Testing & School Grading in Virginia: The Time to Act is Now

There are some major happenings at the state level with public education in Virginia and if you're a supporter of public education in Virginia, there's a few things you can do about them right now.

1. What's happening: Almost every Virginia parent and every Virginia educator I talk to is concerned about the amount of SOL testing, what its results are used for, and how it negatively impacts curriculum and instruction. Communities across the Commonwealth are starting to come together to publicly question and discuss the role of high-stakes testing. They are in the Virginia legislature, they are in Roanoke, they are in Chesterfield County, and they are in Richmond. 

What you can do: Please urge your County Council of PTAs, your school board members, your state and local elected officials, and your school district administration to facilitate public conversations about testing. 

2. What's happening: Apparently, some school boards in Virginia are listening to those citizens concerned about testing. A "Resolution Concerning High Stakes, Standardized Testing of Virginia Public School Students" is making its way through the Virginia School Boards Association. So far, thirty school boards from all over the state have signed it. I have urged my school board to sign it (as of yet, they have not but I am told they will discuss it). 

What you can do: Contact your school board and either thank them for signing it if they have already done so or urge them to if they haven't done so yet.

3. What's happening: The Virginia Board of Education is going to do a final review on Thursday, October 24th of the criteria for grading schools. I've already explained that grading schools in this way is an awful idea and will likely end up rewarding affluent schools and punishing low-income schools. Since I wrote my school grading post, Oklahoma's school grading system has been put under the microscope and has been found to be majorly flawed. The Virginia Board of Ed should not do any final review now. First of all, they don't have to. Second of all, in light of flaws and misuse in other states, this process, this concept needs to be examined more thoroughly. This is not in best interest of Virginia--as I noted above, thirty school boards (and more will sign in the near future) have already passed a resolution in opposition to the state testing program upon which the school grades will be based. 

What you can do: Contact the Virginia Board of Education (e-mail: BOE@doe.virginia.gov) and ask them to postpone making any final decisions about the school grading criteria until the legitimacy of school grading schemes have been established and until after changes are made to our state testing program. Do this ASAP as the final review of A-F criteria is set for Thursday, October 24th. Then contact your state delegate and senator and let them know you'd like the school grading bill to be taken off the books.

If we want our public democratic institutions to work for us, we must engage as members of the public in the democratic process.

Virginia's School Grading Plan Gets an N/A

In my most recent posts, I talked about the Tony Bennett (Indiana) school grading fiasco. I talked about how unbridled "disruption" in education reform can cause more harm than good. I posted a letter asking for more Virginia education stakeholder participation and input into our state government's education reform process. Finally, I wrote about how TFA was not right for Virginia (speaking of stakeholder input, you'll notice that stakeholder groups opposed placing TFA corps members in teaching positions in our schools.)

This post is going to bring together all of those prior posts. What do all the posts above have in common: the school grading bill.

The Virginia General assembly passed a school grading bill this past legislative session. As with the TFA legislation, this legislation was not supported by any education stakeholder groups that I know of. The VEA, VSBA, VASS and the VA PTA are all opposed to it. But, um, Jeb Bush is in favor of it. I am increasingly concerned  by the level of influence people from out-of-state are having on our education legislation. Does Jeb Bush pay taxes here? Is he registered to vote in Virginia? Does he represent any Virginia education stakeholders? No. School grading, like TFA and elimination of citizen and democratic oversight of charter schools (more about this in a later post) are also ALEC-favored legislation. If you've never heard of ALEC, here's a primer.

So, why do people who support public education in Virginia oppose the school grading legislation? Because it's not a comprehensive or accurate way of providing information about schools. In fact, if other states' school grading systems are any indication, school grades are highly misleading. When partnered with other education reforms, such as state and charter chain takeovers of struggling schools and loosening of charter laws, such laws are ripe for exercises in crony capitalism.

Matt DiCarlo of the Shanker Institute has done several analyses of the Florida school grading program and has found it lacking. He also explained that Indiana's school grading mechanism tells us a lot about the students who are taking Indiana's standardized test but not much about the quality of the schools themselves. See:

• A Dark Day for Educational Measurement in the Sunshine State
• What Florida’s School Grades Measure, And What They Don’t
• Making Sense Of Florida’s School And Teacher Performance Ratings
• The Structural Curve In Indiana’s New School Grading System

The wide-spread opposition to adopting such a policy in Virginia is shared by Virginia superintendents. They've shown, as Matt DiCarlo did, that such a metric would only prove that schools with poorer students would get lower grades:

[The Bristol Schools' Superintendent, Mark] Lineburg, with help from some university researchers, analyzed an initial formula that lawmakers considered, which was based largely on how well students perform on state tests. They found that 85 percent of the schools that would score a C or below had poverty ratings over 50 percent.

