What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy. – John Dewey (1900, p. 3)

I am by no means the best or wisest parent. However, lately, I find myself thinking about what we have been able to provide for my son before he even enrolls in kindergarten. He lives in a house full of books and other print reading material (the floor in his room is often invisible under a pool of books). He has his own laptop. We talk to him, lots. He talks to us, incessantly (I mean that in the best way; I think). Though he was eligible to begin kindergarten this fall (he turned 5 in June and the cutoff date in VA is October 1), we chose to enroll him in an amazing preschool for another year.

In other words, our son (and daughter, but she’s only one) is awash in social capital and cultural capital. We have provided him with a literacy-rich home environment and we have engaged in LOTS of what Hart & Risley (1995) call “extra talk.”

As a result, when he begins kindergarten in Fall 2011, he will be more than “ready.” In fact, I am confident that he will be much more “ready” than most other kids starting kindergarten at the same time as him. This phenomenon ( i.e. the contribution of home literacy environments or literacy-rich homes to differences in school readiness) is well documented, and I suspect well within the conscious mind of many educators (especially elementary educators). Kids show up to school with hugely different levels of “readiness,” and those differences relate strongly to subsequent educational outcomes.

***

A lesser known phenomenon is the seasonality of student achievement. I live in the world of educational research and question a lot of what passes these days as “evidence” in education. However, there are a few studies that I point to regularly as of high quality and meaningful. One of those studies is written about in an article called Schools, Achievement, and Inequality: A Seasonal Perspective by Alexander, Entwisle and Olson (2001).The authors used data from schoolchildren in Baltimore, where kids took achievement tests not just in the spring, but also in the fall. The figure below is a rough approximation of what they found with respect to reading achievement.

It is noteworthy that during the academic year (between fall and spring), all kids gained about the same. That is, the slopes of the lines between fall and spring are nearly identical across all three SES groups. It is during the summer months where the gains (or losses) are disparate across SES groups (i.e. the spring-to-fall slopes are significantly different). “Lower SES youth start out behind (i.e. the baseline differences are significant) and during the school year they keep up, but during the summer periods their gains fall short of those registered by upper SES youth” (p. 182). As a result of starting behind and the “summer learning loss,” achievement gaps are exacerbated over time.

This is not to say that families and communities are the only holders of the keys to student learning. In fact, the Alexander, Entwisle & Olson study points to the extremely important compensatory role schools play.

Schools do matter, and they matter the most when support for academic learning outside school is weak. School-based public resources do not completely offset the many and varied advantages that accrue to children of privilege by virtue of private family resources outside of school (e.g. Coleman, 1990)…The powerful role of schools in fostering achievement of all children is one lesson informed by a seasonal perspective on learning.

One might even go so far as to suggest, based on this study, that, on the whole, schools do a reasonably good job of serving all children, not just those of wealthy families. That is, schools are not “failing.” Berliner and Biddle (1996) refer to this as The Manufactured Crisis.

***

I don’t know if we qualify as mid- or high-SES, but I know we’re not low-SES. So, what does our son do over the summer? He goes to camps: nature camp, pottery camp, general day camp, etc. We travel over the summer, too. In other words, my son’s learning does not stop because school is not in session.

Thus, at the risk of sounding terribly elitist, I want for every child in our nation what my son has. For that to happen, we cannot and must not talk about school reform without talking about equality of opportunities for kids outside of K-12 classrooms. If we are serious about closing the achievement gap, we need to:

1. Commit, first and foremost, to high-quality preschool for all kids.
2. Consider policy efforts to improve the literacy richness of homes of children in low-income families.
3. Think seriously about shifting to year-round schooling, especially in low-income communities (NOTE: I’m not necessarily talking about extending the school year beyond 180 days; rather, I’m talking about shifting away from school calendars based on the agrarian calendar).
4. Make schools community centers that are open beyond the school day, where kids can regularly access media centers and computer labs.

