Jaime Escalante passed away today.   He was a reformer before it was cool to be one.   LAT obit here.

Update: Here’s Jay Mathews, not surprisingly it’s powerful.

Had some time to read through more of the Race to the Top reviewer comments today and the scoring itself.   I think there is a problem.  No, not the various conspiracy theories or the word parsing partisanship but the more mundane problem I discussed below:  You have some anomalies and outliers in the scoring as well as a seeming lack of consistency.   The latter will lead to some focus on inter-rater reliability but reading a few apps (DC for instance) I’m not sure there may not be an intra-rater reliability problem as well.   Of course, Secretary Duncan is in a no-win situation because you’d have a lot of people screaming if he’d overruled the reviewers. Still, to ensure that Round II isn’t a crap shoot some changes to the process seem necessary.

Will be interesting to see how much pushback there is, especially given what appears to be a winners premium for winning in the first round.   You had a lot of people in the states and in various big consulting firms invest a lot in this so the reputational stakes are high — and there is a great deal of grumbling as well as a lot of analysis going on.

Ron Tomalis, a former state and federal official, has a theory on the role grant size played in the selection of just two states relative to natural breaks in the scoring.  He’ll be publishing that soon.  Update: It’s here.

Here is a doozy of a column from the Indy Star about a potential turnaround situation there…

You’re hearing a lot of chatter about how teachers’ unions will now have a greater incentivize to play ball in the next round of Race to the Top to avoid being blamed for a state’s failure to get the money.

Sounds plausible, but unfortunately wrong on two counts.  First, they genuinely don’t like some of these reforms and will fight them.   And if you think they’re somehow shy about doing that publicly you just haven’t been paying attention.

Second, the incentives on elected teachers’ union leaders are not external, they’re internal.  The nation’s wonks and editorial boards don’t elect them, their members do.   And generally it’s the most activist and those with the strongest views who are most active — as in most organizations.   And if you think their leaders can just cross the membership without consequence then you just haven’t been paying attention!

That’s not to say there won’t be some progress in some states on reform before Round II just that it’s going to be complicated and most likely not dramatic overall.

Per the two Race to the Top posts below (here and here) it’s hard not to see a legacy of the Reading First issue being an aversion to anything that could remotely be considered a conflict of interest in the review process.   It seems likely the result is some of the inexplicable Race to the Top scoring.   The issue isn’t who won, DE and TN have good state teams and good apps.*  And the issue isn’t NAEP scores, this wasn’t a contest about NAEP performance.

Rather, when you read the scorecards the issue is who didn’t win, and apparently why in terms of where points were given and deducted.  Betting really big on teacher effectiveness and turnarounds — two avowed priorities — didn’t seem to be a winning strategy.  And the approach to state capacity does seem to have had the outcome some worried about. The points on stakeholder buy-in, while an issue, were not a dispositive factor for many finalists.

As the Obama Administration seeks to shift to more competitive grant programs and more large ones this issue has big implications.

*Disc: I helped winners and losers and finalists and non-finalists, prepare for the competition but don’t have any stake in any particular outcome.

This could end up being a big education story:   DC Council Chair Gray is going to challenge Mayor Fenty in D.C. Education will be prominent and this one seems likely to get nationalized.   In other words, just when D.C. seemed to be making some progress on school improvement it’s going to become a football again.

One last RTT thought for the day: Everyone (in no small part because of the tireless efforts of Rick Hess and Andy Smarick) is now chattering about whether Secretary Duncan is favoring collaboration and consensus too much in the choice of TN and DE as Race to the Top winners.  The teachers’ unions in those states are more supportive of the RTT applications than in some other states — but we’ll see how long that lasts…The other big theory, that this is about vote-greasing on ESEA, is too ridiculous to waste time discussing.

But to the “consensus complaint” it doesn’t look like Duncan put his hand on the scale here.  The reviewers made the call not the Secretary. And that may be the problem based on a look at the score sheets.  So if there is a critique isn’t it that Duncan didn’t get involved enough rather than that he influenced the process too much?  Under the law he had a great deal of discretion and it seems not to have come into play.   If I were FL, LA, RI, or a few others tonight, that’s what I’d be pissed off about.*

Ockham’s Razor? A review process that isn’t bulletproof isn’t the most sexy explanation for the outcome, but it is the most likely.

*Meaning that between some questionable reviewer calls on some key issues and the prioritizing of LEA buy-in over reform by some reviewers, the Secretary’s call for boldness seems not to have permeated parts of the review process.

Good teaching jobs in Cleveland.

Nicholas Kristof looks at education and boys with some attention to Richard Whitmire’s new book.