This group produced a lengthy, evidence-based report  which showed why such a grading system would not accurately convey the quality of the schools rated. For example:

. . . Governor McDonnell’s A-F scale accounts only for overall achievement examination scores and creates a nearly insurmountable obstacle for school divisions that serve high percentages of economically-disadvantaged students. Educating students in poverty is one of the nation’s greatest challenges; and this challenge increases with every percent point increase in free and reduced price lunches. Yet, in affluent school divisions where it should be easier to differentiate instruction specifically for fewer numbers of poor children, most achieve no better or even worse for economically-disadvantaged children than high poverty school divisions. Yet the more affluent school divisions will consistently receive A’s and B’s on the new rating scale.

The data displayed in Tables 1 and 2, are found on each school division’s state report card and clearly demonstrate that overall achievement disparities among school divisions are almost solely based on the percent of economically-disadvantaged students served by the school division. It is discouraging that our elected officials, including our Governor supported legislation that so glaringly fails to recognize the inherent challenges faced by high poverty schools. To be more succinct, Governor McDonnell’s signature education legislation will punish high poverty schools and divisions even where significant gains toward increasing achievement for economically-disadvantaged students have been attained. More discouraging, assigning a low grade to a high poverty school division will decrease  its ability to attract and retain top teaching candidates who could have a significantly positive impact on the students, school, and the entire school community. 

The educators in high poverty schools are equally competent and are not bashful to ask for assistance. What our high poverty school divisions need is additional assistance and support, not punishment in the form of awarding a simplistic singular grade and the threat of school takeover. We need more preschool programs, lower pupil-teacher ratios, mathematics specialists, financial support for physical education and wellness programs, and we need the ability to extend learning opportunities during summers, holiday vacations, and after school hours. The scores in this document clearly demonstrate that the achievement gap between high poverty school divisions and those that are more affluent is not always as great as it appears. In fact, data gleaned from the Virginia DOE school report cards prove that many high-poverty divisions are tightening achievement gaps with greater success than their more affluent neighbors. 

Roger Jones a , the chairman of Leadership Studies at Lynchburg College and director of the Virginia Association of Secondary Schools Principals Center for Education Leadership wrote an impassioned essay echoing his skepticism of the efficacy of the Virginia A-F grading plan.

The grades won't go into effect until 2014 and the Virginia Board of Education has been charged with coming up with the formula by October. So far, the school grading formula they're considering is almost totally based on test scores. There aren't multiple measures, just multiple test scores and different ways of looking at them.

Why would Virginia want to adopt such a system when the ones in Florida and Indiana are so flawed? Furthermore, why would the General Assembly pass such legislation without any understanding of how such a metric would work? Isn't it better policy-making practice in such cases to come up with and pilot the metric first, to see, how it works, and then make it law or not? This returns to the reformy propensity to act first and think later, if at all. How irresponsible.

But it also returns to a more cynical possibility. The schools likely to get Fs in Virginia would then be forced under state takeover and put under the newly formed bureaucracy, the Opportunity Education Institution. The communities where these schools are located are stripped of democratic governance of their own schools, though they'd still have to provide the money for the schools. As I said when I wrote about the OEI:

According to this post, the OEI would take over schools that were denied accreditation, which is done in accordance with "federal accountability data," also known as standardized test scores. The Institution will be run by a board of gubernatorial appointees, which includes the executive director. There is no guarantee that the board would include any people who know anything about education. The board would contract with non-profits, corporations, or education organizations to operate the schools. Funding for the new bureaucracy would be provided by federal, state, and local taxpayers. The "failing" schools' local governing bodies would be represented on the board in some way, but they would lose decision-making power and would not be able to vote or, from what I can tell, have much meaningful input, besides providing the same share of local funding and being responsible for maintenance of the school building. As for staffing, current faculty at the schools being taken over could apply for a position as a new employee with the OEI or apply for a transfer.