So, while policy makers are arguing over labor matters and the intricacies of school governance, and while we’re all waiting for superman, my hope is that local communities commit themselves to providing meaningful learning opportunities for all children beyond what is provided during the traditional school day.

In 2003, the National Football League instituted the Rooney Rule which dictates that all professional football teams must interview at least one minority candidate for an open head coaching position or any open senior football operations position.  The rule came about because Dan Rooney, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, lamented the lack of minority head coaches throughout the history of the league.

There has been much discussion about the efficacy of the rule, especially lately.  And, there’s no way to attribute causality, but currently, 6 of the 32 teams have African-American head coaches (and, as of the writing of this post) there are rumors that Leslie Frazier may become the head coach of the Buffalo Bills).  That’s progress, but there is still disproportionality in a league where a little more than 3/4 of the players are African-American.

In education, as of 2007, approximately 45% of all public school students were categorized as a race other than Caucasian (SOURCE). As of 2007-08, approximately 16.9% of all public school teachers were categorized as a race other than Caucasian (SOURCE). Furthermore, as of that same year, 19.1% of all public school principals were categorized as a race other than Caucasian (SOURCE). Looking specifically at African-American students and educators, 15.3% of the students are African-American, 7% of the teachers are African-American and 9.6% of the principals are African-American.  We’re quickly approaching a day when the public schools in the United States serve more minority students than Caucasian students.  Yet, we’re nowhere near that with respect to teachers and especially leaders.

At the highest levels of school leadership, the numbers are even more disproportionate.  Reliable statistics on the superintendency are even harder to come by, but one estimate holds that 2% of all superintendents in the United States are of African descent.  Another estimate puts that at 5%.

I don’t want to go too much further here as my intent is to be mostly descriptive so as to raise questions.  I will, though, gladly point you to work done by colleagues of mine.  The paper to which I link here is based on a series of studies including the dissertation by the lead author.  Drs. Jackson and Shakeshaft reach some interesting conclusions, including discrediting the myth that there are too few African-American candidates in the pool or pipeline for superintendent positions.  I also note the conclusions about African-American superintendents in predominantly Caucasian districts. Their conclusion is essentially that African-Americans, especially males, need not apply. How many of YOU know an African-American superintendent leading a school system that serves mostly Caucasian students?

I urge you to read the Jackson/Shakeshaft paper, and even the small body of literature to which they offer citations.

So, what do you think? Do we need a Rooney Rule in public education?

[NOTE: don't bother with any legal mumbo jumbo about the current jurisprudence on affirmative action and/or equal protection. I know where we stand there. I'm just raising some issues here...I think.]

I blogged.

For Wes Fryer.

Because I’m trying to steal the attention of his vast audience.

Click here to see the post if you’d like.

photo credit: AchimH

I am so very excited to use this space to recognize a woman who embodies leadership, humanitarianism and mentorship.

This week, at the annual convention of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), Dr. Charol Shakeshaft was honored with an Effie H. Jones Humanitarian Award.  According to AASA, “[t]hese awards…recognize AASA members who exemplify the professional qualities of advocacy, support, mentorship and encouragement of diversity in educational leadership.”  The page announcing the 2009 winners does a decent job of describing Charol’s contributions to the field of educational leadership.  I would add the following:

• Charol wrote THE seminal book on women in educational leadership.
• Charol has DEEPLY and positively impacted the personal and professional lives of dozens of school leaders directly through her work as a professor and mentor.
• Charol is most recently advocating for a profoundly underrepresented group; young people victimized by educator sexual misconduct.

And, personally, I consider Charol to be my primary mentor.  She has been a dear colleague and friend for over a decade, and I look forward to continued collaboration and friendship with her moving forward.

I commend AASA for recognizing Dr. Shakeshaft.  Please join me in congratulating Charol and in thanking her for all that she has done as a leader, a mentor and  humanitarian.

This morning, as I have been doing every Tuesday morning since the school year began, I dropped my son off at preschool and drove to my office.  However, rather than taking my usual route, today I chose a different way.