So the Dep’t of Ed is confirming that DE and TN are the two Round 1 winners for RTT.   Quick reax:   Both states had good applications but also some areas of concern, still both are defensible choices.   When scoring info is released will be interesting to see why LA and FL fell short given the strength of their applications though (and I’m still puzzled on IN).  The others from the finalist round are understandable although RI & DC seemed plausible and should have strong Round II apps.

Update: Two states is undoubtedly a real credit to Secretary Duncan (and to Joanne Weiss).   Will be interesting to see who owns up to that after all the rhetoric.

Three things to keep an eye on.  First, “they’re trying to wash us away…” where is LA’s application in the scoring mix?  That’s perhaps the biggest surprise here?

Second, when everything is released there will likely be a lively debate about the scoring.   Unfortunately, a bunch of irresponsible allegations and efforts to erode confidence in the process may cloud a more pedestrian but important problem - the overall quality of the scoring and whether there was an over-correction for Reading First in reviewer selection.  For instance DE’s approach to highly effective teachers is debatable (a teacher can be deemed effective even if their students don’t make a year of progress in a year).   How did reviewers think about that?  Were states penalized for having less consensus around really edgy applications?**  Etc…etc…*

Finally, both TN and DE have strong state education advocacy organizations.  Easy to mistake correlation for causation since many states that didn’t make it have them, too, but worth looking at the role that these groups played in both states…

Update II: All the scoring materials here. And here’s a cheat sheet (pdf).

And this is potentially a really bad sign…especially for small states that wanted to go big…

*Also, PS, if you think RTT scoring was complicated, wait until I3…

**Reading through the score sheets this appears to be a factor,  but not the only one, influencing why some of the boldest apps didn’t fare well.  It also appears that Secretary Duncan’s call for boldness didn’t translate to the review process.

Just a few hours to go, and Smarick offers some RTT pre-buttal and handicapping.  Well-worth reading but I think he low balls the numbers a little — you could get to five from the current pool of applicants and still consider this a clear victory, if it’s a strong five.

NYT editorial page weighs-in on the Liu nomination.

Petrilli highlights two reports you should check out — Smarick on turnarounds and Colvin (via PIEnet) on state EAOs and RTT.

Here’s what a growing political wave looks like before it crests… (via Whitney Tilson).

Update: Here’s some local press. Not exactly sure why anyone would want to stand in the way of this without some powerful counter-options for reform.

Matt Ladner is fired-up over Florida’s NAEP performance in the new data.

Don’t miss Tim Daly and Arun Ramanathan on layoffs and effectiveness in the LAT.

Interesting response to the federal SIG grants from Maine.

Per this post from a few weeks ago, what the Maine article shows is the promise of common standards as a common yardstick.    Right now everyone can bring whatever measures they want to argue about quality and often in a decontextualized way.  For instance are SAT scores really that useful a barometer of overall quality?  Common standards won’t solve that by fiat but would change conversations like this.

Two opinion pieces in the last few days offer an interesting juxtaposition:  Center for American Progress analysts Ulrich Boser and Robin Chait write over at Politico about firing teachers, and call for more of it.  The Times editorial page embraces the more systemic human capital approach that some charter school management organizations are employing.

Both make some good points but one of the key aspects of why the CMOs don’t have to fire many teachers is that they’ve become pretty good at hiring.  That’s in part a result of the numbers of people who want to teach there — they can be selective — and also because of a lot of attention to this function.  In other words, while the comprehensive approach is key, some things are absolutely necessary and better hiring = less firing.  This is not, by the way, some sort of revealed truth.   Rather, it’s common practice in high-performing organizations.   The problem is how little attention has been paid to these issues in education.

WaPo’s Bill Turque looks at the numbers on kids leaving the city’s charter schools.   Different than the rhetoric…

Update:   Forgot to mention that Lisa Stone ( née Guido) and I wrote a squib for the WaPo on the challenges around this issue a few years ago.

Ever wondered what a teachers contract looks like?  Ed Sector has the answer for you.

Fordham grades the new Common Core standards (pdf). Interestingly, their grades are the opposite of what  you’re hearing from a lot of people — they like the math more than the ELA standards.

A bunch of interesting edujobs open right now around the country:

The New York City Charter School Center needs an advocacy/communications/policy type. The Memphis Public Schools are hiring for three roles connected to their new Teacher Effectiveness Initiative (part of the Gates “deep dive”).  The new Tennessee Center for Charter School Excellence (in Nashville) needs a founding CEO (pdf). The New Jersey Charter School Association needs a CEO (pdf). And the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools is starting the search for its new leader (pdf).

And the District of Columbia Public Schools need master educators to help with their performance management efforts.