First of all, elimination of democratic oversight and disenfranchisement is never a good solution to poverty or dysfunction, not to mention the OEI bill appears to be unconstitutional. Second, what happened in Indiana also smells of politics and crony capitalism. Though one may have nothing to do with the other, it looks bad that the grade was changed for the charter school owned by a prominent GOP donor who gave to Bennett's campaign. Second of all, when schools get forced into a state takeover after receiving too many Fs, they are then open by the state to takeover by charter school companies. Again, maybe one thing has nothing to do with another but Bennett's wife works for a for-profit Florida-based charter school company (Florida is where Bennett was most recently Education Commissioner) that Bennett chose to takeover Indianapolis Public Schools (Bennett was formerly education commissioner in Indiana).

Governor McDonnell and his allies are seeking similar changes for Virginia--school grading and charter expansion and charter via state takeover of high-poverty schools with low test scores. What happens when Imagine gets to takeover some of these "F" schools? Dennis Bakke, the CEO of Imagine Schools, the largest commercial manager of charter schools in the Unites States, gave $10,000 to McDonnell's campaign when he ran for governor. What happens when the likes of Johnnie Williams opens his own health and nutrition charter school and it doesn't do as well as expected? Would McDonnell give the school the grade it earned under Virginia's A-F metric system?

A-F school grading systems are bad metrics, they're unfair, they'll encourage poor practice and corruption, and they're bad for public education in Virginia.

Reforminess: 120, Content-rich Curriculum: 45

I saw this article in the Washington Post about DCPS's cutting the minimum recess for elementary students to 20 minutes day. It goes without saying that twenty minutes per day of recess for younger students is ridiculously inadequate. But here's what really caught my eye (emphasis mine):

Recess time varies in the District. Some schools saw a reduction this year as Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson implemented new requirements meant to ensure that all elementary students get a minimum amount of time in each subject each day: two hours of literacy, 90 minutes of math, and 45 minutes of science or social studies. An additional 45 minutes is required for an elective, such as art, music or physical education.

What? Isn't DC a Common Core adopter? Isn't the Common Core supposed the second coming of curricular education reform?

If you're spending two hours a day on "literacy" and forty-five minutes a day on non-math content (social studies or science) and if you consider art, music, physical education, or foreign language to be an "elective" rather than crucial content, then the Common Core will not help your students because you're not getting the Common Core's supposed intent. In this case, the assumption is that literacy is a skill that must be mastered before children learn content. "Literacy" is primary and content is an after thought.

So what do Common Core advocates, especially those who also support current education reforms, think of this? Just as I find their silence on expansion of central bureaucracy and spending thereon baffling, I find their silence on this topic baffling, and troubling, as well.

Book Review: First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America's First Black Public High School

The following guest post is written by Jeff Tignor. Jeff has undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard and Duke University, respectively. He lives in Washington, DC, where he is a telecommunications lawyer and fellow at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy, researching how local communities can use the internet and wireless technologies to foster civic engagement. 



In the excellent new book First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America’s First Black Public High School, Alison Stewart tells the story of one of the best and most important American high schools of the 20th century. The stories that Ms. Stewart shares of the tight-knit African-American community in Washington, DC with high school teachers with master’s degrees and PhDs sending students from a segregated high school to the best colleges and universities in the country amplify stories I’ve heard throughout my life. My father, paternal grandparents, two uncles, a great aunt and a cousin all attended Dunbar. After receiving his master’s degree from Columbia, my grandfather returned to Dunbar to teach English. My father and one of my uncles both left Dunbar for Yale and went on, respectively, to become a professor at Yale’s School of Epidemiology and Public Health and a surgeon in Kokomo, Indiana and part-time professor at Indiana University. My Dunbar family tree is filled with educators. The legacy of Dunbar has deeply influenced and affected me, even though I did not grow up in Washington, DC. For example, a few years after I moved to DC as an adult, I decided to run for Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for my neighborhood. On election day, as I stood in the rain handing out flyers, a woman said, as my opponent attempted to reach out to her, “Sorry, but I’m voting for Mr. Tignor’s Grandson.” I won.

Dunbar was a groundbreaking educational institution born in Washington, DC, as a result of a unique set of circumstances and later hobbled by home rule politics, social class conflicts, and racial desegregation without integration. In the first half of the 20th century  this public school produced numerous leaders in medicine, science, education, law, politics, and the military. With the end of segregation, the conditions that resulted in Dunbar’s creation ceased to exist. Ms. Stewart, an award-winning journalist who has worked as an anchor and reporter for several major commercial TV networks, as well as NPR and PBS, and whose parents graduated from Dunbar in the 1940s, uses Dunbar as a lens for examining the history of education in Washington, DC. The book covers three distinct eras:  First, from 1807-1954, a detailed history of African-American education in Washington, DC, and of how Dunbar became America’s first African-American public high school; second, beginning with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education and Bolling v. Sharpe decisions, a transitional period in the years surrounding school integration; and third, Dunbar’s post-1960 full transformation to the neighborhood school it is today, struggling with the challenges of urban education. As someone whose family history in Washington, DC, dates to the post-civil war 1800s, I learned new facts about DC’s history and was struck by the irony of Dunbar alums arguing for desegregation at the Supreme Court and then seeing their prestigious and beloved alma mater fray as the unconstitutional system of segregation was dismantled. I was moved by the heartbreaking stories of students and educators trying to honor Dunbar’s past and simultaneously create a present and future that will allow the school to once again become a launching pad for great careers.

