBridge program. ... Will the positive impacts ... sustain themselves through graduation? ... Or were the positive impacts a result of the particular students who ended up in the program?" Did DCPS do pre and post tests to determine whether "positive impacts" resulted from the program? If not, why not?
That is the language of uncertainty. Why spend over $2.6 million on a program whose success is still unknown. Please demand documentation before approving this expenditure. (Although funded by a DoE grant, it may not represent potentially available funds. Nonetheless, if it is, in fact, unsuccessful, it is deceptive and taking the place of more effective instruction.)
The MEP calls for "9th grade academies" in the senior high schools to stem the drop out rate by "establish[ing] an area of the building where most 9th grade courses are taught [and] will offer academic and social supports, from study skills courses and catch-up curriculum courses to community-building activities."
Board Member,
These four lines reveal a misunderstanding of 9th graders' needs:
A. Necessary Expenditures: Raise the Pay of SE Classroom Aides (Paraprofessionals, EG4)
DCPS has established paraprofessional certification standards for classroom aides, requiring a 2-year AA degree, but not establishing a salary scale that is competitive with neighboring jurisdictions. As a result, those who have met certification standards can find better paying jobs elsewhere.
B. Necessary WSF Adjustment: SE Coordinators
The WSF needs an adjustment to reflect the need of many schools with large special education populations to have a special education coordinator and a SETS/ENCORE operator. The present WSF assumes that additional funding will follow the student to classroom and support services.
C. Potential SY 2007 Savings: Lots of Money and Improved Institutional Integrity
Special education will not be fixed until the DCPS reality fits the currently portrayed image of a "Culture of Inclusion That Welcomes Special Education Students" (MEP, pp. 56-58), because welcoming students with special needs means more than reducing nonpublic outplacements and meeting IDEA deadlines. It means more than a well-written IEP.
It does mean insuring that IEPs are implemented as written. DCPS's successful exclusion of Blackman-Jones court oversight over the implementation of actual IEP-mandated services does not suggest a commitment to meeting students' needs.
D. Special education students now bring in more money to the local school, but in many schools that money is misused or diverted:
A Blackman-Jones type case that extended the court's jurisdiction to the actual delivery of services in many of our schools would be a disaster; yet that is where DCPS is headed.
E. The WSF funding for each school must be adjusted to match the actual number of SE students in each intensity level following the October enrollment count.
Jay Mathews describes the KIPP Academy's recipe for success:
"by spending so much time setting the ground rules, and then sticking to them, the school has become a much quieter and more productive place than most American [e.g. DCPS] middle schoolers are used to. Children can concentrate on learning rather than displaying ... their hormone-induced inclinations. And in such places, students who did not do very well in [a DCPS] school before find that they have intellectual gifts they never realized."
"KIPP DC: Lessons on Paying Attention, Proper Behavior." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A48960-2003Aug12?language=printer)
A coherent and evenly enforced discipline is the backbone of a learning-friendly school environment. A policy that reduces disruptive behavior increases quality learning time. No gimmick can replace this. When our schools become known for their success, the declining enrollment will be reversed.
The American Federation of Teachers publication, "Setting the Stage for Strong Standards: Elements of a Safe and Orderly School" describe the systems that must be in place, starting with a system-wide policy for addressing disruptive student behavior when it starts (http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/downloads/teachers/settingthestage.pdf ).
Psychological Science V16, N12, December 2005 (http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/index.cfm?journal=ps&content=ps/archive)
Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents,
Angela L. Duckworth and Martin E.P. Seligman
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