Voucher Expansion Proposal in WI is Poor Public Policy

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Voucher school expansion is misguided public policy for many reasons:

    1)    Vouchers do not improve student achievement.  These are the findings of numerous studies over the years, including the most recent five-year longitudinal study conducted by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau.

2)    Vouchers eliminate public accountability.  And this stands in stark contrast to the strong controls placed on public schools in many areas, including teacher certification, instruction/assessment requirements, graduation requirements, student admissions and due process protections, and financial oversight.

3)    Vouchers take resources away from public school students.  Two recent memos from the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau highlight the following summary in their analysis:  voucher school expansion means property tax increases and student service reductions at the local level.

It is for reasons like these that even prominent Republican lawmakers raised major concerns immediately about the governor’s proposal.  For example, Sen. Michael Ellis (R-Neenah) shared that this voucher proposal was phase one of an effort to expand this misguided policy statewide.  In addition, Sen. Dale Schultz (R – Richland Center) stated that the voucher system creates two educational systems in the state, and we struggle to fund one adequately.  I couldn’t agree more.

Therefore, for the reasons above and many more, I encourage you to contact your legislators and ask them to oppose any further expansion of voucher schools.  At the very least, ask that they have this major change in public policy pulled out of the budget bill, where this highly important issue to Wisconsin’s future can be debated in the light of day and stand, or fall, on its own merits.

I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends

There have been over fifty covers of the Beatles classic song “Little Help from My Friends” recorded over the years.  So the question is probably more about which voice you hear ringing in your ears when you think of this tune (Ringo Starr, Joe Cocker, Jim Sturgess, Mumford and Sons?) rather than whether or not you know it.  To be sure, so much attention paid to one tune over and over again --  through five decades -- underscores the timeless relevance of its lyric.  And due to the song’s broad appeal, I believe it can also serve as an effective organizer for this update about Educator Effectiveness, Common Core, and my own PLN.

Findings of some recent University of Virginia research demonstrates that the Beatles’ message is as true today as it was back in the ‘60s.  In this UVA study, each subject was asked to put on a heavy backpack, filled with weights, while staring up a hill and directed to estimate the hill’s steepness.  In some cases, the subject went through this exercise alone.  In others, the subject went through it with a friend nearby.  The results of this study were unequivocal.   Subjects carrying the burden who were accompanied by a nearby friend viewed the hill as less steep (i.e., more manageable).  And of course the reverse was also found true:  subjects carrying the burden and facing the hill alone viewed it as steeper (i.e., more difficult to ascend).

The findings and symbolism of this UVA study have many connections for education leaders and the challenges we must conquer and ascend in our daily work.  And as the Beatles song and the UVA study attest, our likelihood for success will improve significantly by helping and supporting and leaning on each other.  To that end, I hope the following updates about some of the big work in front of us promotes your discovery of an array of helpful people, information and supports around you to assist in your leadership journey:

Educator Effectiveness (EE) Update

Earlier this month, DPI posted its first edition of the Educator Effectiveness Newsletter.  Some highlights from it:

·      160 new school districts are planning on sending teams to the second round of training that DPI will hold at various regional sites across the state from April – June.  This will bring to a total nearly 230 districts that will have participated in state training.

·      The 2013-14 training will include some of the following new components:

o   Online implementation with videos of effective teaching practices, including a Teachscape © license for each educator in the pilot

o   An observer certification process

o   A system balanced between evaluation and student outcomes

o   Integration of SLOs with the teacher and principal practice cycles

·      DPI has stated that it is acceptable for a district to wait until 2014-15 to implement the EE system, but districts should still be preparing for it now by at least working through the District Readiness Tool, which will set the stage for implementation.

·      DPI plans on publishing future editions of the EE News.  You can access this and much more information about the initiative at http://ee.dp.wi.gov

As you also likely know, state EE law allows for an approved, equivalent option to the DPI model for the evaluation of teacher and principal practice.  The process for pursuing approved equivalency will be underway this spring and managed by DPI.  Many of our members are already participating  in the EE system via the CESA 6 model, which plans to apply for equivalency as soon as it can.   There may be other models seeking equivalency status within the state EE systems as well.  Time will tell. 

In checking with CESA 6 before this publication deadline, I was told that CESA 6 is currently finalizing spring and summer training dates in collaboration with their regional CESA partners.  Specifics should be available later this month.  You can check for future updates at www.cesa6.k12.wi.us.