Dunbar came to be because unlike in much of the South, there were no laws restricting the education of free blacks in Washington, DC.  Small schools such as the Bell School and the Normal School for Colored Girls begat the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, M Street High School, and ultimately in 1916, Dunbar High School. As the only academic high school for African-Americans in Washington, DC, Dunbar effectively became a magnet school. Students from DC had to pass an 8 to enroll and students transferring into Dunbar as part of the Great Migration had to take an entrance exam. Dunbar’s curriculum focused on English, math, the sciences, ancient history, music, Latin, French and German. Many of Dunbar’s teachers and administrators, like my grandfather, had advanced degrees and included doctors, lawyers, and two of the first three African-American women to receive PhDs. Dunbar sent students to prestigious colleges such as Harvard, Yale, Brown, Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth, Wellesley, and the University of Michigan. Notable alums include Edward Brooke, the first black US Senator elected by popular vote; Charles Drew, the creator of the blood bank; William Hastie, the first African-American Federal judge; and, Wesley Brown, the first African-American graduate of the Naval Academy.

In 1954, Charles Hamilton Houston and two of his fellow alums from the M Street School, Dunbar’s forerunner, were key members of the team that successfully argued for outlawing legally segregated schools in the states in Brown v. Board of Education and in the District of Columbia in Bolling v. Sharpe. From 1955 onward, Dunbar became a neighborhood school, with attendance solely based on the boundaries within which a child resided. One educator commented at the time that First & O, NW, was infamous as a gathering place for young men who were unemployed, out of school and “indecent in their public conduct.” Ms. Stewart writes: “It is bitterly ironic that three of the key players in dismantling legal segregation…learned their lessons at a school that became an unintended casualty of necessary civil rights action.” In a July NPR interview, Ms. Stewart described Dunbar's benefitting from the glass ceiling segregation placed on Dunbar’s highly educated teachers as a “perversity.”

By the mid-1960s, Dunbar and several of its alumni and former teachers, who had moved on to other leadership positions in education in the city, found students not nearly as interested in the tradition-bound lessons that began in 1807. My grandfather, Madison Tignor, found himself having to answer tough questions from students such as: Why doesn’t Eastern High School have an Afrocentric curriculum? Architect of school desegregation, now Howard University President James Nabrit was asked: Why is Howard Law School no longer serving the needs of African-Americans seeking equality? Marion Barry came to prominence. Dunbar never did integrate. From the 1970s forward, “the economic and social woes of DC were Dunbar’s woes.”

Over the years, there have been periodic signs of hope; a pre-engineering magnet program focused heavily on the sciences and partially financed by corporate sponsors, a Dunbar graduate becoming a Stanford graduate, and most recently, the track coach who will pick up girls at home as early as 3:30 am to get them to practice and who can point to every girl in a team photo and name where she is in college. Ms. Stewart ends on a positive note suggesting that given the demographic changes in the neighborhood maybe Dunbar will make history again, as its founders would have wished, “as the first truly, organically integrated school in Washington, DC.” Here's to hoping she's right.

Shortages or not, TFA is not the way for VA

Just a quick TFA post.

Today as I was watching & tweeting Governor McDonnell's K-12 Education Reform Summit, I got into some conversations with a TFA advocate (update: I have confirmed with Aaron that he is a TFA employee), W. Aaron French and Eva Colen who is the Managing Director, Community Engagement at Teach for America--she is based in Richmond.

I'm not going to repeat what I've already written, so if you want to see my previous thoughts on TFA, please read here and here. As TFA pertains to Virginia and the legislation that just passed, I wrote about that here:

You probably already know what I think. I have written about TFA before. It's my most popular piece. 

