Education Week - January 8, 2014 - 22

LETTERS to
the EDITOR
Sustained Support Needed
To Improve Indian Schools
To the Editor:
1/2 col-H
I read with great interest
your recent look at American
Indian education ("Education in
Indian Country: Obstacles and
Opportunity," Dec. 4, 2013).
The organization where I work,
the Consortium on Reaching
Excellence in Education, or
CORE, knows firsthand the
issues involved in Indian
education because we provide
ongoing technical assistance to
the schools on the Pine Ridge
reservation in South Dakota.
The expectations are high
for these schools, and the
many leaders involved want
desperately to transform the
quality of education in them.
However, the bureaucratic
funding structures often
hamper rather than support
improvement. Many schools have
limited direct access to their
funds, and the time it takes to
get funds released results in long
delays of support.
For the Pine Ridge schools,
weather is a decided factor. Even
recently, our consultants could
not get to the sites to provide
assistance because school was
closed for snow. This problem
results in a loss of learning time
for students and educators.
Teachers and leaders need
extensive assistance and
coaching, yet they do not receive
it. When new materials come
to them, the preparation given
to teachers is limited at best;
we know this directly from our
work at these schools. This would
not be the case at many of the
nation's more affluent sites,
where teachers receive many
days of coaching support and
training when they implement
new programs.
What makes this situation
even sadder is that the teachers
and administrators want this
assistance, but funding and/or
specific grant expectations beyond
instruction may limit a school's
ability to get what it needs.
We work with the division of
performance and accountability
within the federal Bureau of
Indian Education, the BIE's
associate directors, and tribal
and building leadership guiding
these schools. They are amazing
and dedicated individuals who
deserve more.
Action, not just intent, is what
is needed. Unless these schools-
teachers and administrators
alike-get intensive and
sustained support, the likelihood
that academic achievement will
improve is illusory.
NEW TO EDUCATION WEEK PRESS
Linda Diamond
Consortium on Reaching Excellence in Education
Berkeley, Calif.
Indiana Dean Questions
NCTQ Research Standards
To the Editor:
I was pleased to see "An Open
Letter to the NCTQ" (Dec. 11, 2013)
by Michigan State University
education school Dean Donald
Heller and his colleagues Avner
Segall and Corey Drake. The
Commentary laid out why
Michigan State decided not to
participate in the second round of
the National Council on Teacher
Quality's teacher-preparation
study.
The reasons given explain
1/5 col-H
why: The NCTQ study is based on
what many have described as
a "fatally flawed" methodology.
For that reason alone, we at
Indiana University decided not
to voluntarily participate in NCTQ
studies. A flawed methodology
always produces invalid results.
But there's another reason why
Indiana will not participate: We
NEW TO
EDUCATION WEEK PRESS
From bestselling author
of The Book Whisperer
DONALYN MILLER
Develop five key
reading habits that
cultivate a lifelong
love of reading.
AVAILABLE NOW edweek.org/go/books
22 | EDUCATION WEEK | January 8, 2014 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary
Develop five key
reading habits that
cultivate a lifelong
love of reading.
From bestselling author
of The Book Whisperer
DONALYN MILLER
AVAILABLE NOW
edweek.org/go/books
feel that the NCTQ is engaged
in unethical research practices.
They have threatened institutions
that decline to participate with
low ratings, use of previous
low ratings, and acquisition of
documents through paid student
informants and other deceptive
means.
With the support of our faculty
and as dean of the Indiana
University School of Education, I
have taken the position that unless
the NCTQ submits its methodology
for credible institutional-reviewboard
approval and seeks
informed consent from potential
institutional participants, IU
will not participate. Coercion
or the threat of sanctions for
nonparticipation in a study,
whether overt or implied, have no
place in research, no matter the
goal.
From our perspective, voluntary
participation in a study known
to engage in unethical practices
undermines the very essence of
the values we seek to impart to
graduate students and others we
prepare as researchers.
I believe institutions of higher
education have a fundamental
responsibility to speak freely and
forcefully on controversial ideas
and practices that undermine
our core values, even when our
positions are not especially
popular.
As Kate Walsh's response to
the Michigan State Commentary
shows, the NCTQ will try to build
public support for its flawed
studies by lauding their goals and
characterizing critiques of their
methodology as a red herring
("NCTQ Responds to Critics of Its
Teacher-Prep Ratings," edweek.org,
Dec. 12, 2013). But in this case, as
in so many other facets of life, the
ends do not justify the means. The
end result of the NCTQ methodology
is unethical and invalid research.