Here’s a transcript of this PBS debate about teachers unions everyone is chattering about (pdf). The resolution was, “Don’t blame teachers unions for our failing schools.”  Debaters included Randi Weingarten, Terry Moe, Rod Paige, and others.  Based on the audience survey those debating against the resolution did move the undecideds.

Update: Don’t want to read the whole thing?  Newsweek has an abridged transcript.

Great article from The Times about the effort to close an under-performing public charter school in New York.  Like some other closure situations in New York the school is outperforming the surrounding traditional public schools but not achieving the goals of its contract.  And as is generally the case with school closures the stakeholders at the school are opposed and the situation is complicated.  But what’s fascinating is how this situation showcases a big delineation on school reform today: The state charter school association supports the closure while Pedro Noguera, a leader of the “bigger bolder” approach to education was the only member of the SUNY authorizing board to vote to keep the school open. 

In other words, this is a road test of Matt Candler’s “sucks less” doctrine.   Is it OK to just suck less?  Thankfully, more and more people say no and hopefully that will extend to public education more generally as time goes on.

The Debbie Almontaser/Khalil Gibran School saga in New York took another turn this week.  The EEOC ruled that she was discriminated against.  Gotham Schools has all the primary docs and a write-up.    The school is also getting a new principal this week.

I already noted that Checker Finn’s take on Diane Ravitch’s new book would be the most important thing written about it. So everyone else is playing for second place.  Here is my view on what’s good and what’s not from TNR’s roundtable discussion with Diane and others.

Time takes a look at whether ESEA renewal could become the bipartisan issue this year.   Count me among the skeptical.  Especially after this week.

But it contains the seeds of an issue that hasn’t received much attention.  How much of the teachers’ unions anger over this proposal is about the proposal itself and how much actually stems from simmering tensions on Central Falls, health care, and card check and is really about a larger set of politics?

Also in Time,  here’s Bloomberg and Klein on the proposal.

Nice tribute to Paul Hill from Dom Brewer and Robin Lake.

For how many long years has NYT’s Sam Dillon yearned to write this graf?  I have a hunch he kept it in a pretty case above his desk on a little doily:

The administration’s proposal, if enacted into law, would encourage states to raise academic standards after a period of dumbing-down, end the identification of tens of thousands of reasonably managed schools as failing, refocus energies on turning around the few thousand schools that are in the worst shape and help states develop more effective ways of evaluating the work of teachers and principals. And those are just some of its goals.

A little over the top, yes, but he’s been patient.  Still, it does raise two important issues.

First, is our goal “reasonably managed schools” or, you know, ones where students are learning?  For a long time The Times thought the former, generally viewing schools through a more general social policy or welfare state prism rather than as a distinct policy issue where outcomes matter.  Let’s hope that’s not coming back.  And, the sentiment raises the question of how much accountability remains for underserved kids in the vast swath of schools in the middle is an enormous outstanding question in this reauthorization.

Second, even the Fordham Foundation after a exhaustive search couldn’t find evidence of a dumbing down race to the bottom.  The best they could come up with was a “walk to the middle.” I’m all for college and career ready standards but it’s essential that we not lose sight of (a) how much variation there was in standards prior to No Child Left Behind and (b) to the extent there is dumbing down it’s generally the result of state-level political pressure that favors looking good over doing well.   There is no inherent pressure to do that.   The effectiveness of the new ESEA law will hinge on how the policy accounts for those issues.

Dillon’s next day story on how much the unions hate it is important reading. A lot riding on that.

Longtime readers will recall the controversy over whether the United Federation of Teachers in New York should be allowed to have a few of New York’s coveted charters to run schools.  I thought they should and still think that having teachers’ unions run charter schools is a good idea.   Skeptics pointed to the poor record of union run charters and the NEA’s disastrous foray into charter schooling.

Well, the UFT charter came up for renewal and there is something for everyone.   As close observers know the school had some struggles and still does and as a result the authorizer gave it what amounts to a conditional renewal (pdf). In other words a mixed verdict because of performance and operations issues.  Jim Merriman, who also supported the schools at the time, and in fact originally authorized it, has more in a must-read blog post.

Like the Stanford charter school this shows that running great schools in challenging environments is brutally hard work.  In both that case and with the UFT school observers assumed, wrongly it turns out, that the schools would be outstanding given all the resources at their disposal.  But what’s really discouraging is how little desire there is to learn from schools that are succeeding in these places.   In both cases there are schools that are hitting the leather off the ball nearby.  And in both cases those schools a more commonly attacked than learned from.  The UFT frequently leads the attacks these days.

And before the usual suspects scream that “skimming” is the cause for performance variations, it turns out the UFT charter enrolls fewer free-lunch students, English-language learners, and special education students than surrounding schools.   I don’t think that’s because the UFT school is skimming, either, but I assume union will now stop irresponsibly making that claim against other charter schools.