The only thing new I have to say is: Why does Virginia need TFA? There are budget and teaching positions being cut across the state and I hear it's hard for our college graduates to get teaching positions. Where is the evidence that there's a teacher shortage anywhere in Virginia? And if there is one, why don't we have a Teach for Virginia instead? Teachers who are being laid off could be given incentives to go and teach in hard to staff areas. Top students at Virginia colleges and universities, especially ones seeking a teacher's license, could also be granted incentives to start their careers in these supposedly "hard to staff" places. 

Otherwise, it doesn't seem like anyone's fighting it, so meh.

Aaron and Eva both claimed that in fact there was a shortage and cited this page from a VADOE website. Now, I don't know if that means these will likely filled with subs or worse-qualified candidates than TFA corps members. I do know that "shortages" like this are complex in explanation. Sometimes, it doesn't mean there aren't any qualified candidates to fill the shortages. Sometimes it only means that that's where the needs are greatest, where there are fewer applicants. But someone more knowledgeable than I am would have to address this. If you're reading this and you have some insights, please comment below.

If someone can demonstrate a clear and definite shortage in Virginia, if I am mistaken that there isn't one, then I apologize for misleading my readers and followers and I am glad to have been called on it by Aaron and Eva.

But I still don't think TFA in its current incarnation is a good model.

The shortages would likely be in high-poverty schools and in areas such as special education. I don't think that a TFA corps member, with very little training and no experience is equipped to do a good job in such positions. I also don't think it gets to the root of the problem. Why is there a shortage? Why are those positions hard to fill? Why don't adequately trained and/or experienced teachers want those jobs? Why are the students in schools with these shortages coming to school presenting such challenges?

If TFA changed so that their corps members would commit beyond two years and so they had more training, education, and something akin a year long apprenticeship first and/or if they worked to change the root of the problems in the American education system and those behind high teacher turnover and shortages, I would sing their praises, too.


UPDATE: Aaron also said that the TFA legislation passed unanimously in both houses, with major support across the state. Now, I know, as I said in my blog post cited above, that no one seemed to be fighting it and I know that the bill passed handily, but I'm not sure that it had "major support across the state" from the public and from Virginia education stakeholder groups. But maybe I'm wrong. Any thoughts, readers?

On Governor McDonnell's Education Reform Summit

Dear Governor McDonnell,

I got the news only a few days ago that you were holding a K-12 Education Reform Summit on Monday August 5th. I am disappointed by the "agenda" of the agenda and by the who's missing from the panels.

At the summit, are you mentioning that Virginia's public education system is ranked in the top ten? Are you discussing the fact that the teachers in our state are among the lowest paid in the country relative to our affluence? How about discussing reforms such as lowering class sizes, de-emphasizing high-stakes standardized testing and test-narrowed curricula in favor of more rich and varied curricula? What about classroom practice--is that being discussed? How about discussion of developing and retaining the great teachers we already have? What of the massive cuts to public education in this state? I don't see any of those items on the agenda. But I do see charters, privatization, disempowerment of local school boards, virtual education, and non-professional teachers--a reform agenda of ALEC's and one that most parents have said they reject.

And who is serving on the panels? 

Well, first, let me applaud you on including two Virginia Superintendents and several Virginia college presidents. Also, kudos to you for including a former Virginia public school principal and someone who is both a former teacher and current state legislator (way to kill two birds with one stone!). I'm glad that some Virginia education scholars and leaders from Virginia's Department of Education will be there, too. Hopefully, these folks can bring knowledge and expertise to the discussion.You have also included many people and private interests from out of state, like the Governor of Tennessee, several charter school advocates, representatives from for-fee organizations that place non-professional and un-credentialed people in the classroom to work as teachers and administrators, as well as some consultants from the private education industry sector. 

But you know who is not included on the panels? Most other Virginia K-12 education stakeholders. You have not included any current K-12 teachers or principals. I don't see any school counselors, school nurses, school social workers or school safety officers on the panels. There are no school board members or other local decision makers. Not one representative from a Virginia-based charter school will be there. Most glaringly, there is not one person there representing Virginia's families. Not one. There are no parents or parent representatives there, and there are no students. 

I suppose those excluded stakeholders could go on their own and watch from the audience. But most working people can't afford to drive across the state on a weekday and then pay for lodging and the Summit fee. Why is this Summit not open and free to the public? Why is it not on a weekend? Public education is for the public and paid for by the taxpayers. Where are our representatives and the representatives of our co-stakeholders at your Education Reform Summit, Mr. Governor? 

Sincerely,

Rachel Levy

Ashland, Virgnia

Turtles and Hares in Modern School Reform

I ended my last post with a larger point about the problem of "disruption" in modern education reform:

"This is exactly what happens when you rush into big, 'disruptive' changes without thinking about them or fully understanding what you're doing. You break things that weren't already broken and you make messes."

This is not an original thought to me. For one, it's been said over and over again by many more knowledgeable about education than I am. For example, look at Larry Cuban's recent post about turning around urban schools and Paul Vallas, comparing wiser marathon turnaround superintendents to the more impetuous sprinters:

In many instances, sprinter superintendents follow a recipe: reorganize district administrators, take on teacher unions, and create new schools in their rush for better student achievement. They take dramatic and swift actions that will attract high media attention. But they also believe—here is where ideological myopia enters the picture—that low test scores and achievement gaps between whites and minorities are due in large part to reluctant (or inept) district bureaucrats, recalcitrant principals, and knuckle-dragging union leaders defending contracts that protect lousy teachers from pay-for-performance incentives. 

Such beliefs, however, seriously misread why urban district students fail to reach proficiency levels and graduate high school. As important as it is to reorganize district offices, alter salary schedules, get rid of incompetent teachers and intractable principals, such actions in of themselves will not turn around a broken district. While there is both research and experiential evidence to support each of these beliefs as factors in hindering students’ academic performance, what undercuts sprinter-driven reforms in these arenas is the simple fact that fast-moving CEOs fast-track their solutions to these problems, get spent from their exertions or create too much turmoil, and soon exit leaving the debris of their reforms next to the skid marks in the parking lot. Swift actions certainly garner attention but sprinters quickly lose steam after completing 100 meters.

Exactly. So where else did I come around to this way of thinking? Because, let me tell you, it does not come naturally to me.

1) I learned this from my parents. My father is a very cautious and thorough person who doesn't buy a toothbrush without researching it first in Consumer Reports. My mother has worked for thirty plus years as a civil rights lawyer and school finance expert in DC. She has witnessed change and disruption over and over again in the DC Public Schools--so much so that she's seen some of the same changes tried two times, sometimes by the same crop of people. It's not that some changes aren't needed, but first we must ask: How they might these changes work? Have they been tried before? If yes, to what effect? What do the affected communities think about these changes? People like her try to say:Yes, we tried that in nineteen such and such and it was a disaster. Um, yes, that needs to be changed but what are you going to change it with that hasn't been tried before? The school communities were really upset the last time that happened. The reformy response: History? Who needs it? Democracy is over-rated.

2) From the great school leaders I have worked for. This is why I don't argue when reformers (of any stripe) point out how much school leadership is crucial. The best principals and administrative leaders I worked for went about making changes carefully and deliberately with the input of their faculty and staff. I remember my first year at one high school was also the new principal's first year. The ESL teachers there (including me) were really pushing him to make some changes right away and he said, "No, I'm going to observe and learn about how things work already and then I'll see what needs to be changed." He was right. The next year he did make some changes. I didn't agree with all of them and they weren't immune to political considerations, but the transition was so much smoother than it would have been otherwise.

I remember when DC mayor Adrian Fenty came in and hastily replaced Clifford Janey with Rhee. The local community was jarred by the way Fenty did this (locking him out of his office, freezing his e-mail account, not getting input from the public or the City Council, etc.) but not one person said to me that it wasn't time for him to go. I remember saying, well, even so, shouldn't Fenty observe and see how things are working first before he makes such drastic changes? I was thinking of that school principal I had worked for.

3) I live in a very conservative area of Virginia. Sometimes, it's like a foreign country. There are many  things that don't jibe with me, but sometimes there are advantages. They are ssslllooooowww. Which means in education that they haven't instituted big changes without taking their time, though this is changing as the Tea Party slash and burn mentality is alive and well here right now. They didn't do whatever's trendy just to do it--they skipped the whole ed tech boom and invested in what has been thus far a very successful technical and trade high school instead (not that we don't desperately need updated technology and textbooks now, but that's a different story). They don't throw money at problems (although now they seem to be with-holding money at problems). All of this has prevented the hasty, "disruptive" thoughtlessness that pervades so much modern school reform, though as I said that is changing somewhat with the similarly minded "break everything" Tea Party presence.

Before I end, I do want to acknowledge that there is something invaluable in the urgency of a we-can't-wait-for-change-we-have-to-do-it-now modus operandi. There's certainly urgency to move, but just because you're not sprinting doesn't mean you're standing still. The problem is that in modern education reform, as with the Tea Party, there's not much slowing the sprinters down, especially when they are fueled by gobs of dollar bills.