Education Week - January 28, 2015 - 24

COMMENTARY
Measurement Alone Cannot Propel Improvement
By Susan H. Fuhrman
P
roposed new rules from the U.S. Department
of Education that would require
states to rate teacher-preparation programs
on the basis of outcomes, including
student learning and employment-retention
statistics for their recent graduates,
make sense in theory. The public and
aspiring educators deserve to know
which programs turn out competent teachers.
In practice, however, implementing new rules
doesn't necessarily mean teacher education programs
will improve.
Many scholars have criticized the measures suggested
by the department that states might use for outcomes:
the reliance on a single standardized test to judge growth
in student learning; burdensome classroom-observation
systems that strain the capacity of administrators; the
limits of existing methodologies to completely eliminate
the effects of school or student-background influences in
tracing the contributions of individual teachers; and the
measurement errors inherent in such systems.
These are legitimate concerns, but there's a deeper
problem: the idea that measures alone can spur improvement.
Two problems with continual searches for upgraded
measures are readily apparent.
"
The evaluation of
education schools in
this country does
indeed need fixing."
iStockphoto
First, states have had measures of teacher education
programs' outcomes for years. But they haven't acted on
them. They have administered licensure exams for decades,
for example. But they have set passing rates way
too low and have rarely taken any action against schools
whose graduates have the lowest scores. According to the
education policy think tank Education Sector, a majority
of states have never identified a low-performing program,
and only 129 of 13,000 programs have ever been singled
out by a state for low performance.
The political will to confront weak programs (especially
those in the districts of politically powerful legislators)
is noticeably absent, and imposing sanctions
such as those that the federal government is considering
(denying student aid to candidates at ineffective schools)
focuses on the victims-often the neediest students-not
the schools and the states.
Second, states not only lack will, they lack capacity. The
number of education schools that could benefit from help
to improve far outnumber the few that might merit closing
as a result of any outcome-measurement system. We
know from studies of states that already have systems of
tracing teacher contributions to student learning back to
education schools that there's a wide variation in college
response. Some colleges know what to do with the data,
what changes they might suggest, but many don't.
More specific than the old rules, the new rules call for
Too Much Discipline Hurts
Majority-Minority Schools
By Samina Hadi-Tabassum
W
atching the
protests and
listening to
the chants of
"Hands up,
don't shoot"
following last
summer's
fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in
Ferguson, Mo., fueled an argument that I
have been making for some time with my
graduate students and colleagues.
For almost two decades, I have been
coaching and mentoring first-year teachers
in Chicago's public schools; however,
in the last few years, I have noticed a cultural
shift in those schools with predominantly
African-American enrollments.
Some are turnaround schools that Mayor
Rahm Emanuel's office has taken over because
of low student test scores, as well as
other complex challenges, including weak
leadership and ineffective instruction.
When you enter these turnaround
schools, there is often an eerie silence.
You never hear children's voices in the
hallways. Rather, you see lines of AfricanAmerican
children crossing the school
with their hands behind their backs or
their fingers pressed against their lips to
indicate silence, and their eyes always facing
front.
"
When I asked them
whether their schools
would have the same
rules if the children
were white, the young
teachers responded
with a unanimous no. "
The monochromatic lines of uniformed
children mimic prison lines,
and the teachers' efforts seem focused
on ensuring that students do not talk
to each other and do not walk outside
the line.
All day long, an immense amount of
time and energy is spent making sure
young African-American students are
taught to obey.
In one K-12 school, when one of my
graduate students had to go to the restroom,
I walked her students to the
cafeteria. Even in the cafeteria, children
were not allowed to talk to each
other.
I made the foolish mistake of having
a conversation with a table of 1st
grade girls when another teacher
came over to me and yelled out, "You
do not talk during lunch." At first, I
thought the teacher was being sarcastic,
but it was disheartening to
realize after a few minutes that this
young teacher, who was white, had
been indoctrinated by her school to
think that African-American and Latino
children should not be allowed
to talk at lunch. When the students
were given time to actually act like
children on the playground, they
were often admonished for "acting
like animals" when they returned to
their classrooms.
Of course, my first-year teachers do
not buy into this ideology of repression.
But when I asked them whether their
schools would have the same rules if
the children were white, the young
teachers responded with a unanimous
no, coupled with the fear of losing their
jobs if they, too, did not obey.
Caught between educational theory
that advocates for the whole child
and a school culture that resembles a
prison's, my first-year teachers have
to make strategic decisions daily
about what is best for their students
and what rules they may need to
subvert while avoiding the administration's
gaze.
On this front, one of my graduate
students, whom I'll call Angela, stayed
after my class one day, quite upset.
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Education Week - January 28, 2015

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