Common Core

Later today, a focus group of AWSA members and I will meet with representatives of DPI’s Common Core Team.  Our major task, in terms relevant to this article, is to find means to most readily help our AWSA peers and friends scale the Common Core hill in front of us, given that our members are at different spots on that hill.  You can look for some results of this focus group and effort in the next edition of our AWSA Update Bulletin in early April.

My PLN
I have benefitted and grown from a personal learning network(PLN) for decades through all sorts of conventional ways, but only recently have I begun to scale the hill of setting up my own PLN through electronic means.  Over the weekend, I finally set up a Twitter handle (@joeschroeder23), began to tweet and contribute to my emerging PLN, and even set up a blog (joeschroeder23.blogspot.com) and published my first post.  One of the unexpected first benefits of this effort was that I got to “attend” the weekend’s ASCD national conference in Chicago virtually by following the various tweets (#ascd2013) even though my course registration on Friday and Saturday in Madison prevented me from being there in person.

To get some momentum going, this old dog truly has needed the help of a lot of friends along the way such as the AWSA Amplified Administrators program led by Brad Sarron, a host of tech-savvy AWSA members, and countless others.   And I can immediately see how my PLN will accelerate the means by which I can learn from others and in turn contribute to the learning network.   The line that “I get by with a little help from my friends” could never have resonated so true.  So thank you!  My hope is that, like any good friend, such kindness, encouragement and support that I have received can be reciprocated time and time again.

Creating Coherence and Impact in the Common Core Era

Creating coherence amidst a host of initiatives is a key challenge for nearly every educator today.  Perhaps no current initiative is more comprehensive or daunting than the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which have potential for transforming our daily work and our impact on students in many profound ways.  This blog post is designed to stimulate thinking about ways to promote coherence and impact for school leaders within the emerging educational terrain, the Era of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Perhaps the greatest danger with the Common Core is perceiving it as yet one more initiative or program to add to an already burgeoning plate.  In such a mindset, we might revise our curriculum to incorporate the Common Core and then hope that implementation, and subsequent boosts in student achievement, naturally occurs.   However, without a focus on the associated and necessary shifts in practices, the impact of these curriculum revision efforts on student learning is likely to be minimal.

In a recent article from Educational Leadership, Sandra Alberti describes several shifts in practice that need to occur, in combination with integration of the CCSS, if we are committed to delivering on the ambitious promise of the Common Core -- every student ready for college and career upon graduation:

Shifts Related to English CCSS Language Arts and Literacy Standards

1)   Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction

2)   Reading and writing grounded in evidence

3)   Regular practice with complex text and academic language

Shifts Related to CCSS Mathematics Standards

1)   Greater focus on fewer topics

2)   Linking topics and thinking across grades

3)   Rigorous pursuit of conceptual understanding, procedural skill, and application

I am thankful for the synthesis of analysis provided by Alberti at the 30,000-foot level for the clarity and opportunity for focus it provides on such a comprehensive topic as the Common Core.  For to be sure,  we cannot provide coherence for others if we do not first possess it ourselves.  Creating coherence in our own minds as school leaders about the major shifts of the Common Core is one way of helping build coherence in those we lead.  In such a way, we help others not lose the forest for the trees. 

But I am most interested in reflecting about how such coherence of understanding can transfer into coherence of action, especially action that can harness the impact of the many working deeply in a few vital areas to maximize impact on student learning.

Times of great change are times of great opportunity.  The transition of our field into the Era of the Common Core is, thus, an opportune time to reflect upon what vital few priorities for adult action we should develop deeply -- and what initiatives we should stop doing – in order to have the largest positive impact for our students in the emerging educational terrain.  With such a mindset, as I reflect upon the shifts required of the Common Core, priority around deep teaching and learning practices arise in the following areas:

·      A focus on non-fiction across content areas that pays close attention to text complexity and academic vocabulary.

·      A focus on writing that is grounded in evidence, especially evidence based in close reading of the text.  Such writing emphasis can also elevate the level of conceptual understanding, procedural skill, and application needed.

·      Deep implementation of professional learning communities to promote vertical and horizontal articulation and data-based responses to student learning in an ever more rigorous environment aimed at college and career readiness for all.

In closing, through this blog, I am attempting to model one way that school leaders might find focus for leveraged, high-impact action even in an era of great complexity and change arising from the Common Core.  Certainly, your local student learning data should play a large role in guiding school-wide instructional decisions. But I hope this example attempt at finding coherence and focus among the clutter provides some thoughts for further reflection and consideration.