As the crow flies, driving down Monument Avenue is probably the most direct route from my son’s school to where I work.  But, it’s certainly not the fastest route.  Yet, I chose this route to reinforce the enormity of the opportunity I have this afternoon when I go to cast my vote for President of the United States.

Monument Avenue was recognized in 2007 by the American Planning Association as one of the 10 Great Streets in the country.  Architecturally, aesthetically, etc., it is a lovely road, especially among the resplendent colors of fall.  However, it is also a road that gives me great pause.  Traveling as I did this morning, in order, I passed the following giant monuments: Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis (monument photo), J.E.B. Stuart (monument photo) and Robert E. Lee (monument photo). I’ll spare you the long history lesson, but these folks were all leaders of the Confederate States of America (CSA) or the Confederate army before and during the Civil War.  They fought for states rights as the CSA had declared secession from the United States.  There were multiple reasons for the secession declaration, but as historian Drew Gilpin Faust wrote, “leaders of the secession movement across the South cited slavery as the most compelling reason for southern independence.”  Thus, one cannot drive down Monument Avenue without being reminded of the enslavement of people of African descent that marks much of our nation’s early history.

The historical significance of those statues notwithstanding, there is another statue that I passed on Monument Avenue before I came to the others.  In July of 1996, a statue of a native son of Richmond, VA was unveiled on Monument Avenue.  That native son? Arthur Ashe (monument photo).  I wasn’t around for the controversy that apparently encircled the decision to place that statue on Monument Avenue.  But, as a relative newcomer to Richmond, I do find the placement of the statue very interesting.  The word that comes to mind is “contraposition.” In other words, the placement of a statue of a groundbreaking African-American athlete and civil rights leader on the same road that recognizes the leadership of the Confederacy is striking, at the very least.  For me, then, the statue stands as a monument of hope, possibility and change.

Arther Ashe is quoted as saying, “”True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.”  Personally, I think Barack Obama and John McCain are both pretty heroic by Ashe’s definition.  However, when I cast my vote this afternoon, I will be thinking of all that I believe that the Arthur Ashe monument represents to me.  I will hold my 3 year old son tightly and vote for the man who follows the trail blazed by pioneers like Arthur Ashe.

To this point in our nation’s history, all 43 of our presidents have been white men.  I am so thankful and honored that later today, like I did this morning in getting to work, when I cast my vote, I have the opportunity to choose a different way.

I will vote for Barack Obama.

You couldn’t expect a guy with a doctorate in the politics of education to let the education portion of Wednesday night’s presidential debate go unchecked, could you?

Apparently, both candidates support charter schools.  No surprise from McCain; the Republican party tends to support most forms of school choice (that’s a gross generalization, but I’ll live with that for now). That Obama supports charter schools signals an interesting policy shift, assuming that Obama’s stance is representative of the Democraticy party as a whole (which it may very well not be).  I’m personally pretty mixed on charter schools.  On one hand, I think any policy or set of policies based in free market principles where perfect information on the part of consumers is assumed is highly problematic in the field of education.  On the other hand, these days I’m for anything that attempts to disrupt the status quo in public education.

And, speaking of “perfect information,” both candidates at least implied that charter schools “work” or that they are “effective” in some way (as opposed to voucher programs, where there seemed to be some disagreement).  Well, that’s less than perfect information.  Consider this study conducted as part of NAEP’s pilot study of charter school performance in 2003.  According to the executive summary for the report, “After adjusting for student characteristics, charter school mean scores in reading and mathematics were lower, on average, than those for public noncharter schools.”

I also bring your attention to more recent research conducted by colleagues and “social associates” (I’m not sure I can call them “friends,” but I have been out socially with them on multiple occasions) Sarah and Chris Lubienski.  Based on their analyses of NAEP data, Sarah and Chris concluded that “charter schools, privately operated and publicly financed, did significantly worse than public schools in the fourth grade, once student populations were taken into account.”