Gerardo M. Gonzalez
Professor and Dean
School of Education
Indiana University
Bloomington, Ind.
Great School Leaders
Attract Top Teachers
To the Editor:
Your article "Transferring Top
Teachers Has Benefits," (Nov. 13,
2013) represents a conundrum for
a promising strategy for school
reform.
The article, reporting the results
of a study, notes that "the transfer
of top elementary teachers to lowachieving
schools can help boost
students' performance, but there's
a catch: getting them to agree to
move." Although these teachers
were found to have a higher
impact on student achievement,
it was difficult to attract a pool
of these highly effective teachers
despite the substantial bonuses
offered in the study.
So if the incentives of higher
pay and increased impact do not
attract the teachers we sorely
need, what can districts do to
attract more highly effective
teachers to the students who need
them most?
We must ensure that there is a
highly effective principal at the
helm of these schools, capable of
strong instructional leadership.
Recent research has shown
that leadership actions of highly
effective principals can address
the challenges raised in the
article: Effective principals not
only recruit and retain effective
teachers, they also improve the
effectiveness of the teachers
they have through consistently
providing constructive feedback to
continuously improve instruction
for all teachers.
A 2012 study by TNTP (The New
Teacher Project) on "irreplaceable"
teachers in Washington found
that keeping top teachers requires
strong school leadership and
school cultures that support
effective teaching. Principals
have to be able to shape a unified
vision of high expectations for all
students and chart a clear path
that involves the collective wisdom
and effort of all teachers to achieve
this outcome.
Sarah Almy, the director of
teacher quality for the Education
Trust, is quoted in the article: "We
hear that even if teachers have
what it takes and they're motivated
[to transfer], they don't want to be
there all by themselves banging
their head against the wall."
The key to eliminating this
futile, frustrating experience of
finding and keeping good teachers
is having in each school a leader
capable of creating a whole-school
culture where high expectations
for teaching and learning are a
priority.
John Jenkins
Vice President of Programs
School Leaders Network
New York, N.Y.
COMMENTARY POLICY
Education Week takes no editorial positions, but publishes opinion essays and
letters from outside contributors in its Commentary section.
For information about submitting an essay or letter for review, visit
www.edweek.org/go/guidelines.
Privacy Concerns Often
Ignored by Reformers
To the Editor:
A sentence in your recent
article on data collection and
student privacy ("Group's Model
Bill Aims to Protect Privacy of
Student Data," Dec. 11, 2013)
seems extraordinarily accurate.
The excerpt in question: "Other
advocacy groups and industry
representatives ... praised the
efforts as good first steps, but
expressed concern over a lack of
substantive details, particularly
when it comes to placing limits on
the noneducational uses of student
data by third-party vendors."
My organization, Restore
Oklahoma Public Education, or
ROPE, has studied student privacy
in conjunction with education
"reform" measures for several
years now. As a consequence of
our research, we have become
increasingly alarmed at the
amount of data being collected
under the auspices of education
"reform" and the lack of student
privacy accompanying this push.
In early 2012, we approached
state Rep. David Brumbaugh, a
Republican, to author legislation
requiring parental consent for
data collected through K-12
public schools. His bill, HB 1989,
delivered just that. The parentalconsent
provision was later
stripped, however.
Though we believe it is
important for the state to be
transparent with parents
regarding data-collection
practices, we believe our children
will neither be protected from
the onslaught of cloud-based
data mining currently occurring
within district schools, nor from
the amount of student-level datasharing
presently occurring at
the state and federal levels, until
parental consent becomes the
primary issue.
We find it unfortunate this
particular bill has become the
touchstone for a model American
Legislative Exchange Council, or
ALEC, bill. In our estimation, this
bill epitomizes the frustration
felt by ordinary citizens-such as
those in ROPE-who try to effect
governmental change in order
to provide protections to their
children that the government
itself has not upheld.
While we appreciate the efforts
of our legislators, until the
citizens they serve become the
primary voices in legislation such
as this, these kinds of bills will
protect no one but the entities in
power-those from whom we seek
protection.
Jenni White
President
Restore Oklahoma Public Education
Arcadia, Okla.
Edito
2 Lin
Editor
one fu
120 ch
4 lines
XXslu
EW ST
EW LE
DESIGN
DO NO
http://www.edweek.org http://www.edweek.org/go/books http://www.edweek.org/go/books http://www.edweek.org/go/guidelines http://www.edweek.org/go/commentary
Education Week - January 8, 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - January 8, 2014