(BTW, teachable moment…the next sentence in the NYT article is as follows: “In the eighth grade, it found, students in charters did slightly better than those in public schools, though the sample size was small and the difference was not statistically significant.”  That’s a nonsensical statement.  If the differences were not statistically significant, then nobody did better than anybody else; not even slightly better.  So, the first part of the sentence cannot logically precede the second part.  This bugs me!)

The body of research on charter schools and school choice policies more generally has become overly politicized.  There are too many researchers with agendas dabbling in that field, and too many policy advocates who cherrypick a single study to support their argument.  However, in my reasonably well-informed opinion, the two studies above are as “independent” as they come.

So, Senators Obama and McCain, I’m in favor of exploring any and all educational policy options, including choice-based alternatives.  But, let’s please not mislead the American public.

Continuing my sniffing through the NAEP Data Explorer, today I “explored” differences in digitally-infused pedagogy by race.  One of the items on the background questionnaire of the 8th grade NAEP in 2007 was as follows: “When you are doing math for school or homework, how often do you use these different types of computer programs?”  One of the listed programs was “A program to practice or drill on math facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division).”   Looking at the results for that item disaggregated by race, we get the following (click on image to enlarge):

Overall, African-American students are much more likely to use computers to practice or drill on math facts than White students.  Given the significant achievement gap that exists, these differences partly explain why, overall, the there is a negative correlation between using computers to practice or drill on math facts and math achievement.  I can’t be entirely sure about the degree to which race confounds that overall relationship without access to the raw (restricted-use) NAEP data.

But, more importantly, is the figure above problematic?

Scott McLeod deemed today Leadership Day, and so it is!  And so I go…

If you haven’t watched the video of Chris Lehmann’s presentation at NECC, there’s no question that it’s a must see.  I’m sure I’ll have lots of occasions to use it as a pedagogical tool with my ed. leadership students, especially as a model of instructional leadership.  The reviews of Chris’ preso have been through-the-roof high, and deservedly so.  Will Richardson used Twitter to suggest that we need to clone Chris, and Bud Hunt (aka Bud the Teacher) replied that he had secretly taken a few of Chris’ hairs for exactly that purpose.

For those who don’t know, Chris is the principal of the Science Leadership Academy; a magnet high school in Philadelphia that he founded/started a few years ago.  Because he is extraordinarily transparent (want to visit SLA; just ask!) and collaborative, and for at least one other reason I shouldn’t disclose, I’ve learned quite a bit about Chris and SLA.  And, as best I can tell, we really do need to clone Chris; we can’t have enough principals like him.

THAT ALL SAID, here’s the question…what would happen if we suddenly made Chris the principal of Frederick Douglass High School (NOTE: the school doesn’t even have it’s own website) in Baltimore (the subject of a recent HBO documentary which has been written about by me and others)?

You see, Chris admittedly had the luxury of starting a brand new school according to his (and presumably others’) incredible vision.  He got to self-select a whole faculty.  The school’s magnet status means that the students that attend, at some level, want to be there.  in fact, according to the school’s website,  “[a]dmission to SLA is based on a combination of a student interview at the school with a presentation of completed work, strong TerraNova scores, As and Bs with the possible exception of one C, teacher or counselor recommendation and good attendance and punctuality.” I know many, many principals who would drop everything to be able to select an entire faculty and work with already accomplished students.

But, there’s another thing that separates Chris from the vast majority of his principal peers.  Chris is an unrelenting progressivist and he has a true global, future-oriented vision.  Just read his recent blog post about progressive pedagogy for 21st century schools.

I know that not all schools like Douglass High are destined to fail.  I’ve seen and read parts of this book.  And, I know about the Achievement Alliance’s efforts to document success stories.  But, even there, if you read about the high school they spotlight, the school is unique in its geography and the “success” is having gone from 26% proficiency in one subject (ELA) to 42% proficiency over the course of 6 years.  That’s steady, but slow, improvement; but 42% is not exactly superior.

I’ve also followed closely the research and documentation of the 90/90/90 schools (90% low income, 90% minority, 90% proficiency).  Just about everything I’ve read about those schools (including this by Douglas Reeves) points to a blinding focus on standards, assessment, data-driven decision-making, etc.  For better or worse, there’s NOTHING progressive about those schools.

So, I wonder what would happen if we put Chris Lehmann in the hardest-to-staff schools; schools consistently failing to make adequate yearly progress.  I guess the question I’m asking is: Who wins?  The extraordinary progressive leader or the system?  Can a brilliant, extraordinary leader WITH A PROGRESSIVIST BENT truly reform a severely struggling school within the existing system of public education?

Personally, I think Chris, or someone like Chris, would do wonders in a school like Douglass High.  But, unfortunately, I think that remains an open (empirical?) question.  And, I’d love for us to be able to do that empirical work.  I would love to document the experiences of bright, extraordinary, progressive leaders who have proven successful in more comfortable situations attempting to completely turn around a failing school.  Please note, my interest is not how “good” someone like Chris is.  I want to know what effect “the system” has on someone as “good” and particularly as progressive as Chris.  If you know of any such experiences, let me know.

Something (perhaps some thingS) is (are) rubbing me the wrong way about NECC.  I’ll reflect a bit more over time, but for today I want to write a bit about a related set of issues about which I am incredibly passionate.  My ed. leadership professorial friends/colleagues and I joke about what we perceive as an over-emphasis on issues of “social justice” “equity” and “diversity” at the annual conferences we attend.  Please understand that we all care deeply about those issues; it’s just that it’s gotten to the point where it seems like it’s all that gets discussed at a comprehensive conference. Well, after being at NECC for a few days, I long for some conversation about…”social justice” and “diversity” and “equity.”  Hang around the blogger’s cafe for a bit and tell me how much diversity you notice.  Sure, there are international folks and that’s awesome.  But, racial diversity?  Forget it.

I did a keyword search of the program and came up with the following results:

EQUITY – other than the Digital Equity Summit (which I’ve written about before), there are only two other instances of the word “equity” in the program.  One is for a session about “[r]ole playing a seventh to ninth grade student, participants will complete an inquiry activity using technology for supporting diverse learners.”  The other is about how the addition of interactive white boards have promoted classroom equity in one school district.  This is a joke and a crime.  Sorry.  That’s how I feel.

DIVIDE (looking for references to the digital divide) – appears two whole times in the program.  The first reference is for a session about the “digital divide” between what teachers and students can do with technology.  Give me a break.  The second reference is for a session I’m sorry I missed.  The session was about research showing what works for disadvantaged students.  Hooray for Dennis Harper, Generation Y with Trina Davis, Susanna Garza and Martha Peet.

JUSTICE (looking for references to social justice) – shows up twice but only because one workshop is being run twice.  In what sounds like a really interesting session, participants are asked to “[e]xplore the merger of social justice and technology by creating a podcast on the Civil Rights Memorial Center and learning from student producers.”  Nice.

DIVERSITY – Zero.  Zilcho.  NEVER appears in the program.

I’ve asked quite a few people I’ve spoken with either at the conference or out on the town if they watched Hard Times at Douglass High, the documentary that was all over HBO last week.  Not a single person I asked had seen the film.  How could that be?  How could there be so much attention on books like Here Comes Everybody and Wisdom of the Crowds (the author gave the keynote) and virtually no attention to an important film like Hard Times (and I don’t mean the Ridgemont High version)?

I DARE YOU to watch Hard Times (see preview below) and then to walk through the exhibit hall at NECC.  The conditions and consequences of poverty documented in the film stand in complete contrast to the glitz and excess of the exhibit hall.

Please people, how can we continue to talk about the pedagogical applications of Google Earth and how much we need to talk about how to do good presentations and, and, and?   And how can we continue to soak in the excess and the free giveaways when so many young people don’t have basic necessities